RedditHERE is working with the Finnish Transport Agency, the Transport Safety Agency and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd on a hazard-warning field operational test for NordicWay, a project designed to enable drivers and infrastructure to cooperatively communicate safety hazards in near real time via cellular networks and the HERE location cloud.
Initial trials have now been conducted in Helsinki to show the feasibility of drivers reporting problems on the road, using a mobile phone app on regular 4G/LTE networks. Those reports are sent to HERE, analysed and enriched, and then distributed to other drivers who could be affected by the incident. All within seconds.
This is the first C-ITS (Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems) deployment based on regular phone networks, without any additional roadside infrastructure involved.
This video explains the NordicWay project in more detail.
The first tests looked into how incidents such as slippery roads (black ice), unexpected obstacles on the road, road works and traffic accidents might be reported and distributed.
Typically, the ‘turnaround’ duration in these tests – the time between a driver reporting an incident and that incident being received by other drivers – was less than two seconds.
Kimmo Kauvo, senior scientist at VTT, reports success: “The goals were met in this proof of concept test, because all messages were sent and received at the correct time and to the correct place.”
But, of course, while the initial results are positive, these are just the first steps in this large project.
Kimmo continues:
“This was a small but vital part of the whole project chain. This technical assessment verified that technically the whole data chain works with a limited set of mobile devices in a real environment using an operational cellular network.
“The HERE team is gradually scaling up the tests from the beginning of the next year towards proper large-scale user tests with up to 2,000 users in Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark,” he added.
While the NordicWay pilot continues, HERE is already in talks to bring similar solutions to other countries. Because it uses existing equipment and resources, C-ITS is inexpensive compared to other such solutions – and can be quickly implemented and scaled.