For mobility and infrastructure planner it is a challenging task to maximize the safety of vulnerable road users.
The newest generation of microwave sensors from Icoms Detections can prove as the game-changing technology that makes it easier to protect susceptible road users from the risks they face at intersections.While elaborating the risk faced by vulnerable road users Cécile Bauvin, Account Manager at Icoms Detections S.A. says “Vulnerable road users are defined as anything smaller than a motorcycle — cyclists, users of electric scooters, and in particular pedestrians — and, in the past, they have tended to be lumped together as a single homogeneous group.
Often they have been provided with shared carriageway space.”Size matters when there is conflict between road users, since size and relative mass matter greatly.
For instance a small car equipped with most modern features is at greater risk if it unfortunately faces collision with a larger vehicle; similarly a pedestrian is likely to suffer the most in a collision with a bicycle.
There have been numerous cases of negligent cyclists proving fatal to life of pedestrians in collisions.Furthermore Cécile Bauvin states “The ability to better sub-divide and classify travellers according to mode — and, in particular, speed — helps to improve safety and increase efficiencies.
Both mass transit and vulnerable road users can be given the leeways and capacities they need to make travel and infrastructure perform better in all respects.”Icoms Detections, part of the IRD group, is a specialist in above-ground sensor technology for urban applications.