Thinking Highways North America November 2006

THIN KING

HIG HW AYS NORTH AMERICAN EDITION Volume 1 • Issue 1 • Nov/Dec 2006

DARPA IMAGE

Automated vehicles head for the city AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL

Yuka Gomi, Rick Weiland and Valerie Shuman on making telematics work

ASSISTANCE REQUIRED

Richard Bishop on the future for ADAS

JOINED-UP THINKING

The systematic thoughts of Phil Tarnoff

GET WITH THE PROGRAM

California and Michigan on the VII trail

LAUNCH ISSUE

Advanced transportation management policy • strategy • technology • finance • innovation • implementation • integration • interoperability

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Foreword Thinking Kevin Borras

Kevin Borras is publishing director of H3B Media and editor-in-chief of Thinking Highways. To contact him email [email protected]

Editor-in-Chief Kevin Borras Sales and Marketing Luis Hill Design and Layout Phoebe Bentley, Kevin Borras Sub-Editor and Proofreader Simon Whitmore Senior Editorial Advisor Phil Tarnoff Columnists Mark Johnson and Robert Kelly, Paul Najarian, Harold Worrall Contributors to this issue Bruce Abernethy, Kevin Aguigui, Charlie Armiger, Richard Bishop, Ron Coello, Yuka Gomi, Tom Good, James Joseph, John Kasik, Greg Larson, David LeBlanc, Ben McKeever, Antony Melihen, Michael

In one era...

Technology without policy is a bit of equipment in a box. Policy without technology is a piece of paper I’m not particularly wellknown for my learned, philosophical sayings or deeply insightful teachings. I did, however, utter the phrase that is in bold text above (the bit about technology being a bit of metal in a box without the policy to implement it) while discussing the very reasons for setting up a brand new advanced transportation management magazine. It’s amazing what you come up with when you’re under pressure to perform, not that I’m suggesting that Einstein suddenly stumbled upon his theory of relativity while he was in a meeting with his prospective new bank manager. The pressures of setting up and running a new multimedia company and launching three magazines in the space of three months have made Luis and I think like we’ve never thought before. There have been times when we’ve been forced to think like we never thought possible. It may be hard to imagine if you’ve ever had more than a few fleeting minutes in our company but we've spent the Modjeska, Valerie Shuman, Dylan Stanley-Borras, Peter Sweatman, Phil Tarnoff, Rick Weiland Web Design Leigh Millard Printing Stones the Printers, Banbury, UK Distribution Pharos International, Westerham, UK Subscriptions and Circulation Pilarin Harvey-Granell Financial Director Martin Brookstein Editorial and Advertising H3B Media Ltd, 15 Onslow Gardens, Wallington, Surrey SM6 9QL, UK Tel +44 (0)870 919 3770 Fax +44 (0)870 919 3771 Email [email protected]

www.h3bmedia.com

last eight years in the advanced transportation industry listening to people. As a journalist and editor I’m in the privileged position of being on both the inside and the outside of the ITS community. I can look in from outside and look out from the inside. Whichever way I look (I’m

“We have spent the last eight years listening to people” about to mix my senses here, but bear with me) I hear people saying that they want to read more articles that focus on policy and strategy and finance and politics and innovation and integration and implementation and interoperability as much as they do on the technology. All of these aspects are integral pieces in the industry jigsaw. You can see some of the picture with some of the pieces missing, but the only way to see the whole picture is to have all the pieces in place. Thinking Highways

With this jigsaw, looking at the picture on the box is just not enough. So, although we may not be new to the market, Thinking Highways is. The ‘thinking’ doesn’t just refer to the capabilities of the highways themselves or the vehicles that drive on them. This ‘thinking’ also refers to the thought processes of the people and organisations that are charged with turning fantastic ideas into life-saving, time-saving, money-saving realities. Many people have supported us greatly in the creation of our company and our new magazines and we thank them very much indeed. They know who they are. They can now read this first issue of the North American edition safe in the knowledge that it would not exist without them. Please visit our website where you’ll find online versions of all three of our titles and the promise of a lot more to come in the very near future. If you’d like to contribute to Issue 2, out at the beginning of March 2007, why not start thinking now... TH

is published by H3B Media Ltd.

Thinking Highways

is published four times a year by H3B Media Ltd in the United Kingdom on the first day of the week, every three months. US subscriptions cost US$50. Distributed in the USA by SPP, PO Box 437, Emigsville, PA 17318. Periodicals postage paid at Emigsville, PA. POSTMASTER: send address changes to H3B Media, c/o PO Box 437, Emigsville, PA 17318 USA.

Managing Director Luis Hill Publishing Director Kevin Borras Visualisation Director Tom Waldschmidt Conference and Events Director Odile Pignier [email protected]

www.h3bmedia.com

Although due care has been taken to ensure that the content of this publication is accurate and up-to-date, the publisher can accept no liability for errors and omissions. Unless otherwise stated, this publication has not tested products or services that are described herein, and their inclusion does not imply any form of endorsement. By accepting advertisements in this publication, the publisher does not warrant their accuracy, nor accept responsibility for their contents. The publisher welcomes unsolicited manuscripts and illustrations but can accept no liability for their safe return. © 2006 H3B Media Ltd. All rights reserved. The views and opinions of the authors are not necessarily those of H3B Media Ltd. Reproduction (in whole or in part) of any text, photograph or illustration contained in this publication without the written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited. Printed in the UK

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Welcome to Thinking Highways

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COLUMNS Bob Kelly and Mark Johnson Paul Najarian ‘s Connected World Harold Worrall’s Bright Ideas

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NEWS Thinking Highways signs its first strategic media partnership deal

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THE THOUGHT PROCESS Bernie Wagenblast, editor, Transportation Communications Newsletter

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COVER STORY

As the DARPA Challenges moves from the desert into the city, Anthony Melihen charts the rebirth of autonomous vehicles THE THINKER ITS guru Phil Tarnoff’s thoughts on global transport thinking ADAS According to Richard Bishop, the advanced driver assistance market has come a long way. But has it come far enough? VEHICLE INFRASTRUCTURE INTEGRATION PROGAM Greg Larson and Ben McKeever report with the latest VII developments from California...

