It will soon be possible to travel between Florence’s south and north on new smart motorways that stretch 26 kilometers on each route. Autostrade per l’Italia, its subsidiary Movyon, and the Volkswagen Group Italy worked together to create smart roads. Not surprisingly, the collaboration will allow testing to be started soon.
Along various lengths of road, Movyon installed a Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) communication system. The device can interface with moving automobiles to provide real-time traffic updates and notifications. It includes information on traffic incidents, backups, halted and moving traffic, slick road conditions, people on the road, roadblocks, construction, and the weather.
Not to mention that Smart Roads use cutting-edge connection technologies to connect vehicles to both the road infrastructure and to other vehicles on the same road segment. For example, the Wi-Fi wireless protocol-based Car2X technology, which has an 800-meter range, enables data transmission and inter-vehicle communication without using cellular networks. Sharing information between the vehicles and the road will surely improve the management of critical circumstances.
Movyon will expand the testing program to other routes in the country as well. According to Roberto Tomasi, CEO of Autostrade per l’Italia, the Intelligent Roads initiative will be implemented on Ligurian motorway portions for around 50 kilometers, followed by the Variante di Valico for 90 kilometers.
Movyon’s CEO, Lorenzo Rossi, claimed that the company would continue to develop open road solutions available to any auto manufacturer. Furthermore, he also said that the V2I communication system would improve traffic management and contribute to intelligent and safe transportation and new motorist services.
“Our goal is to continue to develop and make available on the road solutions capable of interoperably connecting with the on-board systems of any car maker, so as to make Italian roads ready for autonomous driving systems,” he added.
