British Cities Explore M2M Solution to Save Bicyclists' Lives

A new startup is working with the cities of London and York in the U.K. to run a six-month test of its RFID tagging solution that is designed to help trucks and buses avoid collisions with hard-to-see bicycles.

Cycle Alert is a two-part M2M device, powered by RFID. On the bicycle is a transmitter and each truck and bus is equipped with several receivers all over the vehicle, each of which is ‘geotagged’ for position. Each bicycle tag transmits a unique ID number every second. If a bike gets close to a tagged vehicle, an alert goes off in the cab, telling the driver there’s a rider nearby and where he is in relation to the truck. Each night, the system transmits the driver’s data to the servers, where analysis can determine how many events there were, where they happened and why.

About 10,000 of the bicycle transmitters have been sold or given away to bicyclists in various promotions. Likewise, several trucking and bus companies have begun using the system. The bike tags are battery-powered, operate at about 2.4 GHz and are housed in an ABS-PC industrial thermoplastic case about an inch around. The trucks carry a battery-powered reader that is also another 2.4 GHz RFID tag so that it can make the nightly transmission.

Depending on how the tests go, the municipalities will decide whether to move ahead.