In a short informational film the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) advocates the use of Intelligent Speed Assistance, or ISA. ETSC is of the opinion that ISA should be one of the standard instruments in new cars.
‘Much research has been done into the effects of ISA’, says SWOV Managing Director Peter van der Knaap, ‘both in the Netherlands and in other countries. All these studies indicate that when ISA is used, the average driving speed goes down with 2 to 7 km/h, the speed differences between vehicles decrease and that speeding is less frequent. These effects will have a positive effect on road safety.’
Advisory or intervening: what does the customer prefer?
Various types of ISA have been developed, ranging from purely advisory systems to much more compelling systems. The more intervening and the more forceful the system is, the fewer car drivers want the system in their vehicle. Van der Knaap: ’But we also know that the ‘stricter’ systems have the greatest safety gains: if we communicate this argument convincingly, we can work towards creating more support for intervening ISA, especially in residential areas’.
For a long time it seemed as if ISA was to remain an effective road safety measure that was not applied on a large scale anywhere: the customer was just not interested. “I am hopeful that it will succeed in the end. Adaptive cruise control, sensors that 'see' cyclists and pedestrians and brake for them, emergency brake assist, and even autopilot functions on more expensive models: we are increasingly accustomed to supporting techniques in our car. I expect it won’t be long until an ISA system is a standard feature in cars. Much is done to this effect at the European level. The next step is that ISA is also included in the EuroNCAP standards.“
