A pioneering collaboration between Volvo Trucks and Volvo Cars will see vehicles automatically alert each other to hazardous traffic situations.
Although Volvo Trucks and Volvo Cars have not been part of the same company for many years, there is clearly a shared sense of purpose to improving road safety and preventing accidents.
A cloud-based service called Connected Safety was launched by Volvo Cars in 2016, and now Volvo Trucks is rolling out its version of the service in Norway and Sweden. This means that trucks and cars will be able to alert each other to potential hazards because the two companies will share safety-related data between their respective clouds.
Carl Johan Almqvist, traffic and product safety director at Volvo Trucks, says that the system is not restricted to vehicles with a Volvo badge. “Expanded co-operation between different players is one of the most important keys to improved road safety.
“If more vehicles are able to exchange real-time information about the traffic situation, it will lower the risk of accidents. With Connected Safety, we are opening the door to the future with the hope that more vehicle manufacturers will join in.”
Connected Safety was developed to send out alerts to nearby vehicles connected to the service whenever a driver activates the vehicle’s hazard warning lights. In the longer term, the cloud-based service will be expanded with additional safety-enhancing functions.
Volvo Trucks will initially limit Connected Safety to new trucks sold in Sweden and Norway, where both Volvo Trucks and Volvo Cars account for a significant proportion of annual new-vehicle registrations. Once the system is developed further, it is likely to be rolled out to more markets.
