Unity Helps With the Vodafone STEPS Project

The name Vodafone is generally associated with mainstream telecommunications, but the German arm of the company is also well known for its innovation and support for technical projects as a route into extended connectivity.  As part of this, Vodafone has made a significant advancement in transforming road safety throughout Europe with its Safer Transport for Europe Platform (STEP) driving simulator. Vodafone has partnered with Unity to create a real-time simulator with STEP, showcasing the platform’s capabilities dynamically and innovatively during the Mobile World Congress 2024.  In this article, we’ll look at the STEP programme and Unity’s role in helping develop it.

What Is STEP?

The STEP program is a Vodafone technical initiative designed to vastly improve road safety through the collection and analysis of traffic data in real time. By doing this, STEP aims to improve safety for everyone on the road, including drivers, walkers, cyclists, and different parts of the road infrastructure, by providing important safety alerts to encourage safer and easier travel. The STEP platform addresses the pressing issue of mobility data fragmentation by disseminating data and mobility insights across various traffic and transport sectors throughout Europe.

Using a bespoke system called V2X or Vehicle-to-Everything technology, which connects cars, pedestrians, bicycles, and other infrastructure components together, enabling STEP to deliver critical safety notifications that assist road users and operators in enhancing mobility safety, security, and accessibility. STEP functions as a safe and dependable communication conduit for V2X services utilising 5G, Edge Cloud, and public Cloud technologies.

Vodafone partnered with Unity to create a real-time simulator, showcasing the platform’s capabilities dynamically to industrial leaders. Vodafone sees STEP as being a leap forward in road safety and a means of delivering realistic training from a safe environment. 

How STEP Helps

It is widely acknowledged that the road system can be very hostile to all of its users. The road traffic environment is among the most unpredictable and dynamic systems, with many different users and vehicle types all trying to occupy the same space. Evaluating and demonstrating technologies like STEP in a secure, authentic, and regulated setting is a difficulty without incurring hazards on actual roadways. Prior to the simulator’s development, Vodafone used the STEP developer program to display events and messages; however, they were unable to replicate actual traffic or evaluate apps in a realistic setting.

Transport authorities are frequently constrained to disseminating safety updates through regular road infrastructure units, such as motorway gantries and variable-message signs, or through a restricted array of technologies created by independent businesses, like in-vehicle navigation systems. Supplying the information in this way does not guarantee that the users receive the message. STEP provides a resolution to these difficulties. 

STEP is a cloud-based platform that uses common industry standards to help different groups, like governments, transport authorities, car makers, mobility service providers, and mobile network operators, work together to improve road safety across Europe. STEP is engineered for compatibility with all mapping applications and in-vehicle navigation systems created by partner companies, providing users with complimentary access to the platform and its safety functionalities.

Vodafone wanted an effective method to showcase its unique road safety technologies at the Mobile World Congress, and required a solution with only two months remaining before the delivery deadline. This demand prompted the creation of the STEP Simulator, capable of dynamically replicating traffic scenarios while providing an immersive and informative experience on the exhibition floor. The simulator shows exactly how the real-time system will work.

Connection with Unity

Developing a complex system such as STEP required Vodafone to look for a suitable platform to support it. Following a detailed investigation, Vodafone identified Unity as the best software on which to base the simulator and set about engaging a professional team to develop the system.

In the preliminary stage, Vodafone aimed for STEP to enable the dissemination of safety notifications and specific updates from road operators regarding lane closures, speed limitations, and traffic incidents ahead through various in-vehicle systems and navigation applications. STEP could facilitate real-time modelling of the road network by utilising secure, anonymised, and aggregated vehicle position data. 

Vodafone now aims to enhance the platform’s safety features by incorporating detection alerts for vulnerable road users, such as notifying drivers of large vehicles about nearby cyclists or pedestrians that may be out of sight. Additionally, the platform will include fleet management, stolen vehicle tracking, and support for usage-based insurance.

Vinod Kumar, Chief Executive Officer of the Vodafone Business unit said: “This scaled platform enables the delivery of vital safety information to all road users, no matter what app or system they rely on. STEP encourages the collaboration needed between transport authorities, app developers and the automotive industry to unlock the full value of data and connectivity in helping make Europe’s roads safer.”

Vodafone’s successful testing of the UK’s inaugural ‘vehicle-to-everything’ road safety system serves as the foundation for the introduction of STEP. Experiments at Vodafone’s 5G Mobility Lab at the Aldenhoven Testing Centre in Germany have investigated how 5G technology and precise location tracking can enhance traffic safety.

Vodafone is now partnering with a range of automobile manufacturers, road operators, transport authorities, technology partners, and application developers on existing and prospective use cases for the platform.

The Unity software has made STEP a credible reality, and we at Unity Developers know how powerful this program is. If you have a Unity-based project that you would like help with, why not contact us and see how we can help you make it into a reality.