• Ford with the help of using data from sources such as vehicle and roadside sensors are currently developing a digital road safety tool. This is a way of helping to predict potential incident hotspots
• Partnering with Vivacity Labs, Oxfordshire County Council and Loughborough University, Transport of London plus funding from the British Government innovation agency; Innovate UK, and the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
• This will allow Ford to extensively research into how analytics and data from connected vehicles can be used to improve road safety.

There are more than 1.3 million people that are killed on the roads around the world each year (World Health Organisation: Road traffic injuries) which is around 3,700 each day! The U.K department for transport also report that the annual cost of road incidents is more than £35 billion (GOV.UK: Accident And Casualty Costs).

This tool will analyse information from connected vehicles, smart roadside sensors and local authority data to predict possible root causes of potential road safety hotspots. The insights will enable the tool to pre-empt higher risks roads for users. This was already trialled in London where data scientists from Ford Motability sampled more than 1 million miles of driving by connected vehicles and are working towards improvements to help this initiative such as cutting back vegetation to ensure clear signage, double-height signage and signals, resurfacing carriageways and raising service covers plus much more.

“Soon every new vehicle will be a connected vehicle, and we see this as an opportunity to reduce road traffic incidents and save lives in a significant way,” said Jon Scott, project lead, City Insights, Ford Mobility, Europe. “By collaborating with leading innovators, experts and academics – and with the backing of Innovate U.K.– we truly believe we can help improve mobility for millions around the world.

Ford has already conducted extensive research into this and up to 700 passenger and commercial vehicles will be voluntarily connected across Oxfordshire and London as part of an 18 month project.

Advanced technologies such as brake accelerator pedal usage and steering wheel angle plus an additional up to 25 smart sensors from Vivacity Labs which specialises in traffic capture.

“Oxfordshire County Council is committed to enabling innovative applications for connected vehicle technology that will benefit our communities,” said Llewelyn Morgan, head of innovation, Oxfordshire County Council. “By connecting vehicle data with smart infrastructure, we hope this project will help improve safety for all road users.”

We can't wait to see this initiative put into place, watch this space later on in the year.