Cooperative and Autonomous driving as a new way of mobility

The problem that occurs almost every day on the Dutch roads are the traffic jams, often without apparent reason like a car accident or construction. Somewhere, miles ahead of where you will be eventually be stuck, a driver slows slightly, causing the car behind it to slow a bit more. This wave of slowed traffic moves backwards along the way, simultaneously growing larger and slowing down until the parkway becomes a parking lot. This negatively impacts the environment and efficiency of companies. If the jam is caused by a motor vehicle accident, it can often be tied back to human error or bad decisions.

As seen in the results of the Grand Cooperative Driving Challenge in which we participated last year, open collaboration is the way to further develop these technologies to make it suitable for all roads. We seek the challenge in improving mobility and thereby solving the problems.

The Automotive Technology Team (ATeam) see the solution in developing cooperative and autonomous technologies, which will change the future of mobility with prospects in improved safety, sustainability, and efficiency on the roads. The combination of vehicle automation (making it self-driving) and vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication may provide more stability in the traffic flow as the car can then anticipate further ahead than humans. Furthermore, the information received via communication between the cars can be displayed through HMI so the driver is informed of what’s going on miles ahead. As well the driver is notified of the surroundings of the car and in what mode the car is: manual of autonomous driving mode. We're developing these technologies using a Toyota Prius.