Volkswagen Group launches initiative for greater road safety

Milton Keynes, 16 January 2026: The Volkswagen Group is committed to further enhancing safety for all road users across Europe. Building on successful experiences in Germany, the Group aims to expand its programme for utilising sensor and image data from customer vehicles to around 40 European countries as well as the UK. The goal is to continuously optimise driver assistance systems and automated driving functions using data from real traffic situations. Customers can benefit from these improvements through software updates to their vehicles. The ongoing enhancements to driving functions increase comfort and make a positive contribution to overall road safety. Customer consent is required – naturally in full compliance with all national and European data protection regulations. The rollout is scheduled to start in January 2026 with Volkswagen Passenger Cars models, followed by CUPRA, Škoda, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Audi and Porsche.

The Volkswagen Group’s extensive vehicle fleet is already contributing to improved road safety today. Among other things, the vehicles use anonymised swarm data to generate high-resolution maps. This helps vehicles, for example, to maintain lane guidance on roads without lane markings. It also enables precise driving recommendations and hazard alerts, which can be refined by local weather conditions. This “wisdom of the crowd” is already making road traffic safer for everyone.

To continuously improve driver assistance systems, engineers at Volkswagen Group now aim to use data from real driving situations. These are significantly more practical than tests with prototypes or simulations. The goal is to design assistance functions so that customers perceive them as effective and ideally keep them activated at all times. Active systems not only enhance safety for the drivers themselves but also for all road users around them.

Specific data transmission only in special situations

For their work, the engineers focus on particular scenarios where driver assistance systems are especially useful. These can include traffic situations involving cyclists and pedestrians, for example near schools, or in busy, complex supermarket car parks.

Data transmission can be triggered by the emergency braking assistant, manual full braking, and sudden evasive manoeuvres. Certain sensor, functional, and image data are particularly relevant in these cases. These include camera images of the vehicle’s surroundings and detection results from the environment sensors, as well as driving direction, speed, and steering angle. Information on weather, visibility, and lighting conditions also plays an important role.

An illustrative example: The vehicle should analyse movements at pedestrian crossings and on pavements as accurately as possible. If the camera detects pedestrians moving towards the street – for instance, children playing – the vehicle can proactively build up brake pressure to enable even faster braking in an emergency.

Continuous data transmission for this purpose does not take place. Customer consent is the fundamental prerequisite for the transfer and processing of data. This consent can be given through various channels and is implemented individually by each brand – for example, as an option in the customer profile. Consent can be revoked at any time.

Data transmission may also involve pedestrians and cyclists

Data collection and transmission may also include other vehicles or road users such as pedestrians and cyclists in the immediate surroundings. This is essential because camera-based systems must visually classify objects and people accurately, even under challenging conditions, and correctly assess complex traffic situations.

All data protection regulations are, of course, strictly observed. Individual information about people in the traffic environment is not relevant.

Interested parties can request further information or review details of Volkswagen Group’s data capture practices and privacy statements for each brand at the time of the respective brand launch dates on the brands’ central privacy portals and websites.

For Volkswagen, which is the first to go live with this Europe-wide initiative for greater road safety, the privacy policy can be found under the following link:

datenschutz.volkswagen.de/download/get-document-content/en-GB/traffic-safety

Kate Thompson

Head of Corporate Communications, Volkswagen Group UK

+44 (0) 7713 265562

kate.thompson@vwg.co.uk

www.volkswagengroup.co.uk

Volkswagen Group United Kingdom Ltd

Volkswagen Group United Kingdom Ltd is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Volkswagen Group (see below), and is the importer of Audi, SEAT, CUPRA, Škoda cars as well as Volkswagen Passenger Cars and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles. The company directly employs over 850 people in the UK, while a further 25,000 work indirectly for the group, employed by its associated businesses which include retail networks, logistics, customer services and financial services. In 2025 the Group registered 437,255 passenger cars, achieving a market share of 21.6 per cent, plus a further 35,839 vans and pick-ups, through our network of around 600 retailers. It is the UK’s leading automotive Group.

Volkswagen Group

The Volkswagen Group is one of the world's leading car makers, headquartered in Wolfsburg, Germany. It operates globally, with 114 production facilities in 17 European countries and 10 countries in the Americas, Asia and Africa. With around 684,000 employees worldwide. The Group’s vehicles are sold in over 150 countries. With an unrivalled portfolio of strong global brands, leading technologies at scale, innovative ideas to tap into future profit pools and an entrepreneurial leadership team, the Volkswagen Group is committed to shaping the future of mobility through investments in electric and autonomous driving vehicles, digitalisation and sustainability. In 2023, the total number of vehicles delivered to customers by the Group globally was 9.2 million (2022: 8.3 million). Group sales revenue in 2023 totalled EUR 322.3 billion (2022: EUR 279.1 billion). The operating result before special items in 2023 amounted to EUR 22.6 billion (2022: EUR 22.5 billion).