Motorbike manufacturers working for a safer future

The Connected Motorcycle Consortium is the result of the sector’s manufacturers joining forces to bring the safety benefits of co-operative ITS to motorbike riders – but it is an initiative that is facing challenges in implementing the technology. Formed in 2015 with founding members BMW, Honda and Yamaha, CMC was created following an MoU agreed to by ACEM, the peak European motorcycle organisation representing major manufacturers, in 2014. Under this MoU, manufacturers agreed to work together to develop C-
October 12, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Easy rider: Kazuyuki Maruyama of Honda

The Connected Motorcycle Consortium is the result of the sector’s manufacturers joining forces to bring the safety benefits of co-operative ITS to motorbike riders – but it is an initiative that is facing challenges in implementing the technology. Formed in 2015 with founding members 1731 BMW, 1683 Honda and 6654 Yamaha, 6480 CMC was created following an MoU agreed to by ACEM, the peak European motorcycle organisation representing major manufacturers, in 2014. Under this MoU, manufacturers agreed to work together to develop C-ITS by 2020 for at least one model in each manufacturer’s range, allowing motorcycles to take advantage of the safety benefits of ITS.

Other major manufacturers are set to come on board in the near future, according to CMC co-ordinator Thomas Bischoff. Bischoff said that with 50% of motorcyclist fatalities resulting from other motorists being unaware of a motorcycle’s presence there were compelling safety arguments in developing C-ITS for this sector.

At the same time, he said, there were significant engineering, physical and even cultural challenges, relating to motorcycle dynamics, their size, shape, manoeuvrability – and the opposition by many riders to any form of “surveillance” or control.

“All these challenges mean that we can’t simply adapt current motor vehicle C-ITS technology to motorcycles,” said Bischoff.

CMC is also a forum to align the needs of motorcycle C-ITS with other standards developed for the broader vehicle market.

“Our aim is to fairly closely follow what is happening in vehicle C-ITS, so that the benefits of this technologycan quickly be available to motorcyclist,” Bischoff said. Road safety authorities in Europe, the US and Japan are watching CMC’s initiatives with great interest.

“And we’ve found that our presence at the ITS World Congress here in Melbourne – which is our first outside of those three markets – is gaining plenty of attention from road safety agencies in other regions,” he said.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Radar effective as detection tool for hard shoulder running
    July 23, 2012
    Navtech Radar's millimetric-wave systems are being researched on the M42 in England to look into how this type of detector can assist in the opening of the hard shoulder as an additional running lane. Here, the company's Stephen Clark talks about the technology being used. In England, the Highways Agency's (the HA, an executive agency of the Department for Transport) Managed Motorways system - formerly called Active Traffic Management - uses electronic signs and signals mounted on gantries to direct drivers
    Read More
  • Electric vehicles in construction are the future, say researchers
    December 20, 2016
    The industrial and commercial sector is the largest part of the electric vehicle value market and that will continue to be the case according to analysis in the IDTechEx report, Industrial and Commercial Electric Vehicles 2017-2027. Buses are the largest part of that and they are mainly made in China for China, where typical orders are ten times the size of orders elsewhere. Less dramatically, construction, mining and agriculture do not see 70 per cent grants for EV versions yet they are steadily becomin
    Read More
  • BMW and Toyota to strengthen collaboration
    July 3, 2012
    Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC), and Norbert Reithofer, chairman of the BMW, have announced the planned expansion of their existing cooperation initiated in December last year. The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) aimed at a long-term strategic collaboration in four fields: joint development of a fuel cell system, joint development of architecture and components for a future sports vehicle, collaboration on powertrain electrification and joint research and de
    Read More
  • Flexibility, interoperability is key to future traffic management
    February 3, 2012
    Jon Taylor of Faber Maunsell and Tabatha Bailey of Transport for London describe how an unusual mix of traffic practitioners, researchers and industry are working together to build new tools for the future. As we face higher expectations for managing congestion from both citizens and politicians, and as more and more data is becoming available from new sources, our traffic management challenge is changing.
    Read More

Highlighted Content