Technology is progress, and progress makes us evolve as a society. Thanks to technological advances, new forms of communication and mobility have been created that have devised new concepts. For example, in the case of vehicles, new technologies such as electric propulsion have become popular, giving birth to personal mobility vehicles (PMV).
PMVs are becoming more common within cities and have generated a new mobility ecosystem that is presenting new challenges. The current road network has to adapt to these new habits. This means that there are new elements at stake, raising possible accidents that make it necessary to take another step-in accident prevention.
Active Road Safety, a new way of understanding accident prevention
At Metalesa, our commitment has always been to improve people’s quality of life. One of our goals is to act by offering protection solutions in any of its fields. Whether it is acoustic or road protection, we always try to offer the best solutions. As our claim says: Protection, our goal.
This is why, due to the evolution of society, technology, and connection networks that already allow us to achieve 5G transfer speeds, we wanted to go one step further in our objective and consider an assumption: how can we mitigate the severity of the accidents? Could we prevent them? How can the authorities act at the time of an accident without the need for them to receive a phone call? This is what we have coined under the concept of Active Road Safety.
What is Active Road Safety?
Active Road Safety is a new concept that raises road safety to a new level. With the use of connected equipment, it is capable of collecting traffic and environment data, analyzing it in real time and notifying all road users if there is a risk of an accident due to poor visibility, traffic jams, among many other cases without intervention. from third parties.
In addition, connectivity means that in the event of an impact or risk detected on the road, the equipment may be able to notify the authorities autonomously and, on the spot, so that they can quickly manage the necessary assistance.
Differences between Road Safety and Active Road Safety
Until now, road safety equipment had a passive role in accident prevention. In the event of a vehicle impact, its task was to mitigate the severity of the accident, absorbing part of the energy and preventing the vehicle from leaving the road.
With Active Road Safety, road safety equipment starts to take an active role on the road, being able to collect data with the integrated sensors, analyze it and adapt its characteristics autonomously to communicate with road users through lights or being able to coordinate with other information elements such as variable signaling panels.
In this way, in addition to being able to communicate with road users, it is also capable of communicating with the authorities and traffic management centers. You can notify an accident in real time, collect traffic or air quality data and notify according to pre-established parameters.
Environments of action of Active Road Safety for infrastructures
Roads are a space shared by different types of vehicles and users, from cars or trucks to smaller ones such as VMP, bicycles or even pedestrians. This means that there are a series of factors that can put the safety of users at risk, such as speeding, non-segregation of lanes, dangerous curves or sections with reduced visibility.
If we make a list of all these factors, the following would be the most important:
- Weather conditions with reduced visibility, such as fog. The reduction of visibility in the wagon is a key factor in the event of an accident, since the driver does not have a good area of visibility.
- Dangerous curves or uneven road sections. These situations can lead to accidents due to loss of control of the vehicle.
- Traffic funnels and retentions. Heavy traffic and congestion can increase the risk of accidents and decrease the efficiency of circulation. Users in a state of stress may disobey road safety precautions.
- Accidents in interurban areas. The lack of signaling and indication in certain urban areas can cause serious accidents that directly affect our citizens.
How does Active Road Safety solve problems on the road?
One of the advantages of Active Road Safety is that it can be adapted to road conditions. For example, in heavy rain, adaptive lighting systems can be adjusted to improve driver visibility and reduce the risk of accidents. Similarly, in low visibility situations due to fog or ice, sensors can detect these conditions and alert the driver to exercise caution.
Another advantage of Active Road Safety is that the risk of accidents and injuries can be reduced. Implementing specific road safety measures can help prevent accidents and minimize the impact should one occur. For example, the installation of safety barriers and warning signs on dangerous curves or uneven sections of road can prevent vehicles from running off the road in the event of driver error.
In addition, Active Road Safety can also improve traffic efficiency. For example, real-time traffic information systems can help drivers avoid traffic jams and congestion, reducing travel time and improving the efficiency of driving on the road.
If you want to find out more about this new concept and find out how Metalesa is working to make it a reality, you can consult our microsite on Active Road Safety, where we talk in more detail.