HERE is teaming up with Slovenia to create safer roads through apps

Slovenia’s roadway operator DARS and HERE will usher in a new standard of safety for the highways and motorways of the region. New scalable capabilities and cloud services will provide drivers with critical alerts about hazards and conditions on the roads ahead of them.

Central to Austria, Hungary, Croatia and Italy; Slovenia has more than 800 kilometers of roads that are traveled daily by both local and international drivers. Slovenia’s motorway company, DARS oversees the measures that provide drivers with traffic information, and improve road safety.

One of the key strategic advantages HERE brings to this exciting partnership is the ability to build new functionality into DARS’ existing smartphone app, DARSTraffic+. Rather than changing apps and starting from scratch, tens of thousands of existing app users will receive the new services and features via a future update to the app they’re already using.

The updated app will connect drivers with the HERE Open Location Platform (OLP). This solution will provide drivers with localized alerts about hazardous events or conditions such as slowed vehicles in the road, traffic congestion, road maintenance, or adverse weather conditions. In addition, shifting road and traffic conditions will be reported to DARS’ Traffic Information Center, enabling quick action to be taken when needed.

The technology that HERE uses to bring this hyper-local awareness to drivers will scale as we move into the future. Smart vehicles with advanced sensors will have the capability to communicate traffic information directly with each other, as well as report to a cloud network. Once road condition updates are sent to the cloud, that info can be distributed cross platform, informing other car systems directly, Slovenia’s traffic management center, and other smartphone app users. The HERE Open Location Platform already has the architecture needed to support this approach.

Cooperative Intelligent Transportation Systems, or C-ITS, is an initiative supported by the European Commission to oversee growth of intelligent systems that provide connected, mobile solutions for drivers across Europe. The objective of the initiative is to create safety and traffic efficiency, and is a vital part of integrating highly assisted driving and future autonomous vehicles.

The project provides a cost-efficient way of delivering real-time safety-critical information to drivers. It requires no major investments, but instead takes advantage of modern location technology and Slovenia’s excellent mobile network infrastructure. We believe that C-ITS initiatives like this will be vital for Europe’s transport infrastructure as they rely on existing communication networks and proven technologies, that work across borders, and which are easy for people to use.