Development of Pedestrian-to-Vehicle Communication System Prototype for Pedestrian Safety Using both Wide-Area and Direct Communication

We propose a prototype pedestrian-to-vehicle communication system which uses a cellular phone and wireless communication to improve the safety of pedestrians. One of the effectual measures against pedestrian-to-vehicle accidents is to make each of pedestrians and drivers find the others and recognize the risk from out of sight and with time to spare for avoidance of accidents. A pedestrian-to-vehicle communication system was developed by using a cellular phone and a car navigation system equipped with GPS and wireless communication function. We focused on intersections as a traffic scene to be covered by the system. After data was exchanged via FOMA in a wide area, information could be exchanged between a pedestrian and a vehicle via WLAN 20 m, 100 m away from an intersection to different directions in about 20 ms. And, the system could give an alarm to pedestrians and cars with collision risk.