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...while Peter Sweatman and Dave LeBlanc present the activities from Michigan 64

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EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ITS has a vital role to play in how emergency medical centers deal with the victims of terrorist attacks, says Bruce Abernethy Emergency Management

A call and response

Intelligent Transportations Systems’ (ITS) architecture typically includes Emergency Management Centers (EMCs). These are responsible for assigning emergency resources to emergency requests received via a Public Safety Access Point (PSAP) also known as a 911 Call Center. Most EMCs have the 911 call center integrated with the emergency dispatchers. Smaller cities may utilize 911 call-takers as emergency dispatchers. EMCs typically arrange dispatching positions by service type such as police, fire and emergency medical. In cities where the fire department is also responsible for emergency medical services, then dispatchers are arranged by police and fire/emergency medical. A supervisory and a training position are usually implemented with 911 rollover to the supervisory position, should this be required. The EMC dispatcher and the “first responders” are a team that work together to take care of the emergency. There is also an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) that is a critical part of emergency management architecture. During a major emergency that requires evacuation and/or quarantining, use of service resources over and above those under the management of the EMC, or

use of emergency services from other jurisdictions, the EOC may be activated.

Levels of responsibility

There are multiple jurisdictional levels for an EOC including City, County, regional association of governments, and State. If the emergency covers a multi-jurisdictional level, then the EOC associated with the area would be activated. The EOC is staffed only when activated. There is a core staff that has the responsibility of keeping the EOC’s communications network, information processing, and information display system environment ready for immediate activation. The major function of the EOC is to provide critical information to senior decision makers to allow them to make significant decisions related to saving lives of citi zens and minimizing loss of property. Senior service directors related to the jurisdictional area are key participants. The EMC(s) implements management decisions of the EOC. Public Works may be a support element in clearing debris from corridors in support of evacuation. Public Works is equally responsible for advising senior decision makers related to the condition of the water

BRUCE ABERNETHY examines the roles of ITS and trauma center hospitals in emergency management

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CONTENTS

HOMELAND SECURITY Kevin Aguigui wonders if the advances in digital video for surveillance and HS purposes are as advanced as they should be

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TELEMATICS Yuka Gomi, Richard Weiland and Valerie Shuman with a telematics business model that works ALTERNATIVE FUEL James Joseph on the viability of ethanol, Brazil’s secret weapon in the oil replacement battle T-FOCUS Data Management SpeedInfo’s Charlie Armiger espouses the use of new technology and a different way of thinking High Occupancy Toll Lanes EFKON USA’s John Kasik has a new product that he is confident enough about to claim will revolutionise the HOT and HOV market

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RFID Michael Modjeska on a brand new, bespoke solution for the ITS market

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Advertisers Index

Kevin Borras, Publishing Director, H3B Media

Policy, technology, strategy, finance, innovation, interoperability, implementation and integration. These, ladies and gentlemen, are the basic ingredients of the Thinking Highways constitution. Presumably your interests lie in some or all of these areas of the advanced transportation management ‘game’ and so, we feel, you will find Thinking Highways fascinating, educational, thought-provoking, possibly a little bit controversial, entertaining and above all highly readible. Thinking Highways will be published quarterly from 2007, in February, May, August and November in two regionally focused editions, North America and Europe/Rest of the World. From Issue 2 onwards this page won’t feature almost life-size photos

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Luis Hill, Managing Director, H3B Media

of us but an insightful column from a world-renowned ITS expert, you’ll no doubt be relieved to discover. It feels like we’re going back to school after a very long summer holiday, but it’s not really a launch into the unknown. After all, we know the industry and the industry knows us rather well by now, but it’s daunting and not a little exciting to be presenting the fruits of our concerted labours to you after the best part of five months in self-imposed exile. We have spoken to literally hundreds of people about our new venture and by and large we asked them the same questions: are we doing the right thing and is this the right time to be doing it? Unequivocably, the answer to both parts of the question was ‘yes’. “There’s a yawning gap in the market for a magazine like

Vol 1 No 1 Thinking Highways

this,” came one enthusiastic response. “One that doesn’t see the technology as the be all and end all – because it's not.” Before you ask, this came from someone who is CEO of a large technology supplier.

Sneak preview

Those of you who attended what is being hailed as the best ITS World Congress to date, held in London in October, may have already seen a copy of our Europe/ Rest of the World issue. If you have, then you will already have a good idea of what we are aiming to do and where we are aiming to go with this magazine. The chance to launch a new magazine at a World Congress is not one that any company worth its salt would turn down. The remarkably positive reaction we received both www.h3bmedia.com

Photo by Ron Coello (www.coellophotography.co.uk)

What we did while we were away

Welcome to Thinking Highways during and after the congress has confirmed our suspicions that we have hit a very large industry nail pretty much square on the head. Just a couple of weeks before London we travelled up to Banbury in Oxfordshire to see the first issue of the Europe/ Rest of the World edition being printed (see photo). For anyone who has been present at the birth of their children (obviously if you are a mother you must have been) then this was not far short of that experience. It was one of the most fulfilling things that either of us have ever done, professionally at least. So, there you have it. What we have done is created a mouthpiece for the advanced transportation industry to use in the most eloquent way possible. And by the way, there really is no need for you to learn our “policy, technology, strategy,

finance, innovation, interoperability, implementation and integration” mantra off by heart. It’s not our mantra anyway. It’s yours. TH

If you wish to receive Thinking Highways on a regular basis, please visit our website and register online. Go to: www.h3bmedia.com If you would like to know more about marketing opportunities in either regional edition please email [email protected]

SOME QUESTIONS BEFORE YOU READ ON... Do you want to be noticed? Do you want to stand out from the crowd? Do you want to reach a regionally focused, high quality audience? Do you want to use a new and innovative approach to market your technology and services? HERE’S THE ANSWER YOU’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR.

Thinking Highways Available in PRINTED and ONLINE formats. To register or to enquire about marketing opportunities visit Thinking Highways’ TransPortal at: :www.h3bmedia.com

Robert Kelly and Mark Johnson

Divide and rule The final vehicle ‘Black Box’ rule has been released by NHTSA... and a new can of worms has been opened This past August the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released its final rule for the deployment of event data recorders (EDRs, or otherwise commonly called “black boxes”) in vehicles sold in the United States. EDRs collect information about the status and change in that status of a vehicle before, during and after a crash. Recorded information may include vehicle speed, braking, change in direction, use of seat belts and so on, when an accident occurs. EDRs function by continuing recording – and then overwriting – the record information until a triggering event occurs (such as a crash of a certain severity), and then the EDR retains the crashrelated data from a few seconds before and after the crash. EDRs are not a new technology. According to NHTSA, the agency has been considering EDRs for at least the past decade, although it is only recently that there have been significant improvements in the technology and widespread deployment. NHTSA estimates that approximately 64 per cent of new vehicles are now equipped with EDRs. EDRs can provide important benefits for emergency responders, accident investigation, medical research and transportation safety research. While recognizing these benefits, privacy watchdog and

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consumer interest groups contend that EDR data can be used to track the location and movement of individuals, unnecessarily store personally identifiable information and be used by insurance companies to raise rates or deny coverage. These groups urged NHTSA to answer such

“NHTSA concluded that standardiszing the format of collected data would enhance the quality of EDR data” questions as whether the vehicle owner owns the EDR data, how EDR can be discovered and used for criminal and civil litigation, and whether EDR data may be obtained by the police. While not mandating the installation of EDRs, the NHTSA rules does provide for the standardization of data collected by EDRs. The final rule also prescribes requirements for the survivability (i.e., after a crash) of collected data for retrievable by “intended” or “authorized” users. However, two major policy issues are left unresolved by the NHTSA rule: privacy and data access and ownership. New light vehicles manufactured on or after September 1, 2010 that are equipped with an EDR must follow the final rule.

