By Sergio Barata, General Manager EMEA at Telogis

Samsung has been developing an idea that could make a big difference to fleet and road safety. The Korean tech giant recently blogged about its new ‘Safety Truck’ which uses four screens attached to the back of a trailer to display the view in front to vehicles behind. Samsung says this is to help traffic behind large vehicles make informed decisions about overtaking, sudden braking or even animals on the road.

Supported by Volvo, it's at prototype stage with trials taking place in Argentina, a country where head-on collisions caused by overtaking is one of the biggest contributors to road deaths. But prototype or not, it’s a concept that has the safety of all road users at its core – which means there is every chance we will see this kind of innovation come to UK roads soon.

This is undoubtedly forward-thinking from Samsung, but it’s actually just the tip of the iceberg in terms of tech innovations designed to advance road and fleet safety. So how else is tech being used to make roads and fleets safer?

Telematics is one tech solution that is playing an increasing role in fleet safety, with platforms that now analyse a driver’s style and provide feedback to both managers and drivers in real time. This helps correct the likes of harsh acceleration and braking in real-time, before they become a safety issue.

But telematics has come so far from its early days of smart navigation that this kind of driver analysis is standard in good platforms; beyond this there is some real innovation.

For example, there is a strong ‘gamification’ element, in which an application presents key safety information in the form of a scoreboard and ranks driver performance based on safety compared to others, encouraging them to improve performance in a positive way. Using their driving record to calculate a score, they are positioned in comparison with other drivers on the team. As their driving improves, so does their position on the leaderboard.

This is a case of telematics helping fleet managers to inspire mobile workers to drive safely using positive reinforcement, friendly competition and team spirit on a connected platform. But aside from telematics, what else is out there?

There is rapid development with driverless vehicles, made all the more apparent by the type of companies investing and making moves in the market: Google, Ford and Bosch, supported by research at institutions such as MIT. The thinking is that smart technologies can operate cars safer and more efficiently than people. This is because, ultimately, most accidents happen because of human error. Computers don’t get bored, won’t be distracted or take their eyes off the road.

On a practical level, the plan is for driverless vehicles to communicate with the cloud to identify the location of accidents or road congestion ahead, and then automatically re-route. Or it could talk to traffic lights wirelessly and control acceleration and speed to safely navigate roads and hit a green light every time.

Driverless fleets are a little while off, but Google’s driverless cars are already used in California and Microsoft has sold its map-generating technology to Uber to support development of a self-driving car. Although led by the consumer space, it is only a matter of time before we see driverless fleets platooning along UK motorways.

These are only three particularly noteworthy examples of tech helping reduce incidents on the roads. But there are hundreds of other innovations going on globally to help secure fleets.

The ‘connected’ fleet is becoming a reality – vehicles fitted with in-built internet access enabling fleets to connect with other drivers on the road, communicate via social networks, and share road and safety information.  This includes Vehicle-to-Infrastructure, which allows vehicles to communicate not just with each other but with things like loading bay availability and traffic light information. And voice control, touch based technology and camera tracking of user motions is being advanced, meaning drivers may be able to control a vehicle with a move of the hand or a few words.

The automotive world is a hive of activity, researching, developing and implementing ideas that will make significant strides in putting tech at the heart of fleet and road safety. Samsung is just the latest example of innovation that is set to continue to change the face of our roads.