FIA and Siemens tracks to improve spectator safety

La FIA has made security one of its main areas of work. Whether in terms of road safety, via the 3500Lives initiative, or around motorsport, the federation led by Jean Todt is increasing its efforts to make these different environments safer.

Recently, the FIA ​​announced on the sidelines of the Geneva Motor Show in Switzerland, want to work with Siemens to try to remedy the recurring problem of poorly positioned spectators at the edge of special stages WRC.

Stuart Robertson, Head of Circuit Safety and rally at the FIA, returned in the latest issue of AUTO to the potential avenues mentioned last month, in connection with Siemens.

“We want to use onboard cameras to work on image recognition to see if there is a difference between when the safety car passes a location and the first rally car, says Robertson.

Often we declare the area safe and then some spectators return to unsafe areas. It is therefore important to continuously detect this change using on-board cameras on the first car, then closely monitor subsequent cars to ensure that nothing has changed in the spectator environment. »

Another possible field of action is the use of new technologies and smartphones now owned by many people. The FIA ​​could use the location of phones, via applications used to follow an event, in order to track the movements of spectators. Drones and various sensors could also complete the system.

“If a pedestrian leaves a sidewalk, an autonomous car is programmed to spot this and react, continues Robertson. We don't need our rally cars to brake automatically, but we do need to know if there is a problem with a spectator.

So [after the first car], when the next one enters a zone two minutes later, we can remedy the problem. We can notify a marshal to go to that location and send messages to the GPS area of ​​that spectator(s). Or we can, as a last resort, create a Slow Zone or even stop the stage until we resolve the problem. »