Project Safespot (Smart Vehicles on Smart Roads)

The key aspect of the project is to expand the time horizon for acquiring safely relevant information for driving, as well as to improve the precision, the reliability and the quality of driver information, and to introduce new information sources. One of the main aims of SAFESPOT is to develop a "safety margin assistant" which will extend "in space and time" the safety information available to drivers by: (1) using both the infrastructure and vehicles as sources (and destinations) of safety-related information, and definition of an open, flexible and modular communications architecture; (2) developing the key enabling technologies: accurate relative localisation, ad-hoc dynamic networking, dynamic local traffic maps; (3) developing a new generation of infrastructure-based sensing techniques; (4) testing scenario-based applications to evaluate the impacts and end-user acceptability; (5) defining the practical implementation of such systems, especially in the interim period when not all vehicles will be equipped; (6) evaluating the liability aspects, regulations and standardization issues which can affect implementation: involvement of public authorities from the early stages will be a key factor for future deployment.