There have been some great stories of V2V communications but they have typically been proprietary. Volvo for example are developing some wonderful systems whereby a truck can share information about a crash or other conditions, with other Volvo trucks, or any manufacturer prepared to invest in the Volvo vehicle to vehicle system, but of course many (not all) companies don’t like to buy tech from their competitors.
So this solution which can plug into any CAN-bus and share information from the anti-skid braking systems when trucks hit black ice, something we commonly experience in the South Island and North Island alpine passes in New Zealand (many of which are freight routes) sounds like a real winner.
This innovation from Finnish company EEE Innovations Oy is being trialed by 1,000 freight vehicles in conjunction with the Finnish Transport Agency aka Trafi. You can find more information here. I’m sure transport operators around the world will be monitoring this.
The challenge is of course how to get the communications from vehicle to vehicle. In some of the worst locations in New Zealand mobile coverage is not 100% and we don’t have 5G which a lot of these systems are being built on. On the other hand for freight we do have good two-way radio coverage and many fleet management systems that support telemetry so I’m sure we can innovate in ways to share that information, not only with other freight users, but also with the roading organizations and contractors, who can be alerted to deal with the black ice and also alert other road users.
