One good factor that got here out of the pandemic is that extra individuals picked up biking. Within the first three months of 2021, American shopper spending on bikes and biking equipment elevated by 34 p.c yr on yr to $8.2 billion. Nonetheless, the pandemic additionally noticed extra die and endure accidents whereas biking. In response to the Nationwide Security Council, 1,260 cyclists have been killed in 2020, a 16 p.c enhance from 2019.
It’s an issue that Ford thinks expertise can handle. On Monday, the automaker introduced it’s working with Commsignia, PSS, Ohio State College, T-Cell and Tome Software program to discover how a smartphone app may warn drivers of pedestrians and cyclists they might not see. As somebody sharing the highway with a automobile, you’ll set up the corporate’s software program in your telephone. With the assistance of Bluetooth Low Power, autos with Ford’s Sync infotainment system would see you as “beacons.” If the automobile then determines there’s the potential for a crash, it should warn the motive force utilizing audiovisual cues.
In response to Ford, its method has just a few benefits. One is that Bluetooth LE is almost ubiquitous. The expertise has been a part of the Bluetooth protocol since 2009, that means each fashionable smartphone has entry to it. If you happen to personal a Ford car, you gained’t must convey your automobile to a dealership for a {hardware} improve for the reason that Sync system options Bluetooth compatibility. The opposite benefit of utilizing Bluetooth LE is that your automobile gained’t must see pedestrians and cyclists earlier than it might probably warn you. Ford and T-Cell are additionally engaged on a model of the app that makes use of 5G as an alternative of Bluetooth LE.
In observe, the corporate’s method is harking back to the COVID publicity notification apps some nations and states deployed originally of the pandemic. As it’s possible you’ll recall, these additionally used Bluetooth LE. Nonetheless, regardless of backing from Apple and Google, they have been by no means efficient as a consequence of low utilization. In Canada, as an example, the federal COVID Alert app was solely downloaded 6.9 million occasions and logged 63,117 optimistic exams. Put one other method, nowhere close to sufficient Canadians downloaded the software program to make it an efficient contact tracing software. Ford’s app is prone to expertise a few of the identical points.
As an avid bike owner, I can’t inform you how many individuals I’ve seen driving their bikes at evening with out an LED gentle to make themselves seen to visitors. Then again, statistics counsel motorists have been driving extra aggressively in recent times, resulting in the aforementioned enhance in bike owner deaths in addition to car crashes. Any sort of intervention could be welcome, however Ford’s app is not prone to be a significant answer if it ever involves market. Whereas the Bluetooth LE answer to COVID had just one uphill climb, apps like Ford’s have two: adoption by cyclists and adoption by automakers.