Cohda Wireless has supplied the German city of Ludwigsburg with V2X technology to enable fire trucks and rescue service teams to get to accidents and emergencies faster.
In an initiative led by traffic technology group, Swarco, all traffic lights and intersections in Ludwigsburg near Stuttgart (population, 85,000), have been fitted with Cohda MK5 Road-Side Units, which correspond with the equivalent MK5 On-Board Units in fire trucks and rescue vehicles to grant them green-light passage en route to emergencies.
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Following a successful pilot project in early 2019, Swarco has equipped 114 traffic lights in Ludwigsburg with Cohda’s technology, which allows them to exchange information directly with approaching vehicles using DSRC (standardised radio). The ACTROS control units of the traffic lights were equipped with the necessary programme, which automatically prioritises the fire engines as they pass through.
The system works by sending messages relaying position and speed, several times per second, from emergency vehicles to a traffic light controller. There, the signals are processed and compared with the scenarios stored in the programming.
If the system detects an approaching emergency vehicle, the programmed signal sequence is started and the traffic light controller switches to the prioritisation programme. Once firefighters have passed the intersection, the traffic light controller switches back to normal as quickly as possible to minimise impact on road traffic and traffic disturbance.
Cohda Wireless’s technology has been applied in other similar ways to make roads safer. In Estonia and Finland, Cohda’s V2X hardware and software feature in a smart pedestrian crosswalk solution, which alerts pedestrians and other road-users to danger.
In Norway, Cohda’s vehicle positioning system contributed to a successful trial carried out in the Bjørnegård tunnel in the municipality of Bærum. The purpose of the trial was to demonstrate the efficacy of Cohda Wireless’s vehicle positioning solution, V2X-Locate, in the newly-built 2.2km tunnel in an effort to improve vehicle safety.
Cohda’s software products are applied in more than 60% of all V2X field trials in the world today in compliance with US Federal Communications Commission, European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and Chinese standards.
