Tag Archives: Cyclists

Buses Avoid Cyclists – Intelligently

New tech helps drivers avoid bikes by using audio alert

Carolyn Rice Technology reporter, BBC News

Cycle Eye was born out of the Bristol University innovation centre.

The unit is fitted to the outside of a bus on the driver’s left hand side. Using radar and camera sensors it identifies whether an object along side the vehicle is a cyclist and gives the driver an audio alert, typically “cyclist left”.

The team say technology like this is only used in the military. The system is different to others already on the market, they say, because the detection algorithm allows the device to differentiate between a cyclist and other objects on the side of the road such as lampposts, railings and other vehicles.

“We’ve developed a very intelligent system using radar and image processing. We can tell what objects are and the system can still identify cyclists in poor visibility and bad conditions,” says Mr Hutchinson, chief executive of Fusion Processing, the company which created Cycle Eye.

The device was involved in a trial by Transport for London and over 3 days of testing had a 98.5% success rate at identifying cyclists.

The team hope that after another round of intensive trialling they will go in to production next year.

Kevin Clinton, head of road safety at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), said: “With technologies of this type, the key thing is to trial them to make sure they work reliably. It’s also important to make sure that they do not overload the driver with too many things to check and too many alerts to interpret.”

See the full story at www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25316837.