Each year, there are plenty of funding opportunities to improve road safety. Bookmark this page for a quick reference to use cases, ideas and news that will help with your city planning and infrastructure needs.
As one of the leading experts in the field and a supplier to many large-scale installation projects, Commsignia would like to give you some advice that may help you submit a successful grant application.
Read on and get funding to make your city safer!
Cover multiple use cases with a single C-V2X deployment
One of the unique advantages of V2X systems over many other technologies is that the same equipment can be used in many use cases. You can choose the right set of applications and equipment for each corridor and intersection, depending on the problems you want to solve at that location. With good central management, it all comes together in a single, transparent and easy-to-use system. Of course, each site retains the possibility of future expansion, which in many cases can be achieved with a software upgrade.
Choose a vendor with security expertise
Security is a key element when building critical infrastructure which will be the backbone of safety and productivity improvements. Ensuring security on all levels, from individual road users to backend systems is crucial to a successful operation.
Use your existing equipment in parallel with C-V2X
Do you think some of your traffic problems are out of your responsibility, as they can only be solved with Vehicle-to-Vehicle communication? Think again! You only need to integrate C-V2X with your existing equipment to simultaneously detect and warn connected and non-connected road users. Cameras, sensors and loop detectors are just as useful as C-V2X messages coming from connected vehicles, so you can detect non-connected road users as well. Traditional actuators like blankout signs and LEDs can also work simultaneously with C-V2X roadside units to broadcast real-time safety alerts.
Make C-V2X part of your everyday operations
Forward thinking is essential for success. Once the system is maintained and all departments are aware of the role and potential of C-V2X, it is easy to build new solutions on top of it.
For more details, see the architecture of a complete C-ITS solution and the many use cases you can cover with C-V2X technology – now and in the future.
Reduce Transit Delay and Shorten Emergency Response Time
A speeding van collided head-on with an ambulance, seriously injuring the driver. An SUV was chased by police and slammed an emergency unit into the pavement. These are just two recent examples of collisions involving blue light vehicles. Getting to patients is a dangerous business, but for ambulances high speed saves lives. Or are you more interested in why so many people don’t get on buses? Maybe you’d like to reduce congestion and provide reliable travel times for public transit. Read on to learn more.
Your Goals and Challenges
To deal with incidents quickly and effectively, first responders need to arrive on the scene quickly. Safe on-scene activities can be supported by adequate alerting of other road users in the area.
The goals are similar for public transport and other urban public services. Priority at signalized intersections enables more efficient and reliable operations for buses, garbage trucks or snow plows.
References
– City and County of Denver
– Colorado DOT
Benefits of C-V2X
C-V2X Roadside units enable on-demand priority services at signalized intersections for bus fleets, service and maintenance trucks, ambulances and fire trucks retrofitted with C-V2X on-board units (OBU). C-V2X doesn’t require a clear line of sight between the vehicle and the roadside unit, and the communication is not affected by weather.
– Efficiency: schedule adherence improvement
– Safety: faster snow removal
– Safety: no conflicting traffic or delay for emergency vehicles
Added benefits
Traffic managers can measure EVP/TSP performance and monitor C-V2X communication with Commsignia Central Device and Data Manager Platform.
Fleet vehicles can receive V2X-based warnings from the infrastructure. For example alerts about Vulnerable Road Users detected by existing roadside cameras and sensors, or alerts about Red Light Violations (transit vehicles).
Connected fleets receive information from other C-V2X vehicles. This could be an emergency vehicle approaching. Standard Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) crash prevention apps also work, such as Forward Collision Warning and Intersection Movement Assist.
C-V2X-enabled fleet vehicles provide valuable data. The operator can track travel times, follow the driver’s behavior. C-V2X provides much more granular data for Advanced Traffic Management Systems and Advanced Traveler Information Systems than legacy sensors and detectors.
Facts & Figures
Active TSP can reduce transit delay significantly. In some cases, bus travel times have been reduced around 10%, and delay was reduced up to 50% at target intersections.
(NACTO)
Crash prevention at intersections
Traffic situations can be tricky when drivers should be looking ahead to avoid an unexpected hazard. C-V2X can be used to alert drivers while they keep their eyes on the road.
