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Transportation Research Board - 95th Annual Meeting

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Register

The meeting program will cover all transportation modes, with more than 5,000 presentations in nearly 750 sessions and workshops addressing topics of interest to all attendees—policy makers, administrators, practitioners, researchers, and representatives of government, industry, and academic institutions. A number of sessions and workshops will focus on the spotlight theme for the 2016 TRB Annual Meeting, Research Convergence for a Multi-Modal Future.

TRBConnectNov15a

Connected and Automated Vehicles: 9th University Transportation Centers Conference

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Few issues are emerging more quickly, or have the potential to spur revolutionary change, than that of connected/automated vehicles (CV/AV). This is true not only for highways, but across all transportation modes. This Spotlight Conference, which is organized around the four cluster areas identified in the NCHRP report “Connected/Automated Vehicle Research Roadmap for AASHTO”, will focus on the impact of CV/AV on transportation, including planning, policy, operations, land use, design, freight movements, and transit.

mcitygrandopening1071a

Michigan’s Sayer a Change Champion

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Burney Simpson

The White House recently recognized the University of Michigan’s James R. Sayer as one of the 2015 Transportation Champions of Change for his work on connected and automated vehicles.

jim.sayer_PNGSayer is a research scientist and head of the Human Factors Group at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI).

He currently leads the Connected Vehicle Safety Pilot Model Deployment, a U.S. Department of Transportation-sponsored program. The DOT plans to use the results to determine driver acceptance of connected vehicles, and to “evaluate the feasibility, scalability, security, and device interoperability of connected-vehicle technologies.”

That project has been expanded into the Ann Arbor Connected Vehicle Test Environment. Sayer said in a release that Ann Arbor “will be the world’s first example of how connected vehicle and infrastructure technology can and will be utilized in a community of the future.”

The goal is to make roads safer and reduce fatal vehicle crashes, he said.

“Last year alone there were over 30,000 fatalities. Our current transportation system is responsible for $240 billion per-year cost in terms of medical and work loss,” he said. “Connected vehicles, similar to what we have deployed (here) could reduce up to 80 percent of unimpaired crashes.”

Sayer was instrumental in the development of Mcity, the 32-acre test site for connected and automated vehicles operated by the university’s Mobility Transformation Center that opened this summer in Ann Arbor.

The Transportation Champions of Change are honored for their leadership and innovation in the field. In addition to Sayer, the 2015 Champions are:

Atorod Azizinamini, Marilyn Bull, Habib Dagher, Elaine Roberts, Nathaniel Ford, Sr., Olatunji Oboi Reed, Peter Lagerwey, Robert Portiss, Kyle Wagenschutz, and Carl Weimer.

The champions were honored at a ceremony with Anthony Foxx, secretary of the US DOT, Federal Highways Administrator Greg Nadeau, National Highway Traffic Safety Administrator Mark Rosekind, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Acting Administrator Scott Darling, National Economic Council Director and Assistant to the President Jeff Zients, and other officials.

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Autonomous Tech Scales Capitol Hill

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Burney Simpson

The autonomous transportation industry brought its game to Capitol Hill this week, holding a nearly all-day event that featured speeches from a U.S. Senator, four Congressmen, and a number of driverless leaders, all over the course of a luncheon, a seminar, and a showcase event/cocktail party with several dozen of the top firms in the business.

Not bad for a day’s work.

Trade group ITS America put on ‘The Future of Mobility: Rethinking Transportation for the Next 30 Years’ and garnered the participation of Sen. Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, and Representatives Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat, Rodney Davis, an Illinois Republican, and Peter DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon.

While much of the conversation was positive and friendly, a few of the seminar panelists took the opportunity to raise issues that Congress may have to address someday.

  • Data Privacy and Security — Daniel Morgan, chief data officer with the US Department of Transportation, noted that the security and privacy of citizen travel data was essential but that the information could be beneficial for metropolitan planners. Morgan floated the idea that a third party firm be responsible for collecting and storing the data if people objected to the federal government holding it.
  • Reserving DSRC wavelength for V2V and V2I — Alan Korn, an executive with heavy-truck parts supplier Meritor WABCO, said the Dedicated Short-Range Communications 5.9 GHz spectrum must be reserved for Vehicle-to-Vehicle and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure communications to ensure autonomous driving safety. Later, Sen. Peters said that new technology may allow for the sharing of the 5.9 spectrum with other Wi-Fi users.
  • Driverless Timeline — Supplying a welcome dose of reality was Tom Dingus, director of the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI). Dingus said developing a truly autonomous system would be considerably more difficult and probably take longer than some recent studies and press reports suggest. Driverless vehicles will have to be safer than the much-maligned human driver but consider that the average human has one rear-end crash every 25 years, and makes 3 million braking decision in that time, said Dingus. “It is very difficult to build a system that is that robust,” said Dingus.

The exhibition hall featured 22 organizations involved with autonomous transportation development, including Eberle Design, Econolite, GM, Iteris, the University of Michigan Mobility Transformation Center, NXP Semiconductors, Southwest Research Institute, and Uber.

