Intelligent Speed Assistance

Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) is a vehicle safety feature. Building on traffic sign recognition technology, ISA informs drivers of the current speed limit and, when needed, acts as a speed limiter – automatically reducing a vehicle’s speed by limiting engine power. ISA is estimated to reduce accidents by 30% and deaths by 20%.

Vehicle safety around the world is measured by the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) ratings. In Europe, NCAP rewards vehicles with ISA better vehicle safety ratings. Upcoming EU legislation aims to make ISA mandatory for all new vehicles starting in 2022, and mandatory for all existing carlines per 2024. The legislation applies to all European cars, vans, trucks and buses (M and N categories). This makes it imperative for automakers to adopt new safety technologies. So, what are the options and how does it work?

Many speed limit types are nearly impossible for cameras to recognize, such as speed limits conditional on time of day, weather and vehicle type, as well as speed limits with sub-plates and implicit speed limits (e.g. entering a city boundary). TomTom provides highly accurate, verified content for all speed limit types in more than 100 countries.

TomTom ADAS Map speed limits are collected by TomTom survey vehicles and are increasingly maintained with crowdsourced data. We attach these speed limits to specific road segments, also indicating specific validity if it is a conditional speed limit. TomTom quality audits and internal benchmarking against competition confirms the leading quality of speed limit data.