Your goals and challenges
A high proportion of accidents occur at intersections, even where traffic lights help to ensure safe driving. It is worth using all the tools that improve drivers’ situational awareness to avoid collisions, covering both C-V2X-enabled and non-connected vehicles. Left turns are one of the most common vehicle maneuvers that cause crashes.
Benefits of C-V2X
Existing detection system (cameras, sensors, loop detectors) can be integrated with C-V2X roadside units to allow direct communication with connected vehicles. You can also use previously deployed RSUs for road safety services.
– Instantly create value for connected and non-connected traffic participants alike
– Extend Vehicle-to-Vehicle C-V2X safety applications to non-connected vehicles with infrastructure assisted detection and alerts
Added benefits
In the event of a crash detected via C-V2X messages or smart cameras, the RSU can communicate with the Traffic Light Controller to switch all lights to flashing state to warn all road users of the danger and prevent further collisions.
– The RSU sends the information to the Traffic Control Center to issue rerouting information.
– Enhance the throughput of intersections by applying optimized traffic signal timing and dynamic speed limits based on C-V2X data and sensor detections
– Monitor events and C-V2X messages through Commsignia Central Device and Data Manager Platform
Facts and figures
Nearly 350 thousand crashes a year while left turns.
More than 600 thousand crashes at intersections per year.
The economic cost of a single crash on average: $45,000.
(NHTSA)
Pedestrian Safety Applications
Few moments in life are as stressful as the first time you let your child go to school alone. Perhaps it helps to know that both the school bus and the school area are equipped with extra road safety features.
Your Goals and Challenges
Active urban mobility is an important tool for cities that aim to improve equity and sustainability in mobility. As the number of walkable streets grows, so does the average size of personal vehicles, which means more serious hit-and-runs. A walking-friendly environment needs extra safety measures more than ever. Within this, school zones should be given special attention, as they are the most accident-prone areas.
Benefits of C-V2X
Existing and newly deployed cameras and smart sensors provide a better understanding of pedestrian movement on the street, and this detection data can be processed on V2X roadside units (RSU). RSUs enable enhanced safety services by sending real-time warnings simultaneously to connected and non-connected road users. Connected vehicles receive C-V2X messages on their dashboard, so they can make better decisions, the RSU can provide the same real-time warnings to drivers of non-connected vehicles: they are alerted by traditional actuators like flashing LED lights and variable messages signs.
Detection of potentially hazardous situations involving Vulnerable Road Users in a secure way keeping the privacy of road users.
– Collecting new and missing information on VRUs
– Enhanced safety at intersections
– Detection-based real-time warnings in School Zones when it’s most needed
– C-V2X communication between school buses and connected vehicles provides an extra layer of protection when the stop arm is active to improve the safety of schoolchildren
– Broadcasting the detected information to nearby V2X-enabled vehicles
– Actuate additional yellow signals and VMSs to notify non-connected vehicles
Added benefits
The RSU can forward the collected information about the environment and events to traffic managers through Commsignia Central Device and Data Manager Platform.
– Analytics and processing in the Traffic Management Center to identify hotspots and near-miss situations
Facts & Figures
On average 111 school transportation related fatal road incidents happen per year (2012-2021)
There were 1.6-times more fatalities among pedestrians than occupants of school buses
Pedestrian fatalities account for 17% of all road fatalities
(NHTSA)
Rider Safety Applications
There have been horrific stories in the press about children cyclists who get lost in the blind spots of huge cars or trucks, losing their lives while trying to cross at a free signal. The C-V2X infrastructure can do much to prevent such incidents by improving drivers’ perception of their surroundings, making vulnerable road users in blind spots visible.
Your Goals and Challenges
Cities that promote micromobility and cycling should also improve road safety for this group of vulnerable road users. The growing popularity of electric bicycles and scooters and other micromobility services is enabling the market introduction of active safety solutions to improve the visibility of these vehicles and other advanced services.
Benefits of C-V2X
Existing and newly deployed cameras and smart sensors detect non-connected riders and send detection data securely to the V2X roadside unit (RSU). Electric bikes and scooters can also use active integrated V2X on-board devices to send location data to RSUs and nearby V2X-enabled vehicles. The RSU can send detection-based warnings simultaneously to connected and non-connected road users.
– The most common incidents can be avoided with standard V2X messages via Intersection Collision Warning, Turn Warnings, Blind Spot Warnings, Backward and Forward Collision Warnings, Door Opening alerts and Lane Change Warning.
