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VDV463 Setup and Connection Guide

This guide walks reccomendatins to establish a secure WebSocket connection between an upstream presystem (BMS/ITCS) and the Charging Management System (CMS) according to the VDV463 specification.

Overview

The VDV463 interface uses secure WebSocket (WSS) communication where:

  • CMS acts as the WebSocket server
  • Upstream systems (BMS/ITCS) act as WebSocket clients
  • All communication is TLS-encrypted and authenticated

Key elements for integration

  1. WebSocket Client: Requires the upstream to implement a WebSocket client supporting RFC 6455
  2. TLS Support: Ensure TLS 1.2+ with cipher TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256
  3. Authentication: Be able to store HTTP Basic Authentication credentials securely

Connection Parameters

Configure your upstream system with:

Parameter Value Example
Endpoint URL wss://<cms-host>:<port>/<path> wss://<region-name>.betterfleet.com:443/vdv463
Presystem ID URI identifying your system uri://Customer1/Presystem1
Username Provided by CMS operator <your unique username>
Password Provided by CMS operator <secure-password>
Subprotocol v1.463.vdv.de Required

NOTE: The specific endpoint URL, username, and password must be obtained from the CMS operator and depends on your deployment.

Health Check

To manage health of the connection, best practices include:

  1. Monitor WebSocket state: Managing that the websocket connection remains OPEN, and handle CLOSING or CLOSED states appropriately
  2. Ping/Pong Frames: Optionally implement WebSocket ping/pong frames to detect stale connections
  3. Safely handle reconnection: Implement exponential backoff on connection failures. We reccomend a 15 second delay, doubling on each failure up to a maximum of 5 minutes.

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