Moving away from human-driven cars into a world with autonomous vehicles will require advanced vehicle-to-vehicle communication.
Before we take the human driver out of the seat, V2V communication can benefit all drivers and help make the ride to work, activities, and vacations much easier for everyone. Automakers have been researching AI and connected cars that communicate with each other for several years. Cars that can alert other vehicles of roadway issues, traffic slowdowns, or other challenges can certainly make it much more enjoyable to go from one place to another.
Here are some benefits of vehicle-to-vehicle communication.
V2V Provides Drivers With Necessary Information
Companies operating large trucks as part of their fleet or delivering oversized loads on highways need to know how tall bridges are or if certain roads are built to handle the length and width of the load. Communicating this information to drivers can help them find the best route from one place to another with fewer obstacles. Drivers of passenger vehicles can also benefit from information that helps with safe parking. Some cars already have automated parking systems built into their technology packages.
Advanced Route Optimization
Current GPS apps help offer optimized information such as speed traps, construction zones, or accidents along the route when a destination has been selected. Adding vehicle-to-vehicle communication to the mix could allow each vehicle to communicate route issues as they occur, making it much easier to select the right pathway to the next destination. Although we already have much of this technology, it’s expected we’ll see improvements and better communication as GPS apps add more AI tech to the mix.
Vehicular Communication Can Help Improve Traffic Management
Whether it’s the amount of traffic congestion on a particular road or broken-down vehicles that delay the movement of traffic, faster communication can help law enforcement officials respond and divert traffic more quickly than they can now. V2V ensures cars can maintain sensible distances from other vehicles and keep the flow of traffic moving along with fewer slowdowns and problems. This communication can also help drivers avoid places where accidents or slowdowns occur and find better routes to their destinations.
Platooning Can Help Trucks Drive More Efficiently
Most drivers won’t benefit from platooning, but vehicle-to-vehicle communication can help large fleets of trucks save significant amounts of fuel by platooning. When several trucks drive along the same path together, they can stay in a constant and consistent formation and save up to five percent of the fuel that would have been used for the truck leading the line, while all other trucks can improve their fuel economy by up to ten percent. Over the course of a year, this can add up to incredible savings for a trucking company by allowing their trucks to platoon along major highways.
Communication Between Vehicles Can Prevent Crashes
When V2V communication is utilized in every vehicle on the road, motor vehicle accidents will be reduced significantly. The communication of speed, location, and size allows other vehicles to respond to a vehicle that’s been stopped in the path without hitting it. This can make roads much safer and minimize the potential for crashes on the roadways. Currently, human error is the primary cause of accidents which V2V communication can reduce b 70 to 80 percent.
Some of the challenges of vehicle-to-vehicle communication are:
Many Drivers Are Concerned About Security
The larger and more widely used a communication network is, the greater potential there is for security breaches and hacking. This could be catastrophic for drivers depending on V2V communication to help them make it from one place to another. Security risks are a major concern, and some automakers are working with hackers to address potential problems and fix holes in their security systems. We might not ever see a time when hacking these systems is entirely thwarted.
Who Bears Liability?
If all cars utilize vehicle-to-vehicle communication and the human driver element is removed from the roadways, where does the liability lie when an accident occurs? Does the owner bear responsibility for the technology installed by the automaker, or should the automaker be responsible for the system and communication programming installed in a vehicle? This will be a topic covered at great length by lawmakers and automakers to determine where the responsibility for accidents will be placed in the future.
V2V communication is expected to be a significant part of the future of driving. As more vehicles adopt various advanced safety features and communication systems, we come closer to a world where cars can drive themselves. Is this a future you’re looking forward to?
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