Talking Cars, Safer Roads? Australian Trial Hints at Connected Future
- By CDOTrends editors
- February 24, 2024
A nine-month trial of connected vehicles in the Australian state of Queensland has concluded, with researchers saying the project showed how the technology could help reduce crashes and traffic jams.
In the trial conducted by the Queensland University of Technology, 355 vehicles were retrofitted with connected vehicle technology, including a dashboard-mounted display and external antenna.
Participants drove their own vehicles around the regional city of Ipswich in the largest Australian study of its type to date.
The cars could "talk" with intelligent traffic lights and other connected vehicles to send and receive data about traffic jams or hazards and also "see" other cars around bends or over hills while warning drivers about the location of pedestrians.
At QUT’s Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety, Professor Ioni Lewis said it is only a matter of time before connected cars are commercially available in Australia.
"Fully automated vehicles with no steering wheels are still some years away, but we're on the path of increasingly automated features in our vehicles," Professor Lewis told ABC Radio in Queensland.
"All of this is happening now. It's very much a fast-moving area in terms of where we're headed with these technologies."
Problems raised by the trial drivers included the inaccuracy of the warnings, which sometimes came too early or too late to allow a response.
The study's author, David Rodwell, said the success of the connected car technology depends on whether it reaches a critical mass of adopters.
Dr Rodwell said if the technology were widely adopted, it would ease traffic jams and speed up traffic flow.
"Communication between connected vehicles and infrastructure has the potential to increase road safety, reduce congestion and pollution, and improve the management, maintenance, monitoring and control and safety of transport networks," he said.
Image credit: iStockphoto/gorodenkoff