Added benefits
Services to make riding more comfortable to optimize micromobility and cyclist traffic flow and promote active mobility.
– Adaptive traffic light service for city bike fleets
Central processing of C-V2X data collected from bicycles and scooters in Commsignia Central Device and Data Manager Platform
– Traffic planning (near-miss analysis)
– Traffic performance measurement
Facts & Figures
In 2021 there were 966 cyclists killed on the road and 41 615 injured. It’s a yearly increase of 7 percent. Most of the crashes (85%) happened in urban areas. (NHTSA)
Most accidents happen in four-way intersections and when the driver doesn’t expect cyclists from the right hand side while taking a right turn.
(Maier 2020)
Deployment management with Commsignia Central
Your Goals and Challenges
To operation of digital equipment in the field, it is useful to have a remote management interface that provides feedback on the status of each site. In the case of the C-V2X, it is also necessary to ensure that the appropriate vehicle communication messages and operational logics are installed on each roadside unit.
Benefits of using C-V2X device and data management
– Monitor the health and performance status of your devices from a central location. Incident reports and email alerts help maintain a high level of service.
– Configure, set up and update roadside units remotely to cut back on field maintenance costs.
– Create and deploy V2X messages for traffic events. Get real-time feedback on what V2X messages are coming and going through your RSUs on the map.
Added benefits
– The V2X Studio addon enables Commsignia Central users to draw V2X messages in a very streamlined way and deploy the messages with one click to relevant connected devices for redistribution.
– Work Zone Data Exchange addon provides a connection to the USDOT’s data hub containing roadworks, crashes and other traffic event data nationwide. This extension translates these events to standard-compliant V2X messages.
Advanced services for Traffic Management Centers with Commsignia Central Extensions
Improving pedestrian detection through mobile networks
Your Goals and Challenges
There are places where it’s not possible to install C-V2X, but it’s sufficient to send awareness information to vehicles that there are road users in the area. An application running in the cloud collects presence data of road users and uses this information to alert nearby road users on a 4G/5G network.
Benefits of Vehicle-to-Network awareness
Connecting vehicles and vulnerable road users through the 4G/5G mobile network enables safety awareness services in a broad area.
– Pedestrians use their own smartphones
– Only relevant information is provided
– Deploying V2X functionality on Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) brings the service close to the end user
Accurately predicting traffic changes
Your Goals and Challenges
While congestion levels due to unforeseen events (collisions, road closures, bottlenecks) can be improved through mitigation strategies, the reliability, consistency and predictability of travel times remains a major concern.The main problem for travelers is unexpected congestion, they prefer consistent or reliable journey times.
According to the 2022 Urban Congestion Trends report by the FHWA, the unreliability of travel planning has worsened, and the travel time on the worst day of the month increased in 90 percent of the metropolitan statistical areas (52 included in the report). Overall, congestion costs the United States in the order of $100 billion a year in wasted fuel and job delays.
Benefits of predictions based on C-V2X data
Traffic Flow Prediction systems can predict the future states of the road graph on a network level in order to enable advanced analytics, planning and decision making. Additional C-V2X data can greatly improve the performance of these systems.
– State-of-the-art AI techniques are capable of very accurate predictions and efficiently identifying bottlenecks and congestion points
– A highly adaptive system use live information besides historical patterns to provide reliable services
Understanding the root causes of traffic incidents
Your Goals and Challenges
You need to know the problems in order to solve them. Traffic conflicts resulting from suboptimal intersection design or near-crash events can lead to collisions and fatalities, in addition to traffic inefficiencies, with potentially negative economic and socio-economic impacts. But these conflicts often remain invisible.
Traffic crashes cost the US $340 billion in 2019 and 42,939 people died on American roads in 2021. (NHTSA)
Benefits of C-V2X-based conflict analytics
– Efficiently (automatically) detect and records events and analyze their nature in order to pinpoint clues that lead to the root cause
– Notify pedestrians on their smartphone if they are approaching a dangerous area
– Create automatic traffic responses to offset the likelihood of future conflicts, e.g. by updating speed limits
– Collect more input for a traffic layout redesign
Talk to the team!
Kenneth Gustat – Senior Business Development Manager for Smart City – Western U.S.
Laszlo Kaufmann – Business Development Director for Smart City – Central U.S.
Gary Brady – Senior Business Development Manager for Smart City – Eastern U.S.
