Time and time again millions of people in the US go to work in the morning and go home in the late afternoon to evening. And in those time frames they experience TRAFFIC with or without accident. Not any traffic, but “rush hour” traffic because their world revolves around a schedule that can’t change due to their personal life and work habits. And for truck drivers its worse due to their route planning and hours of service regulations. Current technology can’t help the human factor that causes traffic but it can help the machines and computers that allow people to get into traffic in the first place.
The industry calls it vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) technology. The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) research program that focuses on advancing connectivity among vehicles and roadway infrastructure to improve the safety, mobility and environmental impact of the nation’s transportation system. A nation in which commercial and non-commercial vehicles, traffic lights, electronic variable message signs, and roadside equipment talk to each other that removes traffic from the equation. This is intelligent transportation management that can save lives and keep America moving forward in the matter of technology that may be deployed in the future.
Safety and congestion are the two biggest problems on our roads today. According to the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA), more than 33,000 people died on US roadways in 2012. In 1972, over 54,000 deaths occurred due to the negligence of technology (highest US death toll) so 40 years later we have made a progressively decreasing rate due to the increase of technology and hopefully regulation. Furthermore, NHTSA estimates that traffic crashes cost the economy US$230 billion per year. And Americans waste about three billion gallons of fuel each year stuck in traffic – which amounts to billions upon billions of dollars and a not-so-green impact on the environment.
The USDOT’s ITS V2X program is a future where vehicles and infrastructure are connected to prevent crashes and reduce congestion. This fits in nicely with the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) long-term vision to have an accident-free automotive society and environment preservation. It works by Dedicated Short-Range Communication (DSRC) devices. DSRC is a two-way, short-range wireless communication technology designed for the industry. Put more simply, DSRC is like the Wi-Fi technology you use when you surf the internet at Starbucks – your PC or smartphone engages in a wireless data exchange. That’s basically what vehicles will do with traffic signals and other vehicles. The DSRC’s primary function is to assess the surrounding environment based on accurate and precise data exchanges with other vehicle DSRC transceivers and roadside hotspots. The data exchanges include a vehicle’s location, velocity, acceleration and path history, which can enable onboard computers to predict trajectories and reduce the likelihood of collisions. That same data – along with additional information from the traffic signal – can also help drivers avoid running red lights and prevent crashes at controlled intersections (roadside hotspots).
And, let’s not forget about seeing more of those green lights. Communication between vehicles and intelligent transportation management systems could change the landscape for coping with future economy and ecology requirements. Broadcasted vehicle data – when coordinated with traffic signal timing – can easily enable more efficient travel from point A to point B by minimizing the time everyone spends at red lights. The DSRC would be able to ‘talk’ with the signal to tell you how many seconds you have left at a red light or green light. It can also tell you what speed to drive (under the safest limit of course) to make all the green lights.
Who can argue with a technology that could revolutionize roadway safety and alleviate traffic congestion and reduce emissions? That argument is addressed in the comments of proposed Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) 2015 Guidance for Connected Vehicles. It is proposed because of the Summary of Public Input Session that was held Sept. 12, 2014 in conjunction with the ITS World Congress in Detroit, MI. Below is a link of the presentations on the guidance and the deployment coalition, along with the comments from stakeholders organized by topic. “In many cases, USDOT staff did not respond to the comments as this was an opportunity to gather input for further consideration.”, mentioned not only once in its summary.
http://www.its.dot.gov/meetings/v2i_feedback.htm
But for this V2X technology to work most effectively, it should be on as many vehicles and roadside communications hotspots (i.e. traffic signals) where equipped as quickly as possible. Having 1% of vehicles and 1% of infrastructure equipped does nothing, even if it doubles every year. So the importance of this technology has to become industry’s and consumer’s number one priority if it is to change the US transportation management system. The number of possible connections, and therefore the value, increases exponentially with the number of available devices.
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