On September 23, engineers from the Dutch road authorities (Rijkswaterstaat) and its British equivalent Highways England visited Beijer Automotive in Schijndel – the Netherlands for a demonstration as part of the CHARM project.
Beijer showed his clients the possibilities when cars can communicate with each other.
Two cars were equipped with a so-called WiFi-P connection. The driver of one car can see when the driver of the other car is braking. Also, the degree in which braking take’s place, softly or whether it concerns an emergency stop, can be seen. All signals are transmitted. Even when the car is swinging across the road or pulling other antics.
It was also demonstrated what is possible when all the available sensors, yet in cars, are read and the data are collected and transmitted. For example for traffic control centers. Add to that all kinds of data that you can collect through traffic signs and road works, and you have a complete picture of what is really happening on the Dutch roads.
If you can collect data from three to five percent of the eight million cars driving around in the Netherlands, you can for example, visualize traffic jams. Real-time. Because all the data collected now through built-in car Beijer chips are passed that same second. For example KNMI, the Dutch national weather service, is able to see on the use of windshield wipers where it rains, and how hard. The possibilities are endless. Even the quality of the road surface can be measured. Now special cars are deployed to do that. But you can see the slippage of the wheels via wheel sensors and tell how the quality is.