Vol 1 No 1 Thinking Highways

The decision by NHTSA to prescribe national standards for EDR data is based on several factors. First, the agency noted that the penetration of EDRs in new vehicles has reached 64 per cent without any mandate for installation. Given this high market penetration, NHTSA concluded that standardizing the format of collected data would enhance the quality of EDR data and encourage the further installation of EDRs in vehicles. Required data elements include, for example, vehicle speed, braking status, seat belt status, air bag warning and deployment and, most important, changes in velocity and direction (known as “delta-v”). Recording intervals for each data element are also prescribed. Using a standard data set, according to NHTSA, will also be more useful for Automatic Crash Notification and telematics systems. The final rule also requires that light vehicles (i.e., passenger vehicles and smaller trucks) equipped with an EDR must include a notice statement in the owner’s manual. (Vehicle manufacturers may provide additional information, such as about an installed Automatic Crash Notification or telematics systems.) NHTSA’s prescribed notice statement describes the purposes and benefits of EDRs, what type of data are recorded and for how long, that no data is recorded during normal driving conditions, and that no

Robert Kelly is a partner with the Washington, DC based law firm Squire, Sanders, Dempsey

Mark Johnson is an attorney at law with the Washington, DC based law firm Squire, Sanders, Dempsey

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Robert RobertKelly Kellyand andMark MarkJohnson Johnson the California precedent. Notice of an installed EDR must be provided to the vehicle owner. The vehicle owner must provide his or her permission for third party access to recorded data (or, in a few states, in specified circumstances without the owner’s permission, such as for accident investigation, vehicle diagnostic services or to transportation and medical researchers). In other statues, such as Virginia, the EDR statute specifies that insurance companies cannot refuse to insure a vehicle if the owner refuses to provide access to data recorded on the device. NHTSA agreed with the vehicle manufacturing industry that its final rule should preempt inconsistent law enforcement and by state and local laws and litigants in private lawsuits. regulations. Consequently, NHTSA, citing a lack of state or local regulations that statutory authority to address would require or prohibit the these privacy concerns. In addition, the agency noted that types of EDRs covered by the NHTSA rule or that would EDRs do not generally collect affect their design or personally identifiable data. operation, would create a For these reasons, NHTSA conflict with the NHTSA rule concluded that these privacy and are therefore preempted. matters are better addressed Moreover, such preemption by other federal agencies with includes EDR technical clearer jurisdiction or the personally identifiable requirements, data elements, states. information is recorded. and technical performance or Already, several states have However, the statement notes survivability requirements. enacted laws or considered that law enforcement and Any state or local law that legislation to address the others could combine EDR requires additional disclosure shortcomings in the NHTSA data with personally rule. California was the first, in requirements on vehicle OEMs identifiable information is also preempted. normally collected at accident 2004, requiring that vehicle Not preempted, however, are OEMs disclose to customers scenes. Finally, the statement state or local laws on access to the presence of EDRs in notes that retrieving of EDR and ownership of EDR data, vehicles and prohibiting data requires a special tool to how EDR data may be used in access to recorded data be made commercially criminal or civil proceedings, available by the vehicle OEMs. except with the vehicle owner’s permission or a court and whether and to what Many commenters on the order. extent private entities (i.e., draft rule released in 2004 Nine other states (inlcuding insurance companies) have contended that NHTSA had the access to EDR data. Such responsibility to provide basic Colorado, Maine, New Hampshire and Virginia in issues, according to NHTSA, privacy protections and to provide “clear” information to 2006 alone), have so far passed are best left to the States, and laws addressing EDRs and they already appear to be the public as to how EDRs stepping up in force. TH would be used and who would another 20 state legislature at least considered proposed have access to the recorded The authors can be contacted legislation. data. via email at The majority of enacted state NHTSA, however, expressly [email protected] and declined to address the issues laws – and introduced [email protected] or visit legislation – generally follow of data ownership, access by the website at www.ssd.com

Paul Najarian

Deep impact What effect could the World Radiocommunication Conference have on the ITS industry? The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is an inter-governmental agency of the United Nations that specializes in the field of telecommunications. It is a Treaty-based organization. The Radiocommunication sector of the ITU (ITU-R) focuses primarily on the regulatory aspects of telecommunications. While this sector issues Recommendations on technical characteristics or specifications, it is not primarily a standards organization. The ITU-R views its role as a regulator and coordinator of global telecommunications networks, services, and technologies. Every three to four years, the ITU convenes a World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC), formerly known as the World Administrative Radio Conference (WARC). The WRC focuses solely on the global aspects of Radio Regulations, in terms of allowing new allocations or modifying the existing table of allocations and/or its footnotes. As the WRC is the Treaty component of the ITU, the Radio Regulations that result from the WRC have far reaching implications on all the Administrations that are signatory members of the ITU, as well as radio manufacturers and users in Treaty countries. For example, the WRC allocates radio frequency spectrum to radio services, including ITS. The Land Mobile radio service covers ITS applications that depend on terrestrial and wireless transmission. The Broadcasting service covers ITS

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applications, such as RDSTMC. The WRC establishes global and/or regional rules for the operation of radio equipment, including equipment that provides Telematics services and Multimedia applications. The WRC allows for the physical movement of radio equipment, such as a wireless phones, across member countries. The WRC establishes criteria for

“Most member nations are relectuctant to make frequent changes to the Radio Regulations” coordination and band sharing among radio services. In the past, WARCs focused on the allotments of the geostationary satellite orbit and the associated assignment of radio frequency spectrum.

