After many years apart and competing with each other, in recent times the biggest builders have been forced to join forces. Whether to share the costs of developing technologies for autonomous driving, or electrification, or even to develop new security technologies, there are more and more announcements of technological partnerships.
So, after we've seen BMW, Audi and Daimler join forces to buy Nokia's HERE app a while ago, we're bringing you yet another “union” that until recently would have been, at the very least, unlikely.
This time, the manufacturers involved are BMW, Daimler, Ford, Volvo, to which HERE, TomTom and several European governments have also joined. The purpose of this amalgamation of companies and even governments? Simple: increase road safety on Europe's roads.
Sharing information to increase security
As part of the work of a public-private partnership called the European Data Task Force, the pilot project in which BMW, Daimler, Ford, Volvo, HERE and TomTom were involved aims to study the technical, economic and legal aspects of the Car-to-X (the term used to describe communication between vehicles and transport infrastructure).
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Therefore, the pilot project aims to create a neutral server platform that allows the sharing of traffic data relevant to road safety. In other words, vehicles from BMW, Daimler, Ford or Volvo will be able to share data on the platform in real time about the roads they travel on, such as slippery conditions, poor visibility or accidents.
Manufacturers will then be able to use this data to alert drivers about potential hazards on a particular road, and service providers (such as HERE and TomTom) can provide the information collected and shared on the platform to their traffic services and to their traffic services. traffic operated by national road authorities.