One good factor that got here out of the pandemic is that extra individuals picked up biking. Within the first three months of 2021, American client spending on bikes and biking equipment elevated by 34 % yr on yr to $8.2 billion. Nevertheless, the pandemic additionally noticed extra die and endure accidents whereas biking. In response to the Nationwide Security Council, 1,260 cyclists have been killed in 2020, a 16 % enhance from 2019.
It’s an issue that Ford thinks expertise can handle. On Monday, the automaker introduced it’s working with Commsignia, PSS, Ohio State College, T-Cell and Tome Software program to discover how a smartphone app may warn drivers of pedestrians and cyclists they could not see. As somebody sharing the street with a automotive, you’ll set up the corporate’s software program in your cellphone. With the assistance of Bluetooth Low Vitality, autos with Ford’s Sync infotainment system would see you as “beacons.” If the automotive then determines there’s the potential for a crash, it should warn the driving force utilizing audiovisual cues.
In response to Ford, its strategy has just a few benefits. One is that Bluetooth LE is almost ubiquitous. The expertise has been a part of the Bluetooth protocol since 2009, that means each fashionable smartphone has entry to it. Should you personal a Ford automobile, you received’t must deliver your automotive to a dealership for a {hardware} improve for the reason that Sync system options Bluetooth compatibility. The opposite benefit of utilizing Bluetooth LE is that your automotive received’t must see pedestrians and cyclists earlier than it will possibly warn you. Ford and T-Cell are additionally engaged on a model of the app that makes use of 5G as a substitute of Bluetooth LE.
In follow, the corporate’s strategy is paying homage to the COVID publicity notification apps some international locations and states deployed initially of the pandemic. As you might recall, these additionally used Bluetooth LE. Nevertheless, regardless of backing from Apple and Google, they have been by no means efficient as a consequence of low utilization. In Canada, as an illustration, the federal COVID Alert app was solely downloaded 6.9 million instances and logged 63,117 optimistic assessments. Put one other means, nowhere close to sufficient Canadians downloaded the software program to make it an efficient contact tracing instrument. Ford’s app is prone to expertise among the similar points.
As an avid bike owner, I can’t let you know how many individuals I’ve seen driving their bikes at night time with out an LED mild to make themselves seen to site visitors. However, statistics recommend motorists have been driving extra aggressively in recent times, resulting in the aforementioned enhance in bike owner deaths in addition to automobile crashes. Any form of intervention could be welcome, however Ford’s app is not prone to be a significant resolution if it ever involves market. Whereas the Bluetooth LE resolution to COVID had just one uphill climb, apps like Ford’s have two: adoption by cyclists and adoption by automakers.
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