Toyota City, Japan, November 29, 2017
Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) has announced that it will roll out its second generation Toyota Safety Sense in 2018, a package that includes a pre-collision system (PCA), lane departure alert (LDA) and automatic high beam (AHB). The purpose of this package is to reduce accidents guided by the concept of supporting drivers under the assumption that they will drive safely, and at the same time, mitigating damage should an accident occur.
The second-generation Toyota Safety Sense being rolled out in 2018 will continue to utilise the single-lens camera and millimetre-wave radar currently used in the Toyota Safety Sense from its initial roll-out in 2015. It will be further enhanced as it will be able to expand the scope of hazard detection, and improve functionality through improvements to the performance of the camera and radar. It will also utilise advanced driving support feature lane tracing assist (LTA). To improve installation, the size of the unit has also been reduced
Hazard detection is improved by adding night-time pedestrians and cyclists to the scope of hazards detected by PCS. The current system is unable to detect nighttime pedestrians and cyclists. Adding these to the scope further broadens protection from causes of severe accidents.
The system also has a road sign assist (RSA) feature where key road signs are read by the camera and displayed in the instrument panel. This feature supports even safer driving by helping to reduce the possibility of overlooking speed limits and traffic rules, such as stop signs, no entry signs, and no overtaking signs.
The LTA has been newly adopted to achieve such aims as easing driver burden and improving convenience. It keeps the vehicle in the center of a lane by assisting the driver in steering control when using dynamic radar cruise control. LTA also comes with LDA with the ability to recognise shoulders on straight roads without white lane markings, it gives alerts when deviating off roads, and assists in regaining track.
The second-generation Toyota Safety Sense will be progressively rolled out mainly in Japan, North America, and Europe, commencing with new models being launched at the start of 2018. Toyota is looking into rolling it out in other regions once confirming the usage environment in each region.
The roll-out (either as a standard or optional configuration) of the first-generation Toyota Safety Sense in almost all passenger cars in Japan, North America, and Europe has recently been completed. Already, a total of five million vehicles worldwide are fitted with Toyota Safety Sense. In actual traffic conditions, effects of accident reduction can be seen, such as an approximately 50 per cent reduction in rear-end collisions and approximately 90 per cent in combination with the intelligent clearance sonar (ICS).