Navigation and car apps will soon warn about approaching emergency services

This is a three-year trial, and the Ministry of Infrastructure calls it Safety Priority Services (SPS). Apps and cars from participating companies will soon let you know when a vehicle with flashing lights and sirens approaches. Drivers can then begin to clear the road early. Initially, the report is only for ambulances, but other emergency services will follow later this year.

Hyundai, Kia and TomTom

New functionality is coming in apps or systems built into ANWB, Be-Mobile, Hyundai, Inrix, Kia and TomTom. Shared apps and cars also receive notifications of other dangerous situations on the road, such as drivers in the wrong direction, obstacles, road works, accidents, slippery conditions, and the tails of traffic jams. The manner in which these reports are presented has been agreed upon with the Ministry so as not to distract drivers with information.

The first of its kind in Europe

The Netherlands is the first country in Europe to introduce such a system. The ministry uses SPS to prepare for European regulations that will be in place from 2025. During the testing period, participating companies can also provide feedback on the quality of information being shared through the system.

Later in the process, it will be examined whether applications can now take into account “potentially unsafe situations” when planning routes. For example, school areas can be avoided by road planners.

Privacy guaranteed

During the collaboration, data from the companies is combined with data from the National Road Traffic Data Portal. According to the ministry, managers’ privacy is guaranteed by first asking if they want their information shared. If so, according to the ministry, this information will be anonymized and shared with third parties over a secure connection.

Apps like Flitsmeister have been reporting about ambulances approaching for some time now. Many map services also have systems that allow users to warn each other about work or cars along the way, for example.

Audi, in turn, started a system that communicates with traffic lights three years ago. Drivers in more and more European countries are seeing in their Audi when the light turns green and what speed they must maintain in order to ‘green wave’.