What Is : Toyota Safety Sense 2.0?

Most car manufacturers are developing their own brand of safety features. Toyota calls theirs Toyota Safety Sense.

As with any technology, they tend to evolve. Toyota’s safety suit of technologies continues to improve and grow which explains why they’ve recently introduced Toyota Safety Sense 2.0.

TSS

Toyota Safety Sense, or TSS, was and is a complete battery of “active safety features designed to support driver awareness, decision making and vehicle operation over a wide range of speeds.” These are Toyota’s words and they live by them as the vast majority of their vehicles include TSS as standard equipment.

The main component to TSS is automated pre-collision warning and braking. This pre-collision system (PCS), which includes pedestrian detection, helps to prevent or mitigate a collision by detecting objects ahead of the vehicle. The sensors used for pre-collision are merged with Lane Departure Alert (LDA) where a warning is emitted if the car drifts outside of the marked lanes. Depending on which model, the LDA may provide steering assist if deemed necessary. Also associated to PCS is Dynamic Radar Cruise Control (DRCC) which automatically adjusts vehicle speed to maintain a selected following distance between you and the vehicle ahead.

TSS 2.0

TSS 2.0 builds upon this combination of safety technologies and elevates its functionalities.

PCS now features the ability to detect bicycles in daytime situations. It can also spot vehicles and pedestrians in both daytime and low-light situations. It’s important to note that these systems work in certain speed ranges.

LDA evolves and gains Road Edge Detection (RDA) which combines or replaces marked lines on the ground. The system works best on a relatively straight road.

DRCC now includes Full-Speed Range Dynamic Radar Cruise Control, which means that the vehicle, once the DRCC is set, will enable low-speed following, speed matching, stopping, and acceleration/deceleration with the vehicle ahead (when the vehicle is equipped with an automatic transmission.) Lane Trace Assist (LTA) also joins the DRCC and helps keep the vehicle centered in its lane to preemptively avoid a possible lane departure.

TSS 2.0 technology is available on numerous 2019 vehicles including the Corolla hatchback and the RAV4. For the 2020 model year, many more models will be added such as the Corolla and others.