Despite increasing use of bicycles, the safety of cyclists remains fragile and the number of road deaths is increasing. A box connected to 5G could make it possible to limit this sad trend by communicating with cars via the Internet of Things.
According to a study conducted by Vélo et territories, the use of bicycles increased by 28% in France in 2022, in particular thanks to the electric bicycle. At the same time, the dimensions of cars are increasing and the danger they represent for cyclists too. This combination results in an increase in the number of cyclists killed on the roads. According to road safety figures, 242 cyclists died in 2022 in France, an increase of 29% compared to 2019.
A small box could help limit this tendency. Strangely at WMC 2023, the operator T-Mobile was not only highlighting its communication solutions but also a superb bike. The company was not promoting the Tour de France but rather a safety box for cyclists developed by the American firm Spoke Safety. The prototype presented, the size of a large GPS meter, is placed under the saddle and connects the bike to the Internet of Things.
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Connected cars have already incorporated this type of box for a few years and Spoke is working in partnership with Qualcomm to adapt this system to bicycles, motorcycles and scooters. In a LinkedIn post, the company says it wants “to provide a reliable and robust connected system that offers direct and secure communication for context awareness and alerts between drivers and cyclists, thereby improving the safety of vulnerable road users. »
A bike box powered by 5G
Spoke’s box will come in several models that will work using the Cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) protocol, a technology that is part of 5G clumsily translated into “Cellular vehicle for all uses” in French. This technology should notably allow the culmination of the autonomous car. It is vital to the Internet of Things in terms of mobility.
Read: 5G deployment: Free Mobile deploys more sites than Orange, SFR and Bouygues in 2023
Spoke boxes can be integrated directly by equipment manufacturers into connected bikes. The company would already work with brands BMC and Trek. They will be available to consumers post-market, scheduled for 2024 at prices between $200 and $550. In addition to night lights or the yellow vest, this equipment could become a must for road safety on a bicycle.
However, you will have to wait for the 5G network to become denser to allow the use of these boxes and hope that other electrosensitive devices do not interfere with the mobile network in your city. Indeed, if the 5G network is fully functional in metropolitan areas, it is still far from being so in the countryside or in smaller towns.
Source : 01net