VTTI was there too taking a bit of a victory lap after its successful demo this week on a nearby highway of its driverless Cadillac SRX. The ride along featured Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, and generated extensive media coverage (See “Virginia Seeks Autonomous Research Lead,” October 20, 2015).

The showcase garnered a little more exposure for the technology with another half-dozen members of Congress visiting the exhibit hall to check out the firms on display, according to an ITS spokesperson.

The day also offered an exhibit of a DeLorean car from an old movie that predicted people would fly on skateboardy-type things. This fascinated a number of Gen-Yers and Millennials who took selfies.

Photo: United States Capitol, 2015, Matt C.

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ITS California Buzzes on DOT Grants, Autonomous Levels Concept

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John Estrada

The annual meeting of ITS California was held last week in Southern California.  The major buzz at the show was the previous week’s announcement by the US DOT that initial winners in grants for next-generation V2V and V2I technology were proposals from New York, Florida and Wyoming.  Many of the participants at the show felt very strongly that an award should have gone to California. It will be interesting to see what if any of those winning projects get off the ground.

There were quite a few interesting speakers at the show.  A couple of highlights included:

Greg Larson from CalTrans who led a panel that considered whether bus and truck automation should come before auto automation. Greg presented a chart from Richard Bishop of Bishop Consulting that showed the various levels of automation leading to autonomous cars as described by the SAE. Rather than a detailed description of what makes a vehicle fit into various levels, Richard describes it as follows:

  • Level 0: hands and feet ON;
  • Level 1: hands or feet OFF;
  • Level 2: hands and feet OFF, eyes ON;
  • Level 3: hands, feet, eyes OFF, brain on;
  • Level 4: hands, feet, eyes, brain OFF - Constrained environments;
  • Level 5: hands, feet, eyes, brain OFF – Unconstrained.
This seems like a great way to both remember and understand them.
Other interesting presentations included Aravind Kailas of Volvo who discussed truck automation and the future of mobility. He made a strong case as to why we are headed toward a world of shared mobility.
There was also an interesting panel on cybersecurity that gave the audience a true sense of the diversity and depth of the issue. Ed Fok from US DOT showed how easy it is easy to block off Internet access while Dominic Nessi of the LA Airport discussed cybersecurity challenges at a large, international airport. Gary Miskell from the Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority discussed the issues facing transit authorities and the challenges of securing a mobile fleet of public buses.

There were also a series of demonstrations of connected vehicle technologies from eTrans Systems, Econolite, Bosch and Arada Systems.

This was our second year at the show and in that short time it was clear how quickly technology is advancing in the work of Intelligent Transportation.

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ITS-California Show Covers Connected Vehicles, Urban Planning

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Burney Simpson

The likely massive changes wrought by autonomous technology on community design and planning, along with the growth of connected vehicle technology are two of the major themes at the Intelligent Transportation Society - California (ITS-CA) Annual Conference and Exhibition in Los Angles at the LAX Airport Hilton on September 21 -23.

And Google will provide an update on its self-driving car project.

Urban planners and transportations experts are increasingly looking at the changes that may be wrought by autonomous technology and intelligent transportation systems. At the ITS-CA, panelists will cover such topics as achieving smart cities, building sustainable communities, re-imagining urban throughways, and integrated corridor management.

On the connected vehicle side, seminars will address the likelihood that such vehicles as buses and trucks, not cars, will be the leaders as the nation adopts automated and driverless vehicles.

Just this month U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced that New York City, Tampa, Fla., and the state of Wyoming will receive up to $42 million as part of the agency’s national Connected Vehicle Pilot deployment program.

Projects in the program are intended to advance the adoption of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication, with the goal of reducing traffic congestion, cutting accidents, and moving freight more efficiently.

Speakers at ITS-CA include leading government executives in the autonomous vehicle industry, including California Caltrans Director Malcolm Dougherty, US DOT Assistant Director of Research and Technology Greg Winfree, and Peter Marx, chief innovation technology officer of the City of Los Angeles.

Also speaking will be Paul Copping, smart city advisor with Digital Greenwich, and Paul Feenstra, SVP, government affairs with ITS America.

And Dmitri Dolgov, Google’s principal engineer and software lead, will present on his firms view of driverless cars and the future of mobility.

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DOT Lists its Connected Vehicle Safety Apps in Fact Sheet

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The U.S. Department of Transportation has released a handy fact sheet on connected vehicles that lists and briefly describes the major safety applications that connected technology is addressing. The two-page Connected Vehicle Applications: Safety is a pdf-format guide that categorizes the 29 projects by Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I), Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V), and Vehicle-to-Pedestrian (V2P).

Under V2I, the fact sheet lists and describes such applications as Oversize Vehicle Warning, Reduced Speed/Work Zone Warning, Spot Weather Impact Warning, Warnings About Hazards in Work Zone and others.

For example, the description under Red Light Violation Warning is: “Broadcasts signal phase and timing (SPaT) and other data to the in-vehicle device, allowing warnings to drivers of impending red light violations.”

