Volvo Cars, the premium car maker, and leading truck maker Volvo Trucks (independent companies despite the names) are collaborating to share real-time data to expand coverage of the companies’ connected safety technology—cloud-based systems that allow vehicle to communicate with each other and alert drivers of nearby hazards.

Volvo Trucks is introducing a cloud-based service, Connected Safety, which allows Volvo trucks and Volvo cars to automatically alert each other to hazardous traffic situations. Connected Safety was developed to send out alerts to nearby vehicles connected to the service whenever a driver activates the vehicle’s hazard warning lights.

Volvo Cars had launched its own passenger-car version of Connected Safety was launched by Volvo Cars in 2016. With Volvo Trucks now rolling out its own version of the service, trucks and cars are able to alert each other to potential hazards. This is possible because the two companies share safety-related data between their respective clouds.

This is the first time Volvo Cars is sharing safety-related data with another company. The collaboration with Volvo Trucks represents the first step towards achieving a critical mass of connected vehicles that could have a significant impact on overall traffic safety.

From 2018, live and anonymized data will be shared between selected Volvo trucks sold in Sweden and Norway with the company’s own hazard-alert systems, and Volvo cars equipped with Volvo Cars’ Hazard Light Alert system.

Volvo Cars has a strong history of sharing safety knowledge with others in the interest of saving as many lives as possible. In 1959, Volvo opened the patent for the three-point seatbelt to all other car makers, saving an estimated one million lives to date.

Volvo Cars’ Hazard Light Alert technology was the first of its kind in the automotive industry. As soon as any equipped Volvo switches on its hazard lights, an alert is sent to all nearby Volvo cars connected to the cloud service, warning drivers to help avoid potential accidents. This is particularly useful on blind corners and over the crest of hills in the road.

Hazard Light Alert has been available in Sweden and Norway since 2016, where it is standard on all 90 and 60 series cars as well as the XC40. Adding selected models of Volvo Trucks’ fleet to the cloud will cover more area, identify more potential hazards and boost overall traffic safety. Both Volvo brands represent a considerable portion of new vehicle registrations in the region.

By anonymizing, validating and aggregating the data that is collected and shared, the initiative will comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that is rolled out across the EU this year.