Having deployed early versions of its technology on highways in Israel, the UK and USA, Anglo-Israeli data and traffic management platform developer Valerann will be launching its Smart Roads Platform at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2020) in Las Vegas.
Working in conjunction with Valerann’s Internet of Things (IoT) multi sensors, it will provide high resolution, real-time data about traffic conditions including predicting the potential for accidents and congestion. By communicating this information to drivers, mobility apps and connected vehicles, Valerann’s Smart Roads Platform will help to make journeys, safer, more efficient, while bringing new technology to roads and helping to future proof infrastructure. The Smart Roads Platform has just been honoured in the CES 2020 Best of Innovation Awards, with Valerann showcasing its technology in the Great Britain & Northern Ireland Pavilion, at CES, from January 7-10.
The company’s solar-powered wireless IoT sensors are integrated into roads forming a network that gathers and shares real-time data with the Valerann cloud, which in-turn uses machine learning algorithms to transform the data into real-time analysis. The network tracks the exact driving patterns and location of each vehicle on the road providing alerts, such as merging vehicles, risk factors and navigation recommendations with lane-by-lane traffic updates, directly to drivers. In the case of self-driving vehicles, the system will provide resources such as exact in-lane location, detection of out-of-sight risks, and enable connection to non-connected vehicles. At CES, Valerann will be demonstrating a user interface of its ‘Cloud Control Centre’ app, an interactive dashboard that will provide easy to read data and insights with a filtered urgency level to the driver about their current road conditions, enabling them to make faster, more informed and effective responses.
Founded in August 2016, Valerann unveiled its Proof of Concept (POC) and first prototype in December that year. Having received assistance from the UK’s Intelligent Mobility Accelerator program, the company made its first Smart Roads installation on Israel’s Ayalon Highway in April 2018. This was followed in July by a deployment on the I-95 near Washington DC in the USA together with road operator Transurban. October 2018 saw the first deployment of the Smart Roads system in the UK, with the technology trialled on the M1 motorway. This led to a strategic partnership with Highways England (HE) in July 2019, and participation in the UK’s ConVEx vehicle-to-everything (V2X) research project with consortium members Bosch, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), Transport for West Midlands (TfWM), and the WMG at Warwick University.
“There’s been a great deal of hype around driverless cars and the focus has been on building in-vehicle technologies with the belief that the car could operate itself without input from its surroundings. That view is now changing,” said Shahar Bahiri, Valerann’s founder and chairman. “There’s a real need for new sources of data and a holistic eco-system of technologies that will work together to make our roads safer. And that’s the beauty of Smart Roads, as our solution will reduce risk, improve the customer journey, and bring technology to an infrastructure which has remained almost unchanged since the 1970s.”