Under V2V applications, the applications include Blind Spot/Lane Change Warning, Forward Collision Warning, Tailgating Advisory, and Situational Awareness.

The single application listed under V2P is Transit Pedestrian Application.

The fact sheet also links to the Connected Vehicle Reference Implementation Architecture website for those seeking more details.

AVS2015 Logo

Automated Vehicles Symposium 2015

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The Automated Vehicles Symposium 2015 will be a multidisciplinary forum designed to advance the deployment of automated vehicles.  Each day will kick off with high-level presentations by some of the brightest minds in the field.  Network over lunch, and then in the afternoon, choose from interactive breakout sessions where you can go in-depth with your colleagues, share perspectives and have an open dialogue on the industry’s most pressing issues.

 

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GM to Congress: We’ll Test Wi-Fi in DSRC Spectrum

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Burney Simpson

The role of Congress keeps growing in the battle among driverless transportation proponents over Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) technology.

Last week, a U.S. House committee heard testimony from power houses in the industry regarding the possible expansion of Wi-Fi communications into the DSRC 5.9 GHz range.

General Motors and Cisco Systems plan to test the use of Wi-Fi in the spectrum. GM wants to speed the research as it prepares to launch a Cadillac CTS in the 2017 model year with V2V technology.

On the other side are researchers like the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) and safety regulators National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). They want to keep that DSRC spectrum devoted to vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) communication.

The researchers believe that allowing Wi-Fi within the DSRC 5.9 GHz range will impact the technology, while GM says that the use of Wi-Fi for V2V should at least be tested.

Both sides agree that DSRC is a technology with proven reliability and the capacity to support a variety of communication speeds in good and bad weather, while also handling message authentication and data privacy demands.

Both sides also agree that implementing V2V communications could greatly reduce traffic accidents. The Department of Transportation estimates the technology could prevent about 81 percent of all vehicle crashes involving non-impaired, i.e. sober, drivers.

LEGISLATIVE CONFLICT

The legislative conflict began about a year ago when Sens. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, and Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, introduced the Wi-Fi Innovation Act that would open parts of the 5.9 spectrum to Wi-Fi use. A companion bill was introduced in the House.

Now, Rep. Dan Lipinski has introduced the Future Transportation Research and Innovation for Prosperity (TRIP) Act (HR 2886), a bill that takes a big-picture view of the development of transportation infrastructure, including driverless technologies, freight shipment and research. Lipinski’s bill is on the side of the DSRC purists.

That view was expressed in testimony to the U.S. House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade last week by Peter Sweatman, director of UMTRI. The research group reviewed DSRC use in V2V communications in a two-year test with 47 companies deploying 2843 vehicles that collected 115 billion messages from 35 million miles of driving.

“Our entire ecosystem of companies (are) committed to (V2V) using 5.9 GHz DSRC,” said Sweatman. “Spectrum must be protected for (V2V) safety performance (which) depends on the absolute reliability of messages, as well as certainty in spectrum availability, in the mode that has been fully tested.”

In comparison, Wi-Fi spectrum sharing was only a theoretical possibility, he said.

Nathaniel Beuse, a NHTSA safety administrator, agreed. He cited a research report finding that “unless … (Wi-Fi) and other unlicensed and licensed technologies are determined not to interfere with DSRC, the potential benefits of the program will be severely compromised.” 

MINOR BOMB

But the GM and Cisco Systems executives set off a minor bomb during their testimony when they revealed that GM will move forward on plans to test V2V communications with technology from Cisco that makes room for Wi-Fi communications in the 5.9 GHz band.

“(GM) is focused upon implementing V2V technology (and) … We are very optimistic about a sharing proposal from Cisco that would operate on a “listen, detect and vacate” basis. We have engaged with Cisco and plan to begin testing their technology as soon as possible,” said the GM exec.

The Cisco exec said it planned to “use a combination of DSRC and wired technologies,” to deliver a “highly secure, mobile, and high availability solution.” 

The sleepy summer in Washington D.C. may have just woken up.

 

Photo 2015 Protesting by Stephen Melkisethian.

Events

TRBlogo2014right2

Transportation Research Board - 95th Annual Meeting

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Register

The meeting program will cover all transportation modes, with more than 5,000 presentations in nearly 750 sessions and workshops addressing topics of interest to all attendees—policy makers, administrators, practitioners, researchers, and representatives of government, industry, and academic institutions. A number of sessions and workshops will focus on the spotlight theme for the 2016 TRB Annual Meeting, Research Convergence for a Multi-Modal Future.

TRBConnectNov15a

Connected and Automated Vehicles: 9th University Transportation Centers Conference

/0 Comments/in , , , , , ,

Few issues are emerging more quickly, or have the potential to spur revolutionary change, than that of connected/automated vehicles (CV/AV). This is true not only for highways, but across all transportation modes. This Spotlight Conference, which is organized around the four cluster areas identified in the NCHRP report “Connected/Automated Vehicle Research Roadmap for AASHTO”, will focus on the impact of CV/AV on transportation, including planning, policy, operations, land use, design, freight movements, and transit.