Resolution items

Procedurally, a WRC conference resolves regulatory issues and responds to specific Agenda Items and associated Resolutions adopted at previous WRCs. For example, the Agenda for WRC-2007 and a baseline Agenda for WRC-2010 were promulgated at WRC-2003. An Agenda Item emerges from a Resolution which spells out the necessary technical studies or reports that are required to resolve a specific technical or regulatory problem. In order to address a WRC-

Thinking Highways

Paul Najarian was director of telecoms at ITS America from 1996-2006. He can be contacted via email: [email protected]

2007 Agenda Item (which was approved based on a Resolution adopted at WRC2003), the ITU-R conducts a number of complex technical and regulatory studies during the 2003-2007 period. The conclusions of these studies dictate the outcome of the Agenda Item at WRC-2007. A WRC is preceded by a Conference Preparatory Meeting (CPM), usually 6 to 9 months prior to the WRC. The CPM consolidates the output of the technical and regulatory studies that were conducted during the past several years, and produces a baseline document or text for each Agenda Item to be presented at the WRC. Member countries are then invited to submit contributions or dissenting views directly to the WRC.

Complex issues

Although the timelines appear lengthy, this allows for serious negotiations on bilateral or multilateral levels in order to resolve diverging positions among countries or regions. Overall, WRC Agenda Items are extremely complex. Most member nations are reluctant to make frequent changes to the Radio Regulations. The stability of the Radio Regulations provides long term confidence to telecommunication manufacturers and network operators, and encourages them to produce equipment or deliver services within its guidelines.

Paul Najarian’s Connected World While the ITS industry has been moderately successful within the ITU-R, it has not made any marks on the WRC. Recommendations on Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) and short-range collision avoidance radar, previously adopted by the ITU-R, are still in force. The ITU-R is also in the process of publishing an ITS Handbook for the benefit of developing countries. Work on a draft new Recommendation on millimeter wave ITS radiocommunications is also on-going. This work is coordinated with the standardization effort on the Communications Air interface Long and Medium range (CALM) millimeter wave within ISO/ TC204 Working Group 16. The implementation of these Recommendations is not binding on ITU member nations.

Harmonious relations

During WRC-2003, Canada attempted to introduce a Resolution for a WRC-2007 Agenda Item on ITS. The intent of the Resolution was to study the harmonization of frequency spectrum for ITS applications, particularly for DSRC. As the allocation of spectrum for DSRC differs among Japan, the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and North America, the intent of the Resolution was to conduct the necessary studies that would have identified a harmonized frequency band. The studies could have also identified additional spectrum for DSRC, particularly for Europe, if the existing bandwidth was deemed inadequate. Although the Canadian proposal was thought to have merit, it was not previously coordinated with other countries or regions, nor was it available as part of the CPM text. As the proposal was directly submitted to the WRC

without prior consultation, many nations were reluctant to support it. As a result, Canada withdrew the proposal. In the absence of any Agenda Items relating to ITS, the ITS industry should review the entire list of Agenda Items and identify specific items that may impact the deployment of ITS services. It may also wish to contribute to specific Agenda Items in order to assert the size and viability of the industry. In other words, the ITS industry should piggyback on existing Agenda Items.

Future impact

The agenda for WRC-2007 includes several Agenda Items that will impact future deployments of ITS. Some of these Agenda Items deal with the GPS network (essential for car navigation systems or

“Although the Canadian proposal had merit it was not previously coordinated with other regions”

In the US, the recently signed “Security and Accountability for Every (SAFE) Port” Act of 2006, also known as the Port Security Act, has elevated the visibility of technologies (including scanning technologies and telecommunications) for Port Security and the transportation of dangerous goods. As a result, a number of Administrations are considering introducing a WRC-2010 Agenda Item that would seek to harmonize frequencies for Port Security, Hazmat transportation and Border Crossing. If such an Agenda Item is added to WRC2010, the ITS industry should immediately jump on this opportunity, especially for freight mobility, commercial vehicle and intermodal applications. Both a short-range communications solution, as well as a wide-area wireless, may be proposed as a viable solution.

Looking forward

Another anticipated topic at WRC-2010 is the proliferation of radio frequency identification (RFID). RFID devices have been operating, as unlicensed low-power location-based services) or devices and on a secondary with the future of Third basis, across every possible Generation (3G) wireless frequency band, as long as the systems. Agenda Item 1.4 of cost and complexity of the WRC-2007 will identify RFID device is kept low. spectrum for 4th Generation A potential WRC-2010 wireless systems, known as Agenda Item on RFID would IMT-Advanced. ITS attempt to harmonize the wide applications, especially those range of frequencies used for that are multimedia-driven, such devices, which in turn could easily influence the might provide a solution to the amount of bandwidth interoperability problem necessary to deliver such across RFID devices. services. The ITU will hold the CPM Other Agenda Items dealing from February 19-March 2, 2007. WRC-2007 will be held with GPS or the radio from October 22-November broadcasting service could 16. An ITS-related Agenda also impact ITS (and vice Item at WRC-2010 will clearly versa). For WRC-2010 (or elevate the visibility of the ITS 2011), a number of topics are being proposed and circulated industry in the telecomfor consideration. munications arena. TH Thinking Highways Vol 1 No 1

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Harold Worrall’s Bright Ideas

Harold Worrall’s Bright Ideas

Fields of view Toll concessions are commonplace in South America. Now they are heading North... Concessions are going to become a reality in the US marketplace and the ultimate form they take will be affected by the contextual framework that exists. Technology is a key contextual issue for concessions, but to date the concessionaires and public agencies are more enamored with the financial potential of concessions. The ability of technology to radically alter the financial viability of a concession is not understood. Concessions are nothing new in Europe or the world outside of the US, especially in South America, but the form that concessions might take here is just developing. The predominant form thus far has been long-term leases of existing toll facilities (brownfields) rather than the construction of new ones (greenfields).

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The Chicago Skyway, Indiana Toll Road and Virginia’s Pocahontas Parkway have held the attention of the media and several other agenices are considering similar arrangements. The value in these projects is driven by the ability to raise toll rates on a prescribed formula, to bring about efficiency improvements, and the ability to depreciate the asset. This last feature is unique to the U.S. market and allows the leaseholder to depreciate the asset on an accelerated schedule, so long as the lease period exceeds approximately 50 years. Most of the leases are driven by the desperation of public officials who are trying to generate funding for transportation. The balance between public policy and private sector profit motivations is evolving slowly. Public concerns for equitable

access to transportation, transparent procurements processes and an opportunity for public input on the management of public facilities must be balanced with the profit motive. While it may be some time before the public sector realizes the difference between long term leases and the more meaningful public/private partnerships of shorter term concessions, technology awaits the opportunity to have its contribution to the mix. The next era of electronic toll collection could impact the course of privatization in America. The introduction of Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) nearly 20 years ago was hailed as the means by which operating costs could be significantly reduced. While ETC was a huge success in many areas, reducing

Dr Harold Worrall is president of Transportation Innovations and is past chair of ITS Florida, ITS America and the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA). From 1992 until 2004 he was executive director of the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority

