After the General Vehicle Safety Regulation (EU) 2019/2144 was passed, the Commission started taking steps to help the public authorities and the transport sector prepare for a more technologically advanced mobility. They aim to protect Europeans from traffic accidents, improve air quality, and ease climate change. They also aim to provide new mobility solutions that adapts to the changing times, and strengthen the competitiveness of the European Industry.
As of June 23, the EU has adopted the delegated act “Technical requirements and test procedure for approval of intelligent speed assistance (ISA)”. The act has already been sent to the European Parliament and Council to be reviewed for two months.
Starting this month, July 2022, it will be mandatory for new models/types of vehicles that will be introduced to the market to be equipped with Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA). From July 2024, it will be required that the ISA is installed in all new cars that will be sold, so it is still currently not a concern for the vehicle fleet that are already registered and in circulation before that date.
The ISA system
It is required that the ISA system to work with the driver ad not to restrict the possibility of the driver to act in any moment while driving. The driver will always be in control and can easily override the ISA system.
Car manufacturers are free to choose from the four options for systems feedback to the driver as per ISA regulation. These options are Cascaded acoustic warning, Cascaded vibrating warning, Haptic feedback through the acceleration pedal, and Speed control function.
The first two feedback options are simply warnings and don’t intervene with the driving. The first is an optic warning and if there’s no response from the driver, there is a delayed acoustic/vibrating warning. The warnings will also be short and will immediately stop so that it will not possibly annoy the driver.
The other feedback relies on the pedal restoring force. It will gently push the driver’s foot back up to alert the driver and also to help slow the vehicle down. Pushing the acceleration pedal slightly harder overrides the system. For the last option, the Speed control function automatically reduces the car’s speed but this also could easily overridden by pressing harder on the accelerator pedal.
The ISA rollout is a huge step towards improved road safety. It has a huge potential is greatly reducing road traffic injuries and fatalities. This is a great opportunity for car manufacturers to maximize the ISA’s potential in creating safer roads for everyone.
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