A feasibility study on a cooperative safety application for cyclists crossing intersections

Introduction of wireless vehicular communications enables a variety of new ITS use-cases [1, 2], allowing for cooperation between vehicles and infrastructure services. However the cooperation between vehicles and vulnerable road users (VRU) is not considered in these use cases. Currently there are already efforts to investigate the feasibility and the impact of systems to protect VRU [3-5]. Due to the continuously increasing number of traffic participants in urban environments this paper focuses on protecting cyclists in intersection scenarios. Therefore this paper provides a feasibility study on a cooperative safety application for vehicles and bicycles using a vehicle equipped with Vehicle-to-X communication (ETSI ITS G5) technology and a commercial mobile device using consumer WLAN (IEEE 802.11g) at the bicycle. Within a demonstration it is proven that the set up and the deployment of such a system is feasible. Thus it could help to decrease the number of accidents between vehicles and bicycles or at least mitigate the impact of an accident.