Thinking Highways Vol 1 No 1

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Paul Harold Najarian Worrall’s Bright Ideas

operating costs was generally not one of them. Instead, ETC back office costs were added on top of the labor costs for manual collection, providing physical facilities for cash collection and other costs of handling cash. The industry is now seeing the emergence of Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) and video tolling which shows promise for eliminating cash collection costs completely. Certainly, many technical, political and social considerations must be addressed, but the implementation of GPS and video tolling applications offer a glimpse of cashless operations. Will concessions offer a fertile environment for new technology? Can advanced technology significantly enhance the financial value of a concession? Consider two brownfield operations each generating US$100 million, one under public control, the other under a long term private lease, otherwise identical. Assume that a technology is developed that allows the toll road operators to eliminate cash collections with the only risk being the loss of 5 per cent of gross revenue. Let’s further assume that the new technology offers the potential to reduce the costs of collection from 30 per cent of gross revenue to 10 per cent. When the public agency is given such an alternative, the concern is the negative publicity surrounding the “annual loss of US$5 million in public money.” The agency would likely be severely

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“The question is not one of public sector management inadequacy”

If they lose money it doesn’t come out of the public coffers. In fact, the private sector may not be required to report its financial information. If not publicly traded, there is no necessity to report profit or losses. Might such circumstances provide an edge to the decision on whether to execute a long term lease or concession? If private enterprise can improve operational efficiency to a degree that it approaches the example, a large financial advantage accrues to the concession. Perhaps there other advantages the private sector possesses over public management of roadway assets, in construction, maintenance, design, operations. The question is not one of public sector management inadequacy. The public sector certainly has many very competent managers and employees. The public sector is quite capable of evaluating alternatives, setting strategic direction and organizing for efficiency. However, it is the perception of public and private entities that may make the difference in the future of concessions criticized for such a large loss and the acceptance of of funds. Though the public advanced technologies to agency is perfectly capable of optimize the efficiency of toll analyzing the risks and making roads. the correct decision, the risks The adoption of new would preempt the analysis. technology by toll road On the other hand, a private concessionaires will likely operator or concessionaire yield a situation that is skewed would be more likely to accept in favor of concessions and the advanced technology and that will see the rewards for the public would judge them risk taking accruing to the as a private for-profit company. private side of the ledger. TH

Vol 1 No 1 Thinking Highways



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News

The world is

connected TOM GOOD reports from the ITS World Congress in London with news of an exciting collaboration involving this very magazine and a brand new on-line networking platform Launched during the 13th World Congress on ITS held last month in London, the World ITS Directory project provides an on-line networking platform helping ITS professionals contact each other. Being worldwide, it is expected to grow very rapidly over the next few years, aiming at reaching 10,000 users by the end of 2009. Thinking Highways has been appointed the Directory’s strategic media partner for North America and Europe, while Vial magazine will be performing that role in Latin America . Based on an ITS Spain initiave, this project is being directed by Jaime Huerta, who in turn gas has designated Odile Pignier, Air de Paris director and former ERTICO contractor, to manage the Directory. “Visit the

website, sign in, wait for the green light and navigate your way around the Directory,” says Pignier. “Enjoy the ride and stay in the loop!” “We are delighted to be working with Odile, not just on the Directory but also on many other innovative projects that will be to the benefit of the ITS industry,” says H3B Media managing director Luis Hill, publisher of Thinking Highways. “We have already formulated several new, creative formats that will bring our organisations closer together.We very much enjoy collaborating with like-minded people.” Says Pignier: “The Directory is a fantastic tool but could not grow without being promoted on a large scale. Thanks to a close collaboration between the Directory project management and Thinking Highways magazine, our dream will soon turn into reality. It’s something that I am looking forward to very much.” The website is up and running now and can be found at www.worlditsdirectory.com.

A permanent networking platform

The Intelligent Transport Systems community is truly global. It spans many countries, all time zones, many languages and represents very large numbers of professionals working in different activity sectors worldwide. Many of these community members already meet once or twice each year in local or national seminars and meetings, national and regional ITS associations and so on. However, there is a strong demand for some form of network that is available at all times and enables ITS professionals to identify key executive and technical specialists through targeted searches; read personal and professional information on each of them; and then contact them for more. The benefits from such a directory are multiple for

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News individuals, organisations and sponsors. They mainly derive from providing information on individuals’ background and experience and on an organisation’s knowhow facilitating networking activities, thus improving business opportunities, projects and partnerships. PhD and ITS Master students may also sign in as they represent future ITS professionals. Priority will be given to keeping data up-to-date through regular checks and data cross-matching. A bi-yearly overall check of the directory will be carried out systematically and will give another chance to each user to update his data. The official language of the site will be English.

Data protection

From the legal viewpoint, this project complies with high-level security standards, notably the stringent Spanish personal data protection law called LOPD ( Ley Orgánica de Protección de Datos, 15/1999 dated 13 December 1999). Throughout the data collection process, all necessary steps will be taken to ensure that all contacts have ITS-related activities and that only authorised users have access to the information in order to avoid unwanted correspondence. All users are clearly informed about their rights (consent required) and duties (commitment to respecting the networking purposes of the directory). Individual information collected mainly consists in contact information, biography, area(s) of expertise and ITS topics. Regarding organisations, the Directory collects data on their legal status, headquarters address, know-how and so on. All passwords are encrypted.

Free access

From the financial viewpoint, inclusion and access to the directory are free for individuals and organisations, as long as they work in the ITS sector. This is a very valuable promotional tool for small companies unable to dedicate much funding to advertising. Large organisations and companies will also see an efficient way of directing their potential customers and partners to their ITS department. Nevertheless, in order to ensure that the Directory remains a specialised reference, the administrator together with the Steering Committee reserve the right not to validate any application form deemed inappropriate.

