Pets Safety in Smart Cities: The App that will Save Your Pet’s Life
Road traffic accidents are a significant issue in today’s world, occurring almost daily and putting both the driver and passengers at risk of severe injuries or death, in particular on urban roads. The risk of road collisions and accidents expands to include pets. With an increase in the number of vehicles, transportation networks, and now self-driving vehicles, collisions between pets and vehicles have become a concern for road safety agencies.
The number of animal-vehicle collisions is steadily increasing worldwide, where there is an extensive network of urban roads and on growing traffic. Animal-vehicle accidents are not recorded systematically by any organization worldwide. However, this has affected the conditions of the streets, especially towards pets. According to thepetstech.com in the U.S. alone, approximately 1.2 million dogs are killed on the road each year, and the number of dead cats on the streets in the U.S. every year is much higher at an approximate rate of 5.4 million.
The problem is that more and more people are travelling on urban roads, and study shows that up to 70% of the population will be moving towards Urban cities, which will make it exceedingly difficult for pets. Especially now, we will have self-driving vehicles, it will even be more challenging to consider the safety of pets. According to vets-now.com, there have been 1,407 cats that have died due to road traffic accident cases between December 2011 and February 2014.
Unfortunately, there is a lack of data collection towards pets and the incidence of pet-vehicle collisions, which are not recorded systematically by any particular organization. Therefore, with the lack of data, it would be a difficult challenge to develop safety measures as pets have unusual behaviour.
To add, smart cities are facing an issue with the lack of pedestrian data, as they have overlooked to some degree on the edges of pedestrians. It would be best also to collect data on pets because as the human population has grown, so too have the pet population, and with so many pets on the planet, it will only be strategic to collect their data.
To reduce the number of death towards pets worldwide, the importance of pet data collection will help address these concerns and better the living in smart cities, while also benefiting pet safety.
Dogs and cats are smart animals but were not originally designed to cope with traffic. Therefore, to save them from severe injuries or deaths, a software company, !important has created a unique technology to be placed around the pet’s neck.
The use of the tool will help save the lives of pets by collecting data on their location, which will send a two-way signal from the animal to the self-driving vehicles. The signal will work with P2X (pedestrian to everything) and P2V (pedestrian to vehicle ) solutions for the automotive industry. !important’s goal is to allow families household pets to cross safely, avoid road accidents, and eliminate the number of deaths caused by vehicles.
With the use of data collecting from the pets, it plays a significant role in road safety. It revolutionizes the safety of both humans and pets by allowing self-driving vehicles to travel around alert if a dog or cat were to cross the street during the day or at night.
Animal-vehicle collision is the beginning of a challenge that is yet to be addressed as it will help perfect the living in smart cities and send alerts to vehicles that will adapt to every single possible scenario that a dog or cat may perform.
Addressing, the concerns towards pets will add special significance and safety to our roads that will take the lead, as it will solve the issues for both the pet owner and pet. Organizations must take the step to collect data for the pets, as saving lives by the millions is a concern to our society.
