Nissan to test Intelligent Transport System (ITS) for safer driving

Integrating cellular communications with vehicle telematics to help prevent pedestrian-related accidents, Nissan Motor will soon begin a large-scale community-based test of its Intelligent Transport System. Starting November 1, the automotive giant is expected to continue testing of the Intelligent Transport System up to December 27.

The car maker has said that the testing, which is to be done in collaboration with NTT DoCoMo, the largest mobile network operator in Japan, would involve as many as 500 pedestrians and 200 drivers. The testing will be in such a way that participants would use a special cellular phone compatible to the Nissan navigation system on-board test vehicles, and then go about their regular daily routines, commuting within the neighbourhood, said an auto news report.

The Nissan Intelligent Transport System works this way: A driver who drives into a residential area which has so many a blind intersections along the way, would get alerts about the intersections hidden around the corner through voice messages and screen display via the navigation system. The Nissan Intelligent Transport System has been made possible through a Global Positioning System. The information server detects data transmitted via the GPS to the cellular phone with the pedestrian and sends it to the vehicle navigation system, which then triggers the alert, said the report.

The most important part of the Nissan Intelligent Transport System is that it enables the driver to take precautionary measures and drive more carefully. This in turn helps a great deal in decreasing pedestrian-vehicle collisions.

With the testing set to begin, Nissan expects to bring safer driving as effective as it can get. During the testing period the car maker will also monitor the changes in driver-behaviour, such as the response time and deceleration after the alert, for quantitative analysis.