London, October 2006: H3B Media managing director Luis Hill, World ITS Directory manager Odile Pignier and director Jaime Huerta somehow all manage to shake hands at the same time on the deal that sees Thinking Highways confirmed as the Directory’s strategic media partner for North America and Europe

ward suggestions for new services, funding, give guidance and recommend individuals and organisations for inclusion in the directory. These may include partners, clients or staff. In order to keep contributions affordable, 20 organisations are being sought in the private and public sectors, each of them contributing €2,500 (US$4,000) if the contract is signed before 31 December 2006 and €3,000 (US$4,750) as of 1 January 2007. A comparable budget is being considered for the following years. Organisations such as the UK Department for Transport, ITS Canada and the ITS Nationals network are already sponsoring the project. Other companies and organisations were approached recently and many of them have expressed their interest in supporting this project. Confirmations are still pending. Opportunities will be given on a first-come firstserved basis. TH

“There is a strong demand for some form of network that is available at all times”

Sponsorship opportunities

In order to cover expenses, sponsorship opportunities are offered to all ITS-related organisations wishing to support and contribute financially to this project. Sponsors will benefit from the following: • Logo visibility on the website, on all publications including press and on promotional tools made available at ITS events. • Advertising space in the “Sponsor News” section will enable sponsors to highlight upcoming events, new projects or products. • Participation in a Steering committee, if they wish. Each sponsor will be given the opportunity to put forwww.h3bmedia.com

If would like to become a sponsor of the World ITS Directory, please contact either Odile Pignier at either [email protected] or [email protected] or Jaime Huerta at [email protected] Thinking Highways Vol 1 No 1

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The Thought Process

Bernie Wagenblast The New Jersey-based editor of the Transportation Communications Newsletter tells KEVIN BORRAS of his life in information dissemination The Transportation Communications Newsletter combines the two fields I’ve worked in throughout my career. When I was attending Seton Hall University in the 1970s, and majoring in communications, my intention was to work in broadcast journalism. In fact, my first jobs while I was in school, as well as immediately after graduating, were in radio. About a year after I finished school I learned of a new company called Shadow Traffic. Shadow, which had its start in Philadelphia, was coming to New York City. At the time two stations in the city had helicopters and most other stations listened to those reports to provide their own updates. The idea behind Shadow was that it would serve most of the stations in the market and because it was providing information to so many stations, they could afford the resources to cover a wider area in greater depth than any one station could on its own. I was fortunate to be selected as one of the original on-air reporters. My time at Shadow was my first exposure to what would later be known as ITS and traveler information. Technology at the time was pretty straight forward. Much of our information came from spotters in the air, in cars, and atop the Empire State Building and World Trade Center. Information flowed from the operations desk to the studios over a Radio Shack computer which used a cassette tape as its hard drive. Technology has advanced quite a bit since then. Personal relationships are still the most important, and often the most overlooked, aspect of transportation operations.

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I was at Shadow for a little over five years, but that was enough to whet my appetite for doing more work in transportation. After Shadow I joined the New York City Department of Transportation. They were setting up a communications center which was designed to gather traffic information from around the five boroughs and coordinate it with other city agencies and share it with the public. At that time about the only way an agency could get real-time information to the public was via the radio stations. The creation of the NYCDOT Communications Center was one of the first examples in the metropolitan area of a traffic operations center whose purpose included responsibility of getting traffic information to the public. In the mid-80s, traffic cameras were just being introduced to NYCDOT. Most of the views we could watch were of the nearby Queensboro Bridge. If something was happening elsewhere in the city we had to rely on the NYPD or NYCDOT field personnel to let us know what was happening. At about the same time NYCDOT’s Communications Center was being established, the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey had the idea for a group called the Transportation Operations Coordinating Committee, better known as TRANSCOM. Anyone familiar with transportation in the New York City area knows there are multiple agencies responsible for many different pieces of the transportation network. Not only do you have three states (New York, New Jersey and Connecticut) but there are also various toll agencies, police departments and mass transit operators. When something went wrong on one part of the network, the affects were quickly felt by many other agencies. Traffic problems didn’t respect jurisdictional lines. www.h3bmedia.com

Photo by Joy Wagenblast

“What ITS can do is support policy objectives and improve knowledge, information and management”

“Personal relationships are still the most important and often the most overlooked aspect of transportation operations”

The Thought Process

Formally coordinating information among agencies in the NYC area was a revolutionary idea, and one which certainly wasn’t immediately embraced by all of the agencies. While sharing information might seem like a pretty benign activity, most agencies were very turf conscious and one of the points we had to emphasize again and again was that TRANSCOM had no power over any of the agencies. In fact, TRANSCOM could make no policy decisions without the unanimous consent of all its member agencies. As I learned at Shadow, the importance of building personal relationships was something which could not be overlooked. New and improved technology made it easier to do our jobs, and sometimes provided a foot in the door to an agency. An early example at TRANSCOM was something we called the Velcro truck. This was a truck which could be driven to the site of a traffic problem. It had a retractable board upon which Velcro-backed words could be attached to alert drivers. It was a far cry from the electronic changeable message signs found along highways today, but this simple piece of equipment was a big help to agencies who didn’t have the resources to communicate with drivers. While at TRANSCOM I had the chance to witness the early stages of two technologies in widespread use today. The first was a video camera attached to a cellular phone to transmit pictures back to our operations centre. The cell phones at that time were as big as bricks and coverage was pretty spotty, but the ability to send a picture back from the field was something that had not been seen by most of the transportation agencies. TRANSCOM also had an early version of a navigation system in the early 1980s. A van was equipped with a CRT screen and a tape deck which plotted the location of the vehicle as it moved about the area. Maps were stored on a cassette tape and since GPS was not yet available to the public, it depended upon dead reckoning to track the van’s movements.

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A lesson I learned while serving as the operations manager at TRANSCOM is that its important to remove as many barriers to cooperation as possible. Since TRANSCOM was a new concept, and many people at the agencies seemed to feel they were doing just fine before TRANSCOM came along, it was sometimes tough convincing hardened operations people of the value of picking up the phone to report an incident. It’s sometimes surprising how bureaucracy can throw up hurdles. For instance, the phones at the operations desks of many agencies couldn’t dial another area code so calling TRANSCOM became impossible. We overcame that hurdle by establishing a toll-free number which could be called from any number in the region and to make it simple, it was a number that was easy to remember. While I was working at TRANSCOM the idea of the I-95 Corridor Coalition was created. The I-95 Coalition initially stretched from Maine to Virginia, and in some ways resembled TRANSCOM on a larger scale. Here again the idea was to share information among agencies that weren’t in the habit of working together on a daily basis. For example, over the years technology had developed so that many agencies now had variable message signs on their roadways. These signs were usually used only for problems on that agency’s property.There were instances though, when major incidents caused the closure of a major highway for many hours and it was important to reach long-distance travelers with that information many miles, and states, away from the location of the incident. I served as one of the original co-chairs of the Highway Operations Group, the operations arm of the coalition. At its start the Coalition had no money and no staff, but by bringing people together at meetings, relationships developed and low-cost communications techniques were used to share information throughout the northeastern US. TH For more on the Transportation Communications Newsletter, send an email to [email protected] www.h3bmedia.com

THIN KING HIG HW AYS is proud to be the World ITS Directory’s strategic media partner for North America and Europe

In association with THIN KING HIG HW AYS Strategic Media Partner for North America & Europe

Cover Story

Dream, then do The DARPA Challenge and the rebirth and vision of automated driver assistance by ANTHONY MELIHEN

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Under starter’s orders: the contestants for the 2005 DARPA Challenge prepare to break the tape..

