Wearable technology connects cyclists with cars to save lives
Cyclists and other vehicles have a tense co-existence on the roads often leading to fatalities and life changing injuries amongst cyclists who compared to cars and trucks are unprotected from even low-speed collisions. Even in developed countries, as more and more people take to cycling due to the high costs of owning a vehicle or miles of congestion, the numbers make for grim reading, and are rising.
Accident data from Europe reveals that about 50 per cent of all cyclists killed in traffic have collided with a car. In the USA, nearly 50,000 cyclist fatalities and injuries occur every year (source: NHTSA, Nov 2013).
To address this issue directly, Volvo have come up with a system that enables the car and cyclists helmet to communicate with the aim of avoiding an accident.
Infographic depicting cyclist accident statistics. Click image to enlarge.
The technology from Volvo and partners basically comprises a connected car and helmet prototype that will establish 2-way communication offering proximity alerts to Volvo car drivers and cyclists and thereby avoid accidents. Volvo is the first car manufacturer to put a stake in the ground to help address the problem by using Connected Safety technology.
Using a popular smartphone app for bicyclists, like Strava, the cyclist’s position can be shared through the Volvo Cars cloud to the car, and vice versa. If an imminent collision is calculated, both road users will be warned – and enabled to take the necessary action to avoid a potential accident. The Volvo driver will be alerted to a cyclist nearby through a head-up display alert – even if he happens to be in a blind spot, e.g. behind a bend or another vehicle or hardly visible during night time. The cyclist will be warned via a helmet-mounted alert light.
The innovative concept is a result of an all-Swedish partnership between Volvo Cars, POC, the leading manufacturer of protective gear for gravity sports athletes and cyclists and Ericsson, the world leader in communications technology and services. The innovative, cloud-based safety concept has exciting development opportunities and will ultimately help save lives across the whole spectrum of "unprotected" road users.
Klas Bendrik, VP and Group CIO at Volvo Cars commented: "The partnership between Volvo Cars, POC and Ericsson is an important milestone in investigating the next steps towards Volvo Car’s vision to build cars that will not crash. Today our City Safety system, a standard in the all-new XC90, can detect, warn and auto-brake to avoid collisions with cyclists. By exploring cloud-based safety systems, we are now getting ever closer to eliminating the remaining blind spots between cars and cyclists and by that avoid collisions."
Stefan Ytterborn, CEO and Founder of POC added: "The partnership with Volvo Cars aligns very well with our mission to do the best we can to possibly save lives and to reduce the consequences of accidents for gravity sports athletes and cyclists."
Per Borgklint, SVP and Head of Business Unit Support Solutions at Ericsson said: "Our work with Volvo Cars to explore the connected society, protecting the millions of cyclists on the road is just the latest example of innovation that can change the world."
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