ASSET-ROAD · ASSET Advanced Safety and Driver Support in Essential Road Transport

As the European objectives of integration and economic growth are achieved, there is a corresponding vigorous growth in road traffic volumes. This results in congestion and increased numbers of road fatalities. The objective of the ASSET project is to reverse these negative effects by developing a number of promising technologies and integrating them into a new holistic approach to road safety. The holistic approach will be at system and practical level. Integrated architectures will be developed to facilitate the exchange of secure information between road, vehicle and driver. There will be a particular focus on the Human Machine Interface – developing supporting systems which pass on safety-critical information to the driver. Driver monitoring technologies such as ‘track and trace’ will use computer vision to identify abnormal driver behaviour (speed, gap, load) and inform driver and authorities. - Improving drivers knowledge and behaviour - Increased automation and traffic control for safety/efficiency - Innovative measures for safe and sustainable infrastructure A number of technologies will be developed and integrated into the holistic system like a thermal imaging tool to detect dangerous heavy goods vehicles, a new weigh-in-motion sensor which can detect critical tyres as well as overloaded. The main theme is the integration of different information from different sources into a comprehensive system and the communication of the relevant information to where they are needed. Several application areas will be developed with concrete deliverables such as a safety station, crisis and dangerous goods management and an infrastructure life cycle optimisation system. Systems will be tested at a number of sites in different parts of Europe and results disseminated through seminars, workshops and demonstrations. The consortium involves 7 universities, 3 research institutes, 1 industrial company, 1 end user administration and has 7 SME’s to exploit the outputs commercially.