From next year, ISA will be mandatory for new cars in the EU
Next year Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) will become mandatory for all new cars within the EU. The new measure should reduce speeding within Europe. HERE Maps, the navigation map provider for major brands such as Mercedes, Hyundai, BMW, Volkswagen and Toyota, is therefore introducing ISA Maps. These maps contain extensive and detailed data on speed limits in Europe.
You would say that the navigation maps have been provided with all speed limits for a long time, but experience shows that the data here and there falls short. Even with brand new cars, it sometimes happens that the navigation system says that you can still 130 km/h on the A2 during the day. That has not been the case for a while, and can therefore cost you dearly. With HERE’s ISA Maps, all speed limits would be displayed correctly. Also the time dependent speeds.
Traffic sign detection in cars, which work with cameras, supplement the maps, for example at road works. Also, the maps are important for lower-end cars, which don’t have cameras to read road signs. The cheaper cars also meet the new requirements from the EU to indicate the maximum speed.
What about the EU’s ‘mandatory speed limiter’?
The original plan of the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) was to actually mandate speed limiters on all new cars. You wouldn’t be louder then can driving than is allowed. According to ETSC, systems that actively intervene could cause fatal accidents with be able to reduce by 20 percent. There would then be some extra resistance in the accelerator pedal at the bottom (as many cars already have) with which the driver could overrule the limiter for overtaking, for example.
The real Intelligent Speed Assistance is a bit milder
Many people and car manufacturers did not agree with these measures, which is why a milder variant was chosen. The final system gives an audible signal when the speed limit is exceeded, but there is no mandatory active limiter. According to the ETSC, drivers find this system ‘irritating’ and the council believes that drivers will switch off this system soon. The measure would then be ineffective, the ETSC admits.
The director of the ETSC was not happy with this outcome: ‘We are disappointed that car manufacturers are given the opportunity to install an unproven system that offers little safety benefit. We sincerely hope that automakers will go beyond the minimum specifications and take full advantage of the life-saving potential of speed assist technology.”
