Overview
The project was in response to the need for video documentaries in the i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative. The project directly addressed the ICT Work Programme Challenge 6: ICT for Mobility, Environmental Sustainability and Energy Efficiency in terms of the goals of achieving a 50% reduction in road fatalities by 2010 and strengthening the competitiveness and technological leadership of Europe's automotive and supplier industries on the world market.
The Smartest Cars Video Project set out to produce a high quality video documentary to raise public awareness of eSafety systems via mass media broadcasting.
Smartest Cars is engaging, entertaining, and educational for the everyday TV viewer. It was intended to be shown on the major television channels throughout Europe. The project budget supported 180 minutes of video content, organised into several episodes.
The documentary was based on consultation with the vehicle industry. The industry was workd with to film the latest (non-proprietary) smart-car technology in action, as well as interview industry professionals. The experiences and perceptions of end users played a major role. The documentary avoided favouritism towards any particular company as well as the promotion of any particular product. A specific project task focused on making arrangements with major broadcasters in Europe for airing the video programme. Smartest Cars was also shown to selected live audiences. A companion website with more information and extended video clips available for on-line viewing has been created. The project also liased with relevant eSafety Forums and ICT for Mobility projects.
The project coordinator H3B Media is the production company for Smartest Cars. The H3B team includes experts in ITS media, intelligent vehicles, and documentary film making. Administrative support was provided by Irion Management Consulting. Specific video production services were acquired via subcontracting.
Funding
Results
The Smartest Cars Video Project (SCVP) produced a high quality one-hour TV programme intended for broadcast throughout Europe. The intent of SCVP was to raise public awareness about the dangers on the road and the greater safety offered by active safety systems, including electronic stability control, forward collision mitigation, lane departure prevention, eCall, and others. SCVP aims to educate viewers about these systems so that they will consider asking for active safety in their next car purchase.
Innovation aspects
SCVP has proved that it is possible for project funded by the European Commission to successfully interact with the automotive industry and other eSafety stakeholders and produce a television programme suitable for broadcast to the general public.
The project has successfully achieved a balance between the needs and priorities of the Automotive industry and the European Commission in the promotion of eSafety issues and solutions, in the context of broadcast industry requirements and constraints. Given the success with broadcasting the documentary to hundreds of thousands of European citizens, the project has demonstrated the effectiveness of using a TV programme format as an effective way to reach the public in a way that is engaging and memorable and has a good potential to motivate them to seriously consider purchasing eSafety systems.
Making a TV documentary at a cost of approximately one million euro can be seen as a very cost-effective method of ensuring the results of the billions of Euros invested by the European Commission and industry in eSafety research and development are seen by and promoted to as a wide an audience as possible.
Finally, the SCVP project has provided a powerful tool in the programme to enable the European Commission and the wider eSafety Community to move forward in the process of increasing the market uptake of ADAS.
Strategy targets
An efficient and integrated mobility system: Integrated mobility system: Acting on transport safety: saving thousands of lives