A good idea is a good idea. As fast as a new science fiction work can be unpacked at a bookstore, the engineering-inclined are critiquing its ideas, assessing its values and visualizing the technical possibilities. Criticisms may end up on a blog site, but anything with merit and marketability will more likely end up on a CAD system. Whether motivated by profit or curiosity, so often goes this flow from story to actuality – creativity, fueled by necessity, pushes forward ingenuity and style. The cellular flip phone, the touch screen, the laser, the sub-skin microchip, the space station, travel beneath the sea, around the world, and to the moon all started in imaginative minds removed from the presence of such technology but knowing it could happen. In fact, the way we travel has been such a particularly important theme throughout the genre for so long that it could be said that futurists have offered as much influence as urban planners on our evolving transportation systems, how they influence our cities’ shapes, and affect our daily lives. Transportation is one of the most capital intensive infrastructure investments any society makes. It’s also one of the most difficult – or rather impossible – investments to change and modify all at once. The longevity of vehicle technology, road systems, and communication networks we use today, as well as the transport habits we hold onto so guardedly, mean that working to improve that which we have until something revolutionary comes along is seemingly our most popular and most easily ratified development option. Perhaps the most actively sought-after transportation technology possibilities to rise from the promising pages of science fiction over the past 20 years – and one that makes better use out of existing infrastructure – has come in the form of automated vehicles. Recent achievements in this area have begun to reveal the growing value that such technology can offer society, literally throwing the notion of driverless cars from screenplay to roadway overnight and enabling people to believe a mass-market solution will arrive sooner than later. A future with safe driverless vehicles is one ideal end goal being pursued, and this is widely accepted to be a worthy challenge.We can make vehicles move, turn, and stop on command better than ever, and we are already marketing vehicles under the guise that they are “smarter”. From our present vantage point, we can see how vehicle automation can soon become an attainable future avenue for making road vehicles that much better. But before we can reshape transportation ideas within our cities through engineering, we truly need to better comprehend the role of dynamic vehicle positioning and orientation systems (POS), and understand the many reasons why this is an indispensable part of the robotic navigation equation. Vehicle motion begins with, continues with, and changes with servo-activations produced by decisionwww.h3bmedia.com

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processing algorithms based largely on constant and accurate position and orientation information. Even though terrain evaluation sensors such as LIDAR scanners, radar, and other active measurement technologies are vital for real-time situational adjustments along a given path, they would arguably be deemed secondary given a clear highway and networked vehicles continuously sharing their POS data to avoid collision. Accurate POS data, however, must constantly be available hundreds of times each second to process in robust fashion not only where the vehicle is located and where it is heading but also to relay the exact orientation of all onboard sensors. Although still in the pioneering days of research, and driven in large part by unexpected forms of competition, progress in GPS-aided inertial measurement technology is gaining acceptance as one of the most reliable sensor inputs needed for any autonomous vehicle design.

Catalysts for change

Beyond our instincts to improve, two main reasons to support the advancement of automated vehicle technology stand out: saving lives and realizing greater efficiencies in transportation. Each traffic fatality represents an immeasurable tragedy. In 2004, there were 42,636 such tragedies in the United States alone; roughly 14.5 deaths per 100,000 people and 1.46 fatalities per 100 Million Vehicle Miles Traveled (the “VMT rate”) . Surprisingly, these figures are not exceptional; however, with each loss, an associated cost is introduced beyond the incomparable measure of grief. Losses in productivity, payout and compensations, damages and repairs are only part of the equation beyond the death or injury of a vehicle occupant. Furthermore, there is a staggering lost opportunity cost hidden within each individual that make up the sum total of fatalities. Freight and commercial benefits expected from vehicle automation are much simpler to envision and fiscally

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justify. For example, whether discussing taxis or tractor trailers, a savings per unit on delivery costs may easily be calculated from not having a trained driver constantly on salary during all hours of vehicle operation. There is also an implicit economic ideal that an autonomous vehicle may be safer and capable of running non-stop. These benefits, along with many others, measurably outweigh those of having a driver on hand to address unforeseen circumstances. Above all (at least through these relatively early developmental steps),the most vocal proponents of unmanned vehicle technology have come from the ranks of the military. A U.S. Congressional mandate authorizing that a fleet of military ground vehicles possessing autonomous capabilities be in active service before 2015 offers powerful encouragement that this technology is certainly on the way. Spurred on by experiences of war fighters, progresses made in drone technology, and support from the public treasury, there is increasing confidence that such ambitious efforts are now achievable or will soon become very possible.

The dirt road to DARPA

In October, 2005, the DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Grand Challenge was held. The goal: to create and successfully race a driverless vehicle across a desert environment with natural and man made obstacles in place designed to interrupt or distort GPS signals, break wheel struts, and humble institutional sized egos… all in under 10 hours.The 131.6 mile (211.8 km) course was kept secret until just prior to race time. 195 teams entered, 43 would be chosen to qualify, 23 raced as finalists, and 5 successful prototype concepts were produced, varying from a hybrid SUVs to a full sized 16 ton tactical cargo hauler. Over a decade before race day, the latest concept of robotic vehicle assistance at the time was demonstrated to the world. Prototype “auto-control” (quasi-robotic) cars traveled bumper-to-bumper in platoons along spewww.h3bmedia.com

Cover Story

cial highway lanes while drivers read newspapers. From this achievement, technical and economic limitations were better understood, and yet research stalled in the face of a practical solution. Attentions shifted more towards new infrastructure designs, driver/roadway information management systems, and command and control centers. The driver remained the sole relied upon all-in-one vehicle navigation component, flaws and all. It would take the abolishing selective availability on GPS signals and losses on battlefield supply lines, as well as the acknowledgement of critical human driving weaknesses before automated vehicle technology would be actively pursued again. Meanwhile communications and network data sharing improved. GPS aided inertial navigation systems were engineered as cooperating partners instead of stand-alone technologies, delivering the first seemingly perpetual sub-meter positional accuracies needed for automated vehicles. Better driver information systems were becoming more and more of a familiar utility. A basic foundation for the automated road/vehicle data sharing model that visionaries had long expected to become essential in our lives was beginning to take firm root. And so what has past has become prologue. The successes at the DARPA Grand Challenge demonstrated how automated vehicle research had leapfrogged over numerous technical hurdles and a decade of relative stagnation in driverless vehicle development. Now that the once fictionalized method of travel suddenly seems more achievable, greater attention, and of course rapid investment, is being placed on the vehicle side of this broad transit equation.

