Co-operative driving apps

More than 3.8 billion tonne-kilometres of freight is moved through Europe annually and this is increasing year-on-year (Eurostat 2012), with road transport having a market share of more than 75%.
In the Netherlands, road congestion costs the economy around €1 billion every year. Innovative in-vehicle solutions could help make better use of the existing road capacity by optimising traffic flows, solving congestion problems, improving safety and reducing environmental impact.

Beter Bereikbaar Zuidoost-Brabant (BBZOB), a project organisation of 24 local and regional authorities, and Mobycon, a research consultancy, trialled a combination of three existing online
driving apps (ZOOF, Smoover and BlikR) for smartphones in the Netherlands to help improve road safety and traffic movement. The apps were downloaded by 2,600 separate users and were trialled by approximately 130 car and truck drivers every day between September and December 2014 on the A67 motorway, which connects Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. A major transport bottleneck, the A67 is one of the busiest motorways in North West Europe (NWE), with freight movement representing up to 40% of the motorway’s traffic.