Peachtree Corners, one of the nation’s first smart cities powered by real-world connected infrastructure and 5G, launched a collaboration with Spoke, a company that aims to transform roadway safety and rider connectivity, by delivering the first ever connected IoT ecosystem for vulnerable road users (VRUs). This technology provides insight and contextual awareness to drivers by connecting VRUs to the mobility ecosystem around them, ensuring VRUs are seen and protected. This partnership allows Spoke to continue testing and developing their VRU2X technologies using Curiosity Lab’s living smart city ecosystem where real drivers, pedestrians and autonomous vehicles use the public roadways each day.
Spoke’s VRU2X system leverages three levels of connectivity within the mobility system. This includes C-V2X to provide direct and immediate communication between cars and VRUs, LTE/5G cellular communications for advanced contextual awareness alerts between cars and VRUs and camera/radar system for vehicle identification and visualization. Leveraging these layers of connectivity, Spoke’s technology ensures VRUs, including pedestrians, cyclists and more, are identifiable by vehicles and that VRUs are aware of vehicles before the naked eye can detect them. Spoke also works closely with premium automaker Audi in conducting C-V2X initial deployments to develop solutions around bicycle-to-vehicle use cases.
“The technology we have created is a culmination of our passion for cycling, our own experiences feeling unsafe or being injured as a VRU and our vision of making roadways safer for all,” said Spoke Chief Strategy and Operation Officer Reid Sigety. “With our partner Qualcomm, we have reimagined the form factor for C-V2X technology, making this solution small enough to fit on a bike without disturbing the biker or impacting the performance. Dedicated hardware provides additional safety benefits that help reduce crashing and incident-related congestion while providing high location accuracy with an anonymous connection 10 times per second. Partnering with Curiosity Lab not only allows us to continue to improve and develop our solutions further, but also gives us a space to see how these solutions will improve in real-world scenarios. We are excited to further test and refine this technology with our partners at Peachtree Corners and to continue to improve our solutions with the goal of saving lives across the country.”
The partnership will allow Spoke to continue to test their C-V2X and VRU2X technology within certain Peachtree Corners municipal vehicles and will be used by select Peachtree Corners road workers to improve safety while working along public roads. This will be done using Commsignia’s C-V2X central system, which will be measuring the effectiveness of these solutions. In addition, Spoke will integrate its technologies into Curiosity Lab’s existing infrastructure for further testing with the goals of developing new standards for C-V2X messaging, helping grow the city’s C-V2X ecosystem and collaborating to build LTE and HMI use cases to expand VRU2X messaging.
“As a City Manager, safety for our residents, cyclists and pedestrians is a top priority,” said Peachtree Corners City Manager Brian Johnson. “Each year nearly 1,000 bicyclists are killed and over 130,000 are injured in crashes or incidents on public roadways in the United States. Spoke’s technology is the first C-V2X implementation made for pedestrians, cyclists and other VRUs to use while along public roadways. With this in mind, making the decision to partner with Spoke and test these technologies in our city was an easy one. This month the city will be hosting our first-ever Curiosity Lab Criterium, where we will be showcasing and demonstrating Spoke’s technology alongside Audi. This criterium is more than a bike race – it is the City of Peachtree Corners highlighting the importance of VRU and cyclist safety along public streets. We are honored and thrilled to be partnered with Spoke and to be bringing attention to important safety issues to make our residents’ lives safer each day.”
Spoke’s VRU2X technology will be featured at City of Peachtree Corners’ Curiosity Lab Criterium on April 26 where professional cyclists will race with the C-V2X units. Audi will have a vehicle at the event to demonstrate how the technology works with Spoke technology.