New technology to help prevent auto accidents

With the goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and injuries, a new communicating radar cruise control (CRCC) feature allows preceding and following vehicles to maintain safe distance between one another on highways.
The feature is an innovative technology for safe driving designed by Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC), which is gearing up to launch a newly-developed set of active safety technologies designed to help prevent or mitigate collisions across a wide range of vehicle speeds.
“These technologies will be offered in the form of two Toyota Safety Sense packages, to be launched in 2015 and rolled out across most passenger models and grades in Japan, North America and Europe by the end of 2017,” Moritaka Yoshida, chief safety technology officer at Toyota, said.
Toward its vision of zero traffic casualties, Toyota is engaging in activities in three areas — safe vehicle development, creation of safe traffic environments, and driver and pedestrian awareness.
He said the two packages will be available depending on vehicle type — a “C” package for compact cars and a “P” package for mid-sized and high-end cars.
Toyota Safety Sense C integrates several of Toyota’s existing active safety technologies. The pre-collision system (PCS) helps prevent and mitigate collisions, lane departure alert (LDA) helps prevent vehicles from departing from their lanes, and automatic high beam (AHB) helps ensure optimal forward visibility during night time driving.
As part of a multi-faceted approach to active safety, Toyota Safety Sense packages combine laser radar (C package) or millimeter-wave radar (P package) with a camera, achieving high reliability and performance.
Toyota believes that the ultimate goal of a society that values mobility is to eliminate traffic fatalities and injuries.
However, Yoshida emphasized that the Toyota technology has to be compatible with the traffic infrastructure of the country before it can be sold in a market.
Yoshida is optimistic the technology would be unveiled in the Middle East at the “right time.” He said: “We fully appreciate that people in the Middle East love the latest technology.”
Toyota’s newly-developed communicating radar cruise control (CRCC) feature allows preceding and following vehicles to maintain safe distance between one another on highways.
The CRCC uses Toyota’s existing forward-facing millimeter-wave radar to detect inter-vehicular distances and relative speeds. The addition of acceleration and deceleration information from preceding vehicles significantly enhances tracking performance. In addition to making highway driving safer, this helps reduce traffic congestion and enables more fuel-efficient driving.
From the perspective that the driver plays the leading role in driving safety, the pre-collision system alerts the driver as soon as there is the possibility of a collision. When the driver applies the brakes after hearing a warning, the system’s Brake Assist function activates to support the driver. If the driver does not apply the brakes, braking is done automatically to help avoid a collision. Toyota is also developing a system to help avoid collisions with pedestrians.
“Safety is very important to us…. Since its foundation, Toyota’s corporate philosophy has always emphasized contributing to society through automotive manufacture,” Koji Nagata, general manager, Middle East and Southwest Asia division of Toyota, said.
Nagata said the Middle East is Toyota’s very important market. “Toyota started exporting vehicles to the region 60 years ago. And we are proud and very, very thankful to have earned the trust of your people and their ever increasing support and patronage,” he added.
“We are working hard to respond to new regulations emerging in Saudi Arabia mandating stricter standards of fuel economy and in the GCC countries safety regulation,” he said, adding: “As I said, for us, the customer must always come first.”
He added: “We are strengthening our public relations organization to better communicate our efforts to be Number One in customer satisfaction. Our head office PR division here in Japan works closely with the Middle East division and our representative office MENARO in Dubai.”
Takayuki Yoshitsugu, chief representative, the Middle East and North Africa office of Toyota, Dubai said the guiding principles at Toyota also reflect the kind of company that Toyota seeks to be.
“The Toyota Way clarifies the values and business methods that all employees should embrace in order to carry out the guiding principles at Toyota throughout the company’s global activities,” he said.
“The Toyota Way is supported by two main pillars — continuous improvement and respect for people,” he said.
Yoshitsugu said Toyota has 16 production sites in Japan, which manufacture a wide variety of spare parts and vehicles from both Toyota and Lexus brands. The Takaoka Plant manufactures models like the Corolla and Prius. It was established in September 1966 and produces around 176,000 vehicles annually.
The Tahara plant manufactures LS, GS, IS, GX, Land Cruiser and engines. This plant which was established in January 1979 has a production capacity of around 368,000 vehicles.
In recent years, the ways customer use their vehicles have become more diverse, and vehicles technology has advanced rapidly in order to keep pace with customers’ ever changing needs. With that in mind Toyota has established the Tajimi Service Center to improve facilities and service capacity. The objective is to enhance four key functions — human resource development, technical service development, provision of technical service information and repair support.