British writer Williams Manners account Revolution: How the Bicycle Reinvented Modern Britain (Revolution: How the bike reinvented the modern UK) how the bike influenced has, since the eighteenth century, improvements constants roads and cities, and also in the way of living the free time of men and women. The bicycle has managed to create debate on mobility and urban planning, on leisure and outdoor activities and also on road safety. The bike continues to be what the writer HG Wells said: “Whenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I regain hope for humanity.” And yet cyclists are one of the most vulnerable groups on the road. Every year in Spain an average of 70 cyclists die on Spanish roads and more than 7,000 are injured.
And although the bicycle occupies much of the debate on citizen mobility, it is still a secondary road vehicle. Those that it shares with cars, those with a sometimes non-existent strategy on the safety of cyclists. Following the idea that the bike is always an innovative element, technology is once again allied to save the lives of cyclists. To prevent everyone from having an accident in their biography or that of someone close to them that leaves them in the gutter.
The cyclist Pedro Delgado is the protagonist of the informative video about this road warning system and in which he explains the insecurity experienced by cyclists and how technology allows to solve or limit this problem that takes many lives and many resources every year.
Most accidents occur with the involvement of a vehicle and on secondary roads, where cyclists are one of the most vulnerable groups. Fortunately, technology has a lot to say when it comes to road safety. We have verified this in a pilot of the IoT Road Risk Warning System, which has given us great clues as to where the mobility of the future is going to go and which we have carried out in Robledillo de la Jara (Madrid), together with the former professional cyclist Thin Parakeet .
It is a solution created jointly by the DGT, Telefónica, SEAT, Aeorum and Ficosa to provide drivers with assisted driving that increases their safety, by receiving early warnings about obstacles on the road. This solution, based on IoT (the Internet of Things), is specially designed for cases of interaction between a car and a cyclist, on the road or on the shoulder.
Internet of things for accident prevention
Luis Simón Gómez, Head of Business and IoT Innovation at Telefónica , explains that “it is an Internet of Things solution that consists of four components: the first is a drone with a camera that allows information and images to be collected from the road; the second, the drone connected to a mobile network that sends the information in real time . That information reaches a server, the third component, a MEC , where it is processed and risks can be identified. The fourth component is the alert that it sends the MEC to connected cars that circulate in the direction of cyclists “.
Real time alert
Immediacy, the time that elapses between detecting the risk and alerting the vehicle , is essential. Leticia López, an expert in Vehicular Communications at Telefónica, points out that what makes this solution possible are “advances in mobile connectivity, both in capacity, especially in the uplink, and in terms of latencies.” Leticia reveals that the key to the immediate response in this type of critical communications lies in the MEC ( Multi-Acess Edge Computing ), which is known as edge computing. What does this mean? Bring the servers, services, content and applications closer to the user. The data journey is thus much easier than if the server is in the cloud. Latencies are reduced. And we add intelligence to the edge of the network, so MEC is not just an intermediary, it also provides throughput.
“Edge computing” vs. “cloud computing”
The concept of edge computing breaks with the current architecture of mobile networks, the cloud computing that we all know. It is closeness against distance. Communication in real time is not possible if the drone has to send images to a server located, for example, in Iceland and the result has to travel back via Robledillo de la Jara. Instead of a single server, in edge computing the servers multiply looking for that proximity. “We are going to have geographically distributed servers. MEC is one of the great pillars of future 5G networks. The good news is that we can begin to deploy it in current networks, 4G”, explains Leticia.
How does the MEC distinguish between a cyclist, a stationary car or any other obstacle? The answer, again, is technology. The MEC’s processing capacity is based on an artificial vision system capable of identifying the type of risk; Machine learning , the ability of artificial intelligence to learn, makes it possible to train the system to evolve and become more and more precise.
This system, as well as the drone, are provided by the Malaga company Aeorum. Luis tells us about the possibilities of this solution: “Right now the obstacles that we identify are a cyclist circulating or a damaged car, but the system can be trained to identify animals, pedestrians or landslides on the road. A great advantage of this solution is which is very versatile. The drone can fly over an area or we can have a fixed camera, over traffic lights or infrastructures in urban environments, for example, to identify specific risk situations in the city. “
Once you have seen how the images of the road are transmitted and interpreted, the other big question is how that information gets to the vehicle. C-V2X ( Cellular Vehicle to Everything ) connectivity is the answer: “A technology that relies on our mobile networks and allows the car to communicate with its surroundings. What we call the answering car”, explains Leticia López.
Cars with a sixth sense
The last link in this technological solution is the connected car, which receives the alerts sent by the MEC. César Marcos, SEAT’s 5G project manager , uses a very illustrative simile: “From a safety point of view, it is about giving the driver a sixth sense. We predictively inform him of what is happening in his environment to help him make decisions: brake, accelerate, stop the vehicle … in the event of possible danger “.
Imagine a curvy road in a rural setting. I don’t see what’s behind the curve, but the system will warn me if there is an obstacle. The car is connected to the MEC through an electronic unit built into the vehicle called TCU, short for Telematic Control Unit , a device supplied by Ficosa. César again uses a simile to explain it: “We can compare it with a mobile phone, which has electronics connected to the telephone network. In the car we do exactly the same. Inside the vehicle we have an electronic unit that also, by means of antennas, connects to MEC “.
Thus, the car can communicate with the environment. And not only that. As Leticia explains, “in addition to communicating, they have to understand each other, speak the same language. That language is the one defined by C-V2X”.
The information comes to the driver through the instrument panel, in the form of a visual and acoustic warning with a message: “Attention, a cyclist” or “Attention, an obstacle” (when a car is parked on the road).
“This type of proof of concept that we do with the connected car, we frame it within the vision that we have at SEAT of ‘mission, zero accidents’ and we see it as the first steps towards the autonomous vehicle. First, we need to have the information on the vehicle. ecosystem connecting; from there the machine will be able to make decisions “, adds César.
DGT bet to avoid accidents
Rubén López, head of the DGT Air Resources Unit, emphasizes the DGT’s involvement in this pilot and the need to protect the most vulnerable groups on the roads: “The DGT hopes to have a drone capable of integrate these groups, such as cyclists and pedestrians, into this connectivity cloud that alerts drivers and other road users of their presence “.
The potential of this drone for the DGT is enormous, Rubén confirms: “We have a network of conventional roads of more than 165,000 kilometers. Where we do not reach with helicopters, we want to reach with drones: to the risk sections, of concentration of accidents, black spots, protected areas for cyclists … there we will allocate a drone. On a conventional road with a single carriageway, where more than 70 percent of the accidents in which a cyclist is involved are concentrated, drones are the perfect tool to protect them. “
This IoT road risk warning solution is currently in the testing phase but will soon be a reality. They are steps towards a connected and sustainable mobility that will save many lives on the road, especially that of cyclists, one of the most vulnerable user groups. The objective is to be able to eradicate fatal and serious accidents and, to achieve this, technology is one of the great allies.
