After almost two years of development work, a method that helps avoid rear-end collisions on highways has come closer. The goal is to predict the end of traffic jams. The principle: traffic data is evaluated using a mathematical model. Drivers are then to be warned in good time when they are approaching the end of traffic jams. Areas of application are construction sites at risk of congestion or bottlenecks in the road network.
The Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences and the companies ITS-United GmbH and AVT-Consult GmbH are involved in the project. The MobiArch – End-of-Congestion Alarm project was funded by the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Transport.
Minister of Transport Winfried Hermann MdL: "The project End-of-Congestion Alarm shows how digital technology can contribute to more road safety. On the way to Vision Zero, zero fatalities and serious injuries in traffic, we want to take advantage of the opportunities offered by research and the digital economy. The trial phase that is now beginning is an essential intermediate step in this process."
Professor Dr. Michael Hahn, head of the MobiArch project at HFT Stuttgart: "We learn almost daily from the news that a deadly danger lurks at the end of traffic jams. In order to be able to warn road users of this danger, we have developed tools in the project End-of-Congestion--Alarm to detect and track the ends of traffic jams in congestion-prone sections of roads very precisely and with high temporal resolution. This information will be processed to alert as many road users as possible in a congested section of the road to an impending end of congestion. In the trial phase that is now approaching, we want to get a lot closer to this goal."
Accidents at the ends of congestion account for 80 percent of fatalities in truck accident on highways. Although many trucks are now equipped with emergency braking assistants, experts predict further increases in these accidents. Reliable congestion detection systems are therefore needed.
The project End-of-Congestion Alarm shows the great benefits that data and digitization can have for traffic and mobility. Promoting such ideas and improving the data basis in the mobility sector was the goal of the MobiArch BW funding line.
A model for detecting and tracking the end of traffic jams was developed for this purpose in the MobiArch End-of-Congestion Alarm project. It obtains data from radar detectors and induction loops, among other sources. This makes it possible to detect the end of traffic jams with an accuracy of 250 meters and a lead time of 60 seconds. The model can be used flexibly. In the future, it could be used to issue end-of-traffic jamwarnings on popular apps and route planners.
In a two-year trial phase that is now starting, the tools will be tested and improved at the Enztal crossing construction site (A8 highway near Pforzheim). In the future, the model will also be used at other congestion hotspots.
Minister of Transport Hermann: "The project End-of-Congestion Alarm shows the great benefits that data and digitization can have for traffic and mobility. Promoting such ideas and improving the data basis in the mobility sector was the goal of the MobiArch BW funding line. I am therefore also looking forward to the results of the other projects in the funding line. In addition to expertise and innovative ideas from the field, there is also a need for forward-looking design of the framework conditions and public welfare-oriented impulses - the Ministry of Transport is committed to playing this role."
Regarding the funding of the project by the Ministry of Transport Baden-Württemberg within the framework of MobiArch BW: The project End-of-Congestion Alarm is one of the selected innovative projects which the Ministry of Transport Baden-Württemberg is funding for flexible, sustainable and intelligently networked mobility as a basis for achieving transport and climate protection goals. This is being done as part of the funding line MobiArch BW (Mobility Data Architecture for Innovative Applications), which aims to improve the basis for data-based innovation in the mobility sector. As part of the MobiArch BW funding line, a total of seven projects were funded by the Ministry of Transport with a total of around 1.3 million euros.