ISO 14813-1:2015 provides a description of the primary services that an ITS implementation can provide to ITS users. Those services with a common purpose can be collected together in "'ITS service domains'" and within these there can be a number of "'ITS service groups'" for particular parts of the domain. This part of ISO 14813 identifies thirteen service domains, within which numerous groups are then defined.

In this version of ISO 14813-1:2015 an indication has been provided to show the relationship of each service to Cooperative-ITS. Cooperative-ITS provides services that have previously been unavailable, notably those for ITS users who are on the move. For many other services, Cooperative-ITS can actually be seen as a "delivery mechanism" that can be used to enhance their use and availability. Thus for some services, Cooperative-ITS is essential, whilst for others it adds value. However for a small number of services it is not relevant.

ISO 14813-1:2015 is intended for use by at least two groups of people involved in the ITS sector. The first group is those looking for ideas about the services that ITS implementations can provide and the second is for those who are developing standards.

For the first group, this part of ISO 14813 provides service descriptions that can act as the catalyst for more detailed descriptions. It is possible for the level of detail to differ from one ITS implementation to another, depending on whether or not a national ITS architecture is involved, and whether this architecture is based directly on services, or on groups of functions.

For standards developers, this part of ISO 14813 is applicable to the working groups of ISO TC 204 and other Technical Committees who are developing standards for the ITS sector and associated sectors whose boundaries cross into the ITS sector (such as some aspects of public transport (transit), plus inter-modal freight and fleet management). This part of ISO 14813 is designed to provide information and explanation of services that can form the basis and reason for developing standards.

ISO 14813-1:2015 is in itself, by its nature, advisory and informative. It is designed to assist the integration of services into a cohesive reference architecture, plus interoperability and the use of common data definitions. Specifically, services defined within the service groups shall be the basis for definition of 'use cases', 'user needs' or "user service requirements' depending on the methodology being used to develop the resultant ITS architecture functionality, along with definition of applicable data within data dictionaries, as well as applicable communications and data exchange standards.