Skip to main content

Safer micromobility is Autotalks' V2X goal

Smart sign alerts drivers when a bike or scooter with Zooz device enters an intersection
By Ben Spencer September 14, 2021 Read time: 2 mins
Autotalks says all road users will communicate with each other through V2X to form a safety network (image credit: Autotalks)

Autotalks is launching a platform aimed at preventing bike and scooter accidents with the use of Vehicle to Everything (V2X). 

The Zooz platform is based on a V2X device installed on the handlebar of electric and non-electric bikes and scooters and a smart sign. 

The device sends an alert when a vehicle equipped with V2X is endangering a cyclist and informs other V2X equipped vehicles and smart signs about the presence of the cyclist. It will be integrated into bike computers.

Autotalks says the smart sign alerts drivers, even those without V2X, when a bike or scooter with a device is entering an intersection.

All road users, including cars, bikers, scooters, motorcycles, and pedestrians will communicate with each other through V2X to form a safety network.

The Zooz device is expected to handle a variety of use cases, including a blind spot alert scenario that prevents a car turning right and cutting the bike lane. This alert helps prevent a situation where a driver is surprised by a bike hidden behind a curve on a countryside or mountain road. 

In an intersection safety use case, Autotalks insists the platform prevents a scenario of a driver turning right or left while failing to see the cyclist entering the intersection.

According to Autotalks, the Zooz smart sign lights up when a V2X equipped bike or scooter is approaching the intersection, and it alerts all drivers, even those without V2X. 

Autotalks founder Onn Haran says: “The surge in the use of micromobility has changed traffic patterns and led to a sharp increase in accidents. The percentage of bikes and scooters in overall traffic fatalities is constantly growing. 75% of accidents are caused by driver error, failing to notice the cyclists, who are small and obstructed by other vehicles.”

“V2X is the only automotive safety communication technology. It is the only technology that can connect bikes and scooters to vehicles, adding them to the safety network,” Haran continues. 

“Zooz is the future of micromobility safety and is a concept of what we expect to see in every bike, scooter and car within five years. Our plan is to take the test one step further and install our technology on all vehicles, two-wheelers and road infrastructure.”
 

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Volvo addresses blind-side turns
    May 18, 2012
    Volvo has developed a system that aims at solving the problem of the truck driver's blind spot on the passenger side and the results of the research were demonstrated yesterday in the Intersafe 2 EU project in Wolfsburg, Germany. In Europe, between 30 and 60 per cent of all accidents resulting in injuries occur at intersections. Intersafe 2, an EU-funded project, aims at developing and demonstrating a Cooperative Intersection Safety System (CISS) that is able to improve traffic safety at road junctions by a
  • Bristol’s buses trial CycleEye detection system
    July 7, 2017
    Fusion Processing’s Jim Hutchinson looks at a two-year trial of the company’s cyclist detection system. Is cycling in a city dangerous? Well, that depends where you are and how you view statistics. Malmö is far more bike-friendly than Mumbai and the risk can either be perceived as small - one death per 29 million miles cycled in the UK in 2013 - or large - that equated to 109 deaths in the same year. Whatever your personal take on the data, the effect of these accidents can be felt indirectly too. News of c
  • Connected vehicle technology the solution to safety?
    January 25, 2012
    A series of 'driver clinics' is under way across five states, as vehicle manufacturers and the US Government pin their hopes on connected vehicles becoming the next big advance in road safety. Pete Goldin reports. What would a car say if it could talk? Its first words might be: "Here I am". Many vehicles are communicating that very message to each other right now. Admittedly, this is in controlled environments of US Department of Transportation (USDoT) tests, but within the next few years 'connected vehicle
  • New opportunities in a data-rich future
    March 19, 2014
    Jason Barnes looks at where the detection and monitoring sector is heading. In the future, there will be no such thing as an un-instrumented road. Just a short time ago, that could have been a quote from a high-level policy document but with the first arrivals of vehicles with 802.11p connectivity – the door-opener to Vehicle-to-X (V2X) applications – it’s a statement which has increasing validity. The technology which uses our roads will also provide information on road conditions but V2X isn’t the only