In the last three years, Bombardier Transportation and its partners have developed and brought to market ODAS (Obstacle Detection Assistance System), the world-wide first anti-collision system for light rail vehicles (LRV), which is homologated and commercially operated on tramway fleets. The motivation was a further safety increase in LRV operation by reducing the risk for collisions. Important milestones for the complex development and industrialization process are presented. The ODAS system architecture and its assistive operating principle are based on stereo vision as sensor input. Thus, the system is capable of deriving all information necessary for detecting obstacles in the driveway of the LRV and estimating a level for collision risk solely from images that are produced by three cameras mounted in the vehicle front. This makes the concept well suited for retro-fitting existing tramway fleets. Current investigations are targeting new functions and applications derived from the current ODAS technology such as cartography-based localization and automatic overspeed protection.