Audi, Navistar Working to Make Roads Safer for School Buses

Last summer, the Volkswagen Group absorbed Navistar, the old-line American commercial vehicles manufacturer, and folded it into Traton, a VW subsidiary that is now the world’s largest maker of trucks and buses. 

Now the VW Group is beginning to transfer bits of its sophisticated C-V2X technology to Navistar for use in emergency vehicles and school buses. C-V2X (cellular vehicle-to-everything) can help vehicles communicate with each other and offer 360 degrees of awareness, enhancing both road safety and autonomous driving. 

The collaboration allows for both companies to combine on the development of use cases and demonstration. The first deployments could begin this summer. 

In one of the projects, Audi and Navistar are working with Applied Information and Traffic Control of Reston, VA, on how to improve safety and driver information in school zones and school bus stops.

Connected-vehicle technology has the potential to prevent some of the roughly 25,000 school-zone injuries and 100 fatalities reported annually, according to a NHTSA study.

The technology under development will give school bus drivers a visual and audible warning signal of a vehicle that is approaching a school bus stop but may not be able to stop. The warning is designed to enable the school bus driver to advise passengers exiting the bus to stay on the bus or get on or off the bus only when it is safe to do so. 

Studies show stop-arm violations – in which a car illegally drives past a stopped school bus –  is one of the most significant dangers to children and other vulnerable road users around school buses. An estimated 17 million stop-arm violations were reported in the U.S. in 2019 (pictured, below).

School bus Stop arm (Getty)

In one Sacramento, CA, school district, over 300 vehicles drove past school bus stops while in the process of loading or unloading children.  

The additional warning provided by C-V2X technology would warn bus drivers and allow them to potentially avert accidents.  A driver in an approaching vehicle also would receive a warning signaling that a school bus is stopped ahead. 

The potential benefits of C-V2X also extend to emergency vehicles. 

Each year, 100 firefighters die and another 100,000 are injured in about 30,000 crashes. To improve safety for emergency vehicle operators and drivers, Audi and Navistar subsidiary International Truck, as well as technology partners Applied Information and Commsignia of Santa Cruz, CA, will demonstrate an expanded C-V2X application for emergency vehicles. 

When an emergency vehicle is on call, Audi vehicles equipped with the new software can receive an audible and visual warning from the direction from which an ambulance or other emergency vehicle is approaching.  

The warning is designed to allow ambulances and other emergency vehicles to navigate their way to a patient in need or a hospital for treatment faster. The directional warning is designed to help direct drivers to get out of the way sooner than in usual scenarios where the emergency vehicle is visible only when it is in their direct line of sight. 

A NHTSA study of ambulance crashes over a 20-year period estimates there are 1,500 injuries and 29 deaths due to ambulance crashes in an average year. 

The studies by the Audi-Navistar collaboration could foreshadow the level of connectivity required for automated driving, according to both companies.