Smart Cities: The Gateway to Pedestrian Safety TECH FOCUS: SmArT CiTiES on drivers to be alert and aware of their surroundings in order to safely share roadways. This is where smart-phone-based communication technologies can be utilized in smart cities to warn drivers of pedestrians and vulnerable road users. The beauty in utilizing smartphone-based communication in pedestrian safety comes from its simplicity - that is, almost every pedestrian and vulnerable road user nowadays has a smart phone. If smart-phone-based communication can be used to improve the safety of pedestrians by alerting drivers, then it proves a simple, affordable, effective, and scalable solution. Researchers from Ford and the Automated Driving Lab (ADL) at Ohio State University have presented previously at the SAE WCX about the potential of using vehicle-topedestrian (V2P) communication with the technical paper " Mobile Safety Application for Pedestrians Utilizing P2V Communication over Bluetooth. " They also demonstrated the potential of this technology at the Intelligent Transportation Society of America's (ITSA) World Congress in September 2022. In this technology, an app UPDATE running on the pedestrian's smartphone uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to communicate their location to a connected vehicle. This information then can be used on the connected vehicle side to alert drivers for a potential crash and take corrective action to avoid hitting the pedestrian. BLE communication also does not depend on line-of-sight detection to function properly. Thus, drivers can be alerted about pedestrians and other vulnerable road users who are obstructed by buildings. Smart cities and IoT open doors to many new and exciting applications that can help with improving overall roadway agent safety. Enhancements in V2P communication technology could help in decreasing pedestrian and vulnerable road user fatalities and help in improving confidence of drivers in stressful driving situations, such as driving in densely populated cities. n November 2022 7https://sae.to/tomorrowtodaynovember https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/2022-01-0155/ https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/2022-01-0155/ https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/2022-01-0155/ https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/2022-01-0155/