MUNICH: BMW Motorrad gave a peek into the future of motorcycle safety systems with the recent unveiling of the R 1200 RS ConnectedRide prototype during this year's Connected Motorcycle Consortium (CMC) conference held at BMW Welt in Munich, Germany.

The consortium was founded by BMW Motorrad, Honda and Yamaha in 2016 with the aim of promoting Cooperative Intelligent Transportation Systems (C-ITS) for motorcycles with as many cross-manufacturer standards as possible.

“Our aim is to promote the comprehensive use of cooperative safety systems for motorcycles at an early stage in order to exploit their potential for increasing safety as well as riding pleasure. This is why we are inviting other companies to join in,” said BMW Motorrad head of development, host and new CMC president Prof. Dr. Karl Viktor Schaller.

A foretaste of what is to come was given during the conference by the BMW R 1200 RS ConnectedRide prototype and two prototypes based on a Honda CRF 1000 L Africa Twin and a Yamaha Tracer 900 using a common architecture.


The motorcycle has been added with an extensive list of systems designed to prevent accidents between motorcycles and passenger cars by warning other traffic users as well as the rider.

When such dangerous situations are detected the warning measures are initiated thanks to the inclusion of Vehicle to Vehicle communication (V2V), based on a cross-manufacturer communication standard and localisation via Differential-Global Navigation Satellite System (D-GNSS).

The CMC takes special account of the requirements specific to motorcycling in view of the highly dynamic development of automotive safety systems.

This, above all, includes V2V Communication which has not taken motorcycle-specific safety aspects into consideration sufficiently so far.

In addition to providing the opportunity for intensive dialogue, the CMC focused on joint motor show appearances as well as events in 2018 in order to actively illustrate the latest safety system developments for two-wheeled vehicles.

The next important date in the CMC calendar is the world’s biggest event focussing on intelligent transport systems and services - the ITS World Congress, which will be held from Oct 29 to Nov 2 in Montréal, Canada.

At the round-table-talk on Nov 1, the CMC will conduct an in-depth discussion on the topics of connected networking and V2V communication with experts from the US, Europe and Taiwan.

Keywords