• Safety. Honda’s safety area will cover V2X communication for cars and motorcycles. Simulations of safety applications based on the European DRIVE C2X project can be experienced on the Honda cooperative car simulator and motorcycle simulator. The Honda stand also features a research project of a novel electronic rear-view system for motorcycles, augmented with advanced sensing technologies.

• Environment. The environment area displays news on Honda’s in-vehicle traffic congestion potential prediction system.

• Comfort. The comfort area will showcase the Honda Internavi LINC and HondaLink for real-time traffic updates and infotainment linked to a smart phone app in cars.

Driving Demo. Outside the congress, participants will be able to sign up to a driving tour to experience the benefits of ITS applications in traffic around Vienna. A Honda Insight will travel in a multi-brand convoy in which the cars can communicate their location and driving dynamics not only to each other but also to road-side ITS stations, allowing them to receive in-vehicle notifications, such as “green light optimal speed” and warning alerts, including:

• Broken-down vehicle ahead
• Road works ahead
• Hazardous location
• Traffic jam ahead
• Bad weather warning

The final safety application demonstration will show a warning when vehicles ahead put on their emergency brakes and a “motorcycle approaching” indicator, which warns both the car driver and the motorcyclist (on an ITS enabled Honda NC700X) that there is an obscured vehicle potentially approaching across their direction of travel.

Honda joined the Car2Car Communication Consortium in Europe in 2005, working in particular on the integration of the motorcycle into the future of connected vehicles. In 1999, Honda was the first automotive company to bring connectivity to both cars and motorcycles (with the ASV2, Advanced Safety Vehicle research project) to enhance both rider and driver safety. In 2008, Honda led the first demonstration in Europe of the motorcycle application on a Honda GL1800 Gold Wing, within the Car2Car Communication Consortium.

At this year’s demonstration, Honda has further developed the motorcycle warning system to enable it to function on more compact motorcycles, such as the NC700X.

Motorcycle Approaching Indication (MAI) Application. The “Motorcycle Approaching Indication” (abbreviated as MAI) is a safety application, which Honda has worked on as part of the joint Car2Car demonstration. According to the European Motorcycle Accidents In Depth Study (MAIDS), the majority of accidents involving motorcyclists are caused by the other vehicle not properly seeing the oncoming motorcycle. The motorcycle-to-car connectivity system provides timely warnings to the drivers of both vehicles.

The standardized data exchange message, which is sent between the networked vehicles, contains an identifier for motorcycles, so that the receiving vehicles are able to identify the oncoming vehicle as a motorcycle and they can then take the necessary precautions.

The most common accident configuration of intersection accident with vehicles on perpendicular paths (at T-junctions) was first demonstrated in 2008. The second most common configuration of left turn accidents was demonstrated at Odaiba area in Tokyo, Japan in 2010, whereby a vehicle turns left and cuts across the path of an oncoming motorcycle. A third accident configuration with vehicles coming from opposing directions is being demonstrated at this year’s joint Car2Car and TT Consortium Cooperative Mobility demonstration in Vienna.

Honda is a signatory of a Memorandum of Understanding with other vehicle manufacturers committed to making ITS technology a reality in the near future.