This week sees London hold an event which is going to look at the future of automobiles, specifically looking at the benefits that telematics might be able to bring to the industry. The event is going to be looking at how vehicles can be better used to communicate with each other so that road accidents can be prevented.
Jonas Ekmark is the head of road safety of Volvo and he will be leading a workshop about developing car guidance that will be able to predict the movement of vehicles so that cars can communicate with each other and avoid accidents.
Mr Ekmark will also be speaking on the issue of ‘platooning’ cars. Platooning cars is a theoretical process where a chain of cars will be led by an advanced driver. Each car in the chain will monitor the speed of the car in front and the direction in which it is going.
This method of driving will allow the people in the car to relax and do other things while the car is being driven for them. Drivers are able to pull out of the chain at any time if they need to go somewhere else.
Many people believe this will greatly improve the safety of the roads because it takes away the human factor that is responsible for around 80% of road accidents. This idea was published in an article in The Engineer back in January. It received quite a response from the car industry and many people made comments about the concept.
The article was written by Andrew Czyzewski and gave details about how the operation would work and why it would lead to safer roads. At the workshop Mr Ekmark will be examining this under the European Union idea of ‘Safe Road Trains for the Environment.’
