Peachtree Corners smart city and Spoke team up to improve road safety
Peachtree Corners, a smart city powered by 5G infrastructure, has partnered with Spoke to test and develop a Vulnerable Road User (VRU) and Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) technologies to improve roadway safety.
“As a City Manager, safety for our residents, cyclists and pedestrians is a top priority,” says Brian Johnson, the Peachtree Corners city manager. “Each year nearly 1,000 bicyclists are killed and over 130,000 are injured in crashes or incidents on public roadways in the United States. Spoke’s technology is the first C-V2X implementation for pedestrians, cyclists and other VRUs to use along public roadways.”
Spoke says it can test and develop its VRU2X technologies using a smart city where everyday drivers, pedestrians, and autonomous vehicles use public roads. The technology connects VRUs to the mobility system, giving drivers valuable information about their surroundings.
According to Spoke, the VRU2X technology provides insight and awareness of vulnerable road users (VRUs) in the mobility ecosystem. The system uses C-V2X, LTE/5G cellular communication, and camera/radar systems to provide direct contact, contextual awareness alerts and vehicle identification.
“The technology we have created is a culmination of our passion for cycling, our own experiences feeling unsafe or being injured as a VRU and our vision of making roadways safer for all,” says Reid Sigety, the Spoke chief strategy and operations officer. “With our partner Qualcomm, we have reimagined the form factor for C-V2X technology, making this solution small enough to fit on a bike without disturbing the biker or impacting the performance.”
Spoke says its technology leverages layers of connectivity to make VRUs (including pedestrians and cyclists) detectable by vehicles and to ensure that VRUs are aware of cars before seeing them.
Spoke is also partnering with Audi in conducting C-V2X initial deployments to develop solutions for bicycle-to-vehicle use cases.
The company says Spoke will test its C-V2X and VRU2X technologies in municipal vehicles to improve road workers’ safety. Commsignia’s C-V2X central system will measure the effectiveness of these solutions. Additionally, Spoke’s technologies will integrate into Curiosity Lab’s existing infrastructure to develop new C-V2X messaging standards, grow the city’s C-V2X ecosystem and expand VRU2X messaging through LTE and HMI use cases.
Curiosity Lab is a 5G-enabled smart mobility and smart city laboratory at Peachtree Corners in Georgia.
“Partnering with Curiosity Lab not only allows us to continue to improve and develop our solutions further but also gives us a space to see how these solutions will improve in real-world scenarios,” explains Sigety. “We are excited to further test and refine this technology with our partners at Peachtree Corners and to continue to improve our solutions to save lives across the country.”
Audi and Spoke will demonstrate the C-V2X technology at Peachtree Corners’ Curiosity Lab Criterium on April 26, where cyclists will race with the units. Audi will have a vehicle present to show how the technology works.
“We are honored and thrilled to be partnered with Spoke and to be bringing attention to important safety issues to make our residents’ lives safer each day,” adds Johnson.
Article Topics
Audi | networking | PeachTree Corners | sensors | smart city | Spoke Safety | startup | V2X
Comments