A new report is boosting the public’s awareness of the potential for 5G to facilitate driverless vehicle take up, predicting that connectivity will drastically reduce the number of road accidents

Glasgow Caledonian University researchers have published findings from a study saying 5G’s high-speed-low-delay nature will improve the reliability and capability of automated vehicles to the point where they will be safer than the manual cars being driven today.

Researcher Dr Dimitrios Liarokapis, said cars can “talk to each other and exchange safety-related information about their surroundings over an area that covers several square miles.

“With the help of 5G, a vehicle-generated early warning system that alerts drivers is feasible within the next few years. Cars that are close enough to the danger area will transmit warning messages to other cars around them using short range communication technologies, but also to cars further away using 5G, fast and reliably. Then those cars will send the same information to cars near them and so on, forming a joined up, multi-vehicle communication chain that stretches far and wide.

The study has been picked up by several mainstream media outlets, boosting public awareness of the technological solution.