Photo: Daimler
For a while now one of European Union’s directives call for a minimum of road safety related traffic information to be transmitted to all road users, free of charge, whenever possible. That can most accurately be done using the emerging car-to-everything communication protocols.
Unfortunately, with each carmaker working on their own version of such a system there are slim chances a unified system to work for cars regardless of make will be developed anytime soon.
At least that was the case until this week, when a major announcement was made by four of the most important carmakers selling on the European market.
Daimler, BMW, Ford and Volvo announced they are joining forces with HERE and TomTom to create a system that could relay information about traffic hazards across car brands.
Currently, a Volvo car can only talk to a Volvo car, for instance, but the new project aims to eliminate the brand barrier. In a scenario made public by Daimler, the new system would allow a Mercedes car to talk to a BMW in case of an emergency, who would pass the information along to a traffic management center, who in turn would alert anyone in the area.
The biggest hurdle standing in the way of such a future is data compatibility. The four carmakers plan to find a way around that in the coming months, then move on to develop data security protocols.
To do this, Daimler says it will tap in the anonymized data pool coming from Mercedes cars included in a special test fleet, and it will not access data coming from privately owned cars.
There are also transportation departments from six countries involved from the get-go in the project, namely from Germany, Spain, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden.
No target date was set for the presentation of a functional system.
At least that was the case until this week, when a major announcement was made by four of the most important carmakers selling on the European market.
Daimler, BMW, Ford and Volvo announced they are joining forces with HERE and TomTom to create a system that could relay information about traffic hazards across car brands.
Currently, a Volvo car can only talk to a Volvo car, for instance, but the new project aims to eliminate the brand barrier. In a scenario made public by Daimler, the new system would allow a Mercedes car to talk to a BMW in case of an emergency, who would pass the information along to a traffic management center, who in turn would alert anyone in the area.
The biggest hurdle standing in the way of such a future is data compatibility. The four carmakers plan to find a way around that in the coming months, then move on to develop data security protocols.
To do this, Daimler says it will tap in the anonymized data pool coming from Mercedes cars included in a special test fleet, and it will not access data coming from privately owned cars.
There are also transportation departments from six countries involved from the get-go in the project, namely from Germany, Spain, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden.
No target date was set for the presentation of a functional system.
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