It is estimated that there are more than 3.5 million truckers on the road in the US. The trucking industry is expected to grow 21% within the next ten years, which means there will be even more trucks on the road. Next to trains, trucks dominate the commercial transportation industry. Since truckers are on the road a lot, it is important that they do not fall asleep at the wheel. A new headset intended to keep truckers alert is hitting the market.
The newly designed headset called Co-Pilot will be used to alert drivers in real time if they are falling asleep. The device has sensors mounted on the headset that gather real-time data while the driver is moving. The design of Co-Pilot is to get the driver’s attention for any kind of change in behavior that indicates fatigue.
The system can even issue early-warning alerts at the onset of driver fatigue by sensing less activity. The device can even take into account ratios such as right to left mirror checks and the iconic head-bob. These features make the Co-Pilot a marketable product.
In fact, the Co-Pilot technology will be a $5 billion market by 2018. By then more advanced technology will be out and more companies will be looking to get into the market.
Since truckers have to travel all over the United States nearly all the time it makes sense they would be more likely to get into accidents. In fact, an average of 500,000 crashes occur each year costing around $60,000 per accident or $30 billion annually.
Original source: Forbes