Skip to main content

Smart reflector improves pedestrian safety

In collaboration with Finnish plastics manufacturer Coreplast Laitila, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed a reflector that can be wirelessly controlled via a mobile phone application. A traditional reflector, carried by a pedestrian and equipped with sensors, LED lights and wireless charging and communication, can be made to blink and alert vehicle drivers when the pedestrian is approaching a dangerous crossing. In the future, researchers say it could communicate directly with smart traf
January 29, 2016 Read time: 1 min
RSS

In collaboration with Finnish plastics manufacturer 8310 Coreplast Laitila, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed a reflector that can be wirelessly controlled via a mobile phone application.

A traditional reflector, carried by a pedestrian and equipped with sensors, LED lights and wireless charging and communication, can be made to blink and alert vehicle drivers when the pedestrian is approaching a dangerous crossing. In the future, researchers say it could communicate directly with smart traffic lights or cars to warn, say, a turning truck driver that a pedestrian is in the area of a crossing.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • VTT to develop ITS in cooperation with ITS Russia
    August 14, 2017
    VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and ITS Russia are to partner on the development of intelligent transport systems (ITS). The aim of Project CAVLANE is to develop new services, products and standards, particularly for border crossings. Part of the project involves testing ITS services for drivers before and after border crossings, such as queue cautions that are hoped to make traffic flow more smoothly at the Nuijamaa border crossing point and standardised European Union vehicle to vehicle (V2V)
  • Low-costs solutions to improve pedestrian safety
    May 8, 2015
    David Crawford welcomes low-cost safety initiatives for pedestrians in America. Some 10 people die each week in accidents on crosswalks in the US, that’s more than 10% of all pedestrian fatalities in road traffic incidents - the number of which is running at a five-year high. Ensuring crosswalks are safe is key in supporting the growing enthusiasm for walking as a travel mode. In the last decade of the 20th century, numbers walking to work in the US fell by 26%; while, as recently as 2012, Americans were e
  • The effectiveness of roads policing
    March 6, 2015
    The Joint Roads Policing Unit of Thames Valley Police and Hampshire Constabulary in the UK commissioned the Transport Research laboratory (TRL) to evaluate the effectiveness of their roads policing strategy in terms of reducing the number of people killed and seriously injured in road collisions. The focus was on the fatal four causes of collisions: speeding, drink-driving, not wearing a seat belt and drivers using mobile phones. TRL carried out a detailed literature review, in-depth review and analysis of
  • Colombia awards major traffic management contract to Indra
    May 8, 2014
    Colombian highway concessionaire Coviandes has awarded Indra the contract, worth nearly US$35 million, for the design, installation and start-up of the intelligent traffic systems (ITS) the control and communications systems for 45 kilometres of the Bogota-Villavicencio highway in Colombia.