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Mercabarna, Source: Generalitat de Catalunya

Barcelona’s wholesale food market was the testing ground for a road safety system

Barcelona’s wholesale food market was the testing ground for a road safety system

Mercabarna is the place where traffic collision prevention becomes reality

Mercabarna is the name of the wholesale market for foodstuffs in Barcelona. Located strategically in the Zona Franca of the city, near the Port and Airport, it is one of the largest supply venues of its kind in all of Europe.

Every day, some 14 000 vehicles circulate its premises. That is why it comes as no surprise that earlier today it was also chosen as the place where a pilot test for the application of a traffic collision alert system was to be tested out, and as the Catalonian Government’s official website reported - successfully so.

A pilot project which shows the benefits of 5G networks

The pilot alert system includes navigation components that were installed in a forklift and in a bicycle. The testing itself concerned the communication capacity of said devices, both of which were connected to the 5G network.

The results concluded that sending and receiving data and messages through this network showed a much-reduced latency, that is delay, in the transmission speed. The two vehicles were also equipped with another device which combines geolocation positioning with inertial autonomous systems that measure acceleration, rotation and distance measurements.

When the overall system calculated and detected approaching risk of collision based on speed and trajectory it sent a warning signal to notify one of the two vehicles of the impending hazard.

One of the officials present at the demonstration was the Catalonian Minister of Digital Policies, Jordi Puigneró. He commented that "what we present today is a pilot that allows us to anticipate the impact of 5G technology in different areas of our society while contributing to the boost of a new value-added technology industry”.

"It is also the starting point of an alliance between Mercabarna and the Department of Digital Policies to add synergies in the promotion of advanced digital technologies and accelerate the digital transformation of this strategic infrastructure (Mercabarna) for to the Catalan economy and society”, he concluded.

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