What is Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V)?
Part of the wider Vehicle to Everything (V2X)
initiative, V2V communications are designed to allow your vehicle to
communicate directly with other vehicles on the road around it. Sharing data such as speed, location and direction,
they help build a picture of who and what is on the road, so your car’s safety systems can warn you of dangers
before you can see them. This in turn, prevents you having accidents, and makes the road a safer place for all
users.
V2V is an essential part of the intelligent
transport initiative, enabling an ‘early warning’ for dangerous
situations so that transport becomes a safer, more efficient process for all road users.
What Does V2V Mean?
V2V stands for vehicle-to-Vehicle, the technology which enables your vehicle to communicate directly with another.
It is an essential technology to allow for the development of smart cities and part of the intelligent
vehicles program, both designed to make your time on the road travel safer and easier, with fewer accidents and less
traffic jams.
How Does V2V Communication Work?
The system uses a variety of wireless communications platforms that allow your V2V equipped vehicle to continuously
shares relevant data with all other V2V equipped vehicles around it. This means that your vehicle can detect the
movements of other vehicles even if you are in a situation where poor visibility prevents you from physically seeing
them, so collision avoidance can work for you to make travel safer.
The V2V system uses the core principles of vehicle
telematics to achieve this, using the advanced sensors and
wireless communications technologies that telematics is built on to identify potential risks and allow your
vehicle’s safety systems to take avoidance action to prevent collisions and other accidents.
Here is an example of that in practice:
Technology
Scenario
Communication
Outcome
V2V
You are in car A, and you have to brake hard to avoid an animal in the road at night.
Car B is following you, and it knows you are slowing down even before the brake lights are visible to
car B’s driver, thanks to V2V communications.
Car B now has enough time to slow down safely, saving you from an accident.
V2V
You are driving car C on the highway, and need to change lanes, you check the other lane is clear, but
cannot see car D, which is in your blind spot.
With V2V, it doesn’t matter than you can’t see the other vehicle. Card D sends a signal warning your car
where it is and you will collide with it if you move into that lane.
You can then delay your move into the other lane is clear, avoiding a collision even though you still
hadn’t actually seen car D yourself.
With V2V you can be more aware of what is around you and avoid accidents that you might have no way of stopping any
other way.
What is Included in V2V Technology?
V2V functions through a number of different processes which work in the background to keep you safe. These include
real-time location sharing that gives you the ability to maintain safe distances from other vehicles, even ones you
cannot see. Another feature is collision warnings, which alert you to any imminent danger, so you can take action in
time to avoid accidents. This data also allows for traffic flow optimization, as vehicles adjust speeds together to
prevent congestion problems.
It is these features as a whole that make V2V essential for new initiatives such as smart cities, where every
element of urban smart mobility communicates to
optimize efficiency and safety.
Pros and Cons of V2V
Pros
Increased Safety — V2V tells your vehicle where all others around it are, their speed
and direction, and do the same for them about you. That means less chances of collisions, keeping
the roads, and you, safer.
Efficient Traffic Management — As vehicles all know each other’s speeds and directions,
there are less traffic jams for you to get stuck in.
Autonomous Vehicles — One of the key things for autonomous vehicles is that they
understand the environment around them. If your car tells it where you are, then there is less
chance of it hitting you.
Cons
Extremely Costly — V2V requires both road infrastructure and on-board equipment for
your vehicle, which makes it an expensive system to implement.
Standardization — For widespread adoption V2V systems must be compatible with all makes
and models of vehicles and roadside infrastructure itself, and use computable standards across
diverse locations, all of which present significant challenges.
Privacy and Security Concerns — With the transmission of data between your vehicle and
others comes concerns about vulnerabilities and how that data may be used.
Conclusion
V2V is an important technology that opens the door to connected cars and intelligent vehicles. The
ability for your
car to know where other road users are means safer roads and smoother traffic flows, making your driving experience
more enjoyable too. By helping bring ideas such as smart cities and vehicle telematics to life, V2V has the
potential to transform the transport experience for us all.
While costs and data privacy are very real concerns, V2V and the benefits it brings to your daily travel, mean that
it represents the future of safe transportation for everyone, ad will reshape our urban environments as a result.
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