Honda, like all car manufacturers, is guilty of contributing to congestion on our roads. But the Japanese car maker is aiming to make amends with a congestion minimiser technology that could help reduce the amount of time we spent in jams.
Its system, developed in conjunction with the Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Tokyo, is said to be capable of increasing average vehicle speeds by up to 39 per cent and improving fuel efficiency by around 13 per cent.
It’s based on the theory that traffic is made worse by an accordion effect, where sudden braking and rapid acceleration increase congestion. With that in mind, it monitors acceleration and deceleration patterns of your vehicle through the use of accelerometers. If it thinks you’re driving erratically, it issues advice via a colour coded display on the dash on how to drive more smoothly.
Obviously one car equipped with such a system won’t make the slightest bit of difference if it’s surrounded by hundreds of erratic drivers, but Honda has a solution to this issue. It plans to equip multiple cars with this system and to link them via Web-connected cloud servers, so more drivers are aware of and in sync with the driving patterns of vehicles ahead.
Honda says it can link the system, via Web-connected cloud servers, to adaptive cruise control systems in order to automate smooth acceleration and deceleration and maintain a constant distance between vehicles.
It all sounds incredibly impressive, we think you’ll agree, but the proof is very much in the pudding. Honda will begin the first public road testing of the system in Italy and Indonesia in May and July of this year, respectively to analyse its effectiveness. We’ll be keeping a very close eye on the project, so stick around for more info as we get it.
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