As a result of the collaboration among the Volvo Cars, the Swedish Transport Administration and the Norwegian Public Roads, the Scandinavian cloud-based road-condition sharing project has become a reality. This project will enable cars to share vital information about the exact road conditions, which are related to the friction on roads.
A cloud-based network will be established to materialise this revolutionary concept for improving traffic safety. The test fleet has now been increased from 50 to 1000. As a result, the project is rapidly taking forward strides to make it a grand success. It is expected that the project will be available to its customers in a matter of few years.
Erik Israelsson, Project Leader Cooperative ITS (Intelligent Transport System) with Volvo Cars, said, “The more information that can be shared on the road, the fewer surprises there are. And when you’re driving, surprises are what you most want to avoid. In light of that, we’ve developed a slippery-road alert, which notifies drivers about icy patches and contributes to making winter road maintenance more efficient. We’re also adding a hazard-light alert, which will tell drivers if another vehicle in the area has its hazard lights on. With these first two features, we have a great platform for developing additional safety features. This is just the beginning.”
The research project has now reached such a stage that it will reach completion in a matter of few years. This implies that the real-world implementation might just a few more years’ wait. Volvo has plans to increase the fleet size by 20 times and take the test areas to two cities – Gothenburg and Oslo. This will naturally show how the project works in a necessarily winter-specific environment.
The slippery-road alert functions in a different manner altogether, where a message about icy patches is sent out to road administrators. This will help the administrators in return to take the maintenance of the roads in winter conditions to a next level. The Norwegian Public Roads Administration will also conduct an independent assessment of the new system to check its reach in the mentioned field.
Erik added, “In the future we will have increased the exchange of vital information between vehicles, as well as between vehicles and infrastructure. There is considerable potential in this area, including safer traffic, a more comfortable drive and improved traffic flow. This will bring us closer to our safety vision that by 2020 no one should be killed or seriously injured in a new Volvo car. And it’s another way in which the ‘Designed around you’ philosophy improves the driving experience.”
