In information communication system and method applicable to an in-vehicle networking architecture, at least one first electronic equipment which is enabled to serve another electronic equipment with its function and at least one second electronic equipment which is enabled to make use of a function which another electronic equipment serves are connected to a common communication bus (network). An equipment managing apparatus connected to the common communication bus stores a function serving information representing the function that the first electronic equipment can serve and a making-use-of function information representing the function of which the second electronic equipment can make use. If both contents of the function serving information and the making-use-of function information are coincident with each other, the second electronic equipment makes use of the function of the first electronic equipment.