Through the General Directorate of Traffic, Spain has strengthened its commitment to the connected vehicle, with its participation in the ecosystem of the multi-party agreement Data for Road Safety in which car manufacturers, information service providers authorities and road traffic authorities of the EU Member States are committed to exchanging long-term safety data to make roads safer.
This agreement, backed by the European Commission and in which the vehicle manufacturers participate: Audi AG, BMW AG; Ford Smart Mobility Ltd; Mercedes Benz AG; Volvo Cars and Scania and the traffic authorities of the United Kingdom, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Holland and Finland, in addition to Spain, represents a step forward in the mobility of the future, in which connectivity between vehicles and traffic managers it will be essential to warn drivers about incidents that may be encountered while traveling.
The Director General of Traffic, Pere Navarro, said “the connected vehicle is the future of road safety; you will receive a warning of what you are going to find on the road before you can see it. We have to take advantage of the opportunities that technology offers us.” According to Jorge Ordás, Deputy Director of Mobility and Technology of the DGT “Spain´s participation in the Data for Road Safety group means that connected mobility is a reality on our roads and streets, being able to improve everyone’s safety road users”.
Anonymous data exchange
For the exchange of information, the members of the Data for Road Safety have created an ecosystem of traffic information related to Safety (SRTI) based on a reciprocity model in which the anonymized data that is exchanged will represent a safety service for drivers, by helping them to make decisions while driving and thus save lives.
A first demonstration of the functioning of this ecosystem was carried out between June 2019 and October 2020 with a test in which tens of millions of messages were provided and in which the vehicles demonstrated that they are capable of producing data for five of the eight categories of the proof of concept established in the EU Regulation 886/2013: unprotected accident zone, damaged vehicle, temporary slippery road, reduced visibility and exceptional weather conditions.
DGT 3.0
In line with reaching the goal of 0 deaths, 0 injured, 0 congestion and 0 emissions, the DGT has enabled what they call DGT 3.0, the smart mobility platform, a unique, free and truthful provider of information in real time about what is happening on the roads, information of great value for the entire mobility ecosystem in the national territory, thus providing safer and smarter mobility.
According to Ordás “in the last two years we have developed a loT platform that allows interconnection between all the actors that are part of the traffic and mobility ecosystem, such as: vehicle manufacturers, public transport platforms, city councils, insurance companies, device manufacturers connectivity, roadside assistance vehicles, providers of applications related to safe and intelligent mobility and the different road users”.
Currently, six use cases are being worked on to transmit information:
Generic incident alert provided by a third party (stopped vehicle, crane on the road, accident, narrowing, closed road, sporting event, adverse weather conditions …)
Planned works, work in progress in real time: lanes affected …
Forecast of information provided by the vehicle sensors (fog lights, windscreen wiper activation, warnings, ESP …). V2V (V2C).
Virtual variable messages such as detours, alternative routes, reversible lanes, retentions …
Virtual variable messages: identification of areas and roads with access restrictions to cities, detours, alternative routes, reversible lanes, traffic jams …
Real-time traffic light information on the phases of urban traffic lights for the entire national territory and the topology of the crossings that will help make driving more relaxed and efficient, with greater protection for vulnerable users.
The V-16 signals, which will replace the warning triangles on the road, will be connected to the platform and will allow the rest of the vehicles to be informed of the exact point where this signal is active.
Currently this intelligent mobility platform is fully deployed with several use cases in production and new ones in development.
