A Unique Testing Environment for the International Automotive Industry
A world-class development has been completed on the shared section of the M1-M7 motorways in Hungary: a digital system capable of real-time traffic sensing and modeling has just been commissioned. This infrastructure marks a major milestone in the evolution of future road transportation—not only as a flagship project for intelligent driver support but also as an ideal testing environment for automotive developments related to autonomous driving functions.
As part of the Eureka Central System project—carried out through a collaboration between Magyar Közút (Hungarian Public Road Non-Profit Ltd.) and the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME)—engineers installed 39 different sensors along an 800-meter section of the Budaörs stretch of the M1-M7 motorway. These sensors monitor vehicle movement in real time on both sides of the road and continuously transmit the collected data to a supercomputer located at the operator’s data center.
Experts from BME’s Department of Automotive Technologies calibrated the deployed instruments (including radar units, laser-based sensors /LIDAR/, thermal imaging devices, and optical cameras with varying fields of view), and developed as well as trained AI-based models. As a result of these activities, the system is now capable of generating a complete digital replica of the monitored road section. This “digital twin” represents all physical objects and vehicles in real time.
The digital twin is also able to provide road users with information that their own onboard sensors may not detect—either due to limitations in sensor placement or technical capability. This means road users can receive accurate insights into distant or obstructed events, improving predictability and safety, and reducing reaction times. Ultimately, this could lead to a significant reduction in the number of road accidents.
“At the same time, the digital twin provides an ideal platform for testing driver-assistance and autonomous driving systems,” explains Dr. András Rövid, head of BME’s environmental perception research group and technical leader of the Eureka project. “These tests can be conducted across a wide range of real-life scenarios—within a safe virtual environment—significantly accelerating development timelines. Our group is actively engaged in several such developments within the framework of the National Laboratory for Autonomous Systems, and we expect this smart motorway section—pioneering in Europe—to attract leading international automotive research projects. This will further strengthen Hungary’s position in mobility technology innovation.”
The smart motorway section will be expanded from 800 to 1,500 meters within the next few months, offering an even broader testing ground. The valuable experience gained here will support the rollout of intelligent traffic control systems on a larger scale, forming the foundation of future transportation. One of the main goals of this development is to drastically reduce traffic accidents, which, in addition to saving human lives, would offer substantial economic benefits: each hour of traffic stoppage due to an accident currently causes an average financial loss of 50–60 million HUF. Moreover, the system enables the independent and safe execution of dynamic traffic management operations, such as condition-based use of emergency lanes—temporarily opening them to traffic when congestion is high and safety permits it.
