A ground-breaking cycle safety technology currently being trialled on buses could soon find its way on to construction HGVs, says its inventor, Bristol-based engineering company Fusion Processing.
CycleEye is a small self-contained unit attached to the side of a vehicle that uses a combination of radar and camera sensors to identify the presence of cyclists on the vehicle’s inside against a background of road clutter such as lamp posts, railings and other vehicles or pedestrians.
When the threat to the cyclist is judged to be too high, the system gives an audible alert to the driver’s cab.
The technology was recently profiled on the BBC’s One Show and is currently undergoing trials, funded by the West of England local authorities, on three buses operated by First in Bristol.
In a preliminary trial in London the system achieved a 98.5% success rate in identifying cyclists and further trials on buses are being planned with Transport for London for later this summer.
If these prove successful, CycleEye will go into production with plans to apply the technology to heavy goods vehicles used in construction, said Tim Bainbridge, director of technology at Fusion Processing.
“Once we have proved it can work on buses we’re are confident we can apply it to HGVs too,” Bainbridge told CM. “HGVs are more irregular in shape than buses so we have to find a consistent way of fixing the unit to the sides of vehicles to allow the built-in camera to get an uninterrupted view down the side. We have had a lot of interest from HGV vehicle manufacturers and have already been in talks with operators of road haulage vehicles whose design is similar to buses.
“What you typically see on the market are passive systems, which can identify objects passing by vehicles but are unable to discriminate between them and distinguish a cyclist from a car or a pedestrian, for example.”
Tim Bainbridge, Fusion Processing
What makes CycleEye unique is its active detection system, which utilises an algorithm to detect a cyclist. “What you typically see on the market are passive systems, which can identify objects passing by vehicles but are unable to discriminate between them and distinguish a cyclist from a car or a pedestrian, for example,” said Bainbridge.
“Other systems just use cameras attached to a screen in the cab to enable the diver to see blindspots, however, these rely on the driver taking their eyes off the road to monitor the images, which the police advise against them. CycleEye is able to autonomously identify a cyclist entering a risk scenario and set off an alarm for the driver.”
The unit is also able to operate in all weather conditions, and at night.
More than 3,000 cyclists were seriously injured on British roads in 2012, the highest number for over a decade, according to the Department for Transport, when fatalities rose by 10% to 118.
Despite only accounting for only 4% of traffic, HGVs were involved in 53% of London cyclist deaths in the last four years, according to figures from British Cycling.
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