The trials considered cooperative vehicles and their impacts on vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.
Scott Benjamin, WSP’s Technical Director for Intelligent Transport said, “We drafted and ran four different use cases from concept to delivery in just eight weeks. It was a great opportunity to put the theory of the ecosystem into practice.”
AIMES is a University of Melbourne initiative involving a collaboration between more than 50 leading national and international industry players including Cisco, Cohda Wireless, VicRoads and and TAC who were key parties in delivering these trials. WSP is one of the project’s four foundation partners alongside VicRoads, Cubic and the PTV Group.
The AIMES ecosystem spans 6 km2 immediately to the east of the University of Melbourne. The site combines 100 km of roadways including major arterial roads, several traversing bus and tram routes, and a mixed commercial and retail strip, which makes it an ideal environment to trail real-world safety and mobility scenarios.
“The first three trials focused on use cases involving different interactions between vehicles and roadside connectivity," said Mr Benjamin. "The fourth trial looked at monitoring vulnerable users like pedestrians on urban roads, and sending drivers highly targeted and timely warnings to reduce accident risks.”
Findings demonstrated measurable safety benefits that we could realise now by investing in smarter connected infrastructure for cooperative and automated vehicles, rather than wait for these vehicles to be rolled out en masse.
As the availability of vehicle and roadside technologies increases, AIMES offers a platform for safely trialling and testing solutions over the coming decade.
Mr Benjamin chairs the AIMES Technical Committee that’s making sure the framework is in place to provide certainty that roadside deployments achieve safety and efficiency objectives, and back-end systems are in place to support growth and technology for a wide range of future trials.
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