Secret of success

As much as or possibly more than the various forward looking scanners (radar, laser, or a variety of choices) showcased at the DARPA Grand Challenge, the inclusion of a GPS tightly coupled with inertial measurement www.h3bmedia.com

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units (IMU) and distance measurement instruments seemed essential for success. All five vehicles that finished the race included an IMU of various forms, from somewhat improvised systems to high end commercial off the shelf POS solutions. Both Carnegie Mellon University vehicle entries, longtime race favorites, sat on the winner’s podium carrying Applanix POS LV GPS supported IMU systems onboard, and all top three competitors finished within mere minutes of each other. In comparison with the older, inflexible “follow the magnetic breadcrumb” auto-control concepts from a decade earlier, this combined sensor approach demonstrated vastly superior potential. There were problems scheduled into the challenge that only an IMU could solve. For example, the 1Hz refresh rates of even a strong GPS system would not prove to be reliable enough for robotic vehicles, especially through tunnels. Even at a leisurely pace with an accurate clock, a significant distance can be covered within only one second. Without additional guidance, a vehicle can suddenly become “lost” at a critical moment when other relied upon vehicle sensors are fooled, confused, or blocked. GPS signals, for example, experience inherent problems such as multipath effects (reflection of GPS signals off nearby surfaces, causing incorrect ranges to be computed) that only become amplified in an urban road environment. And in such settings, where pedestrians are often interacting with traffic, the room for error drops from feet to inches and from seconds to milliseconds. A sensor “jury” approach to navigation produces the most accurate and robust position estimate possible, and provides a critical advantage that is now being appreciated. Given the results from the early prototypes seen and raced, and given the projected relative cost effectiveness as solution anticipated in the not-so-distant future, this approach and technology will one day play a central role in automated vehicle development and continue to do so for decades. Thinking Highways Vol 1 No 1

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Cover Story One constant is change

If we believe technology will solve many of today’s transportation problems while providing greater road utility, we may be only half right and thirty years too late. Consider the following: • Even modest projections estimate a population increase in North America of over 20% between the years 2000 and 2030. Asian growth projections for the same interval are expected to exceed 30% with growing demand for mobility. European data suggest little change. Overall, more people will be using the roads. • Automated vehicles may potentially change how we license drivers. Age restrictions may no longer apply. A parent could conceivably program a vehicle to deliver a child to school and return. Senior citizens will maintain their mobility longer. The roads may therefore become busier with each family member traveling more and more independently. Non-transit technology will hopefully help reduce stress on our roads. Fundamental shifts in how we work are already taking place, allowing some lucky people to avoid commuting at least some of the time. But everything we invent now, including work hour policies and the development of automated vehicles, may seem reactionary. Furthermore, given a sober sample of drivers, freeway traffic (moving in physically segregated directions where relative vehicle velocity variances are minor) is still relatively safe. Yet these will be the first roadways used to test or apply the newest technology. The first real challenge will be adopting automated vehicles to city streets. Military agencies will continue to be the earliest adopters and most vocal proponents of this technology, eventually followed by commercial cargo carriers. Throughout these early user experiences, a great deal of feedback will be shared with the research community and vehicle manufacturers.Wider private civilian adoption still remains a big price drop away. The extent that autonomous vehicle development will impact regional urban dynamics through evolving transit networks and applications shall remain a mystery for many years to come. Practical examples are remarkably

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easy to envision and extend far beyond daily commuting. Imagine a truck depot in the future, where “drivers” never leave their families for days at a time. A robotic cargo truck arrives after traveling cross-country in platoons with similar rigs. It detaches its trailer in exchange for new freight and a new destination. Meanwhile, a transport specialist then takes responsibility for local deliveries with their (driver assisted) vehicle, handling loading, unloading, and other duties. There can be no mistaking that the regional urban and inter-urban travel will change as our transport needs and methods change, and a price will be paid for the upgrading of the urban infrastructure environment that will change along with it. It is simply one of the prices we pay as a society for progress that we deem beneficial and advantageous.

Going from here

We are on the verge of exploring real gains in how we use our transportation networks thanks in part to robotic development and automated driver assistance technology. Next generation IMUs and GPS devices and active sensors will offer even greater possibilities for freer roadway navigation at an affordable price. First as driver assistance systems, which we are seeing now, then soon as driver behavior override systems, and finally one day with complete driver reliance upon the vehicle, our transport destiny seems well plotted and finally achievable. What fiction authors could only dream of, our children will see as unimpressive and granted. Considering how our roadway environments will change to reflect this technology is almost its own exercise in fiction, for there will constantly be change in human transport methods and it will not stop with vehicle automation. But we have a better idea now of how it can be and it is still our fascinating task to build it and then pass it on to the future. The efforts we dedicate to this proposed progress – our next step forward in improving how we live and move – will be… and can only be… validated by creating new efficiencies within our cities, our suburbs, and in our lives. TH

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The Thinker

A holistic view of transportation thinking by PHIL TARNOFF

are we nearly there yet? “There is more energy available than Iceland can possibly use”

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The Thinker

Imagine that a major US airline is experiencing a high level of demand for one of its popular routes. In fact, the demand is so high that potential passengers are being turned away.

The airline has two choices; either increase the fare for this route, thus reducing demand or add additional capacity to the route either through the scheduling of an increased number of flights or the use of larger planes. These two actions are not mutually exclusive. The first action reduces demand, and the second action increases supply. One of the primary objectives of these actions is to establish a supply-demand equilibrium point that will maximize the airlines profitability. Unlike the airline industry, the highway transportation system is not usually operated with the objective of maximizing profitability. The objectives of this system may include minimizing travel times and/or providing high levels of travel time reliability. Although the objectives may vary, their achievement through adjustment of the supply-demand relationships remains applicable. Unfortunately, few if any in the highway transportation community view their role in the management and operations of the system in these terms. Transportation agencies are increasingly confronted with the need to compensate for significant increases in demand (increases in vehicle miles of travel – VMT) without adequate funding or the political will, for increasing supply through new construction. Thus the application of the traditional countermeasure to increased VMT, the construction of additional lanemiles of roadway is no longer a viable option. Demand reduction measures such as value pricing, and HOV lanes become the only available alternatives. It is important to be able to analyze these options within the context of the total set of feasible transportation management alternatives if we are to ensure that the roadway infrastructure is being utilized in the most efficient manner.

Photo by Dylan Stanley Borras

Supply-demand applications

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Within the transportation community, much effort is devoted to the project level impact assessment of various transportation measures. Little attention is paid to the interactions that may occur among multiple measures, nor the regional impact of these measures. The need for this more strategic impact assessment is critical, since interactions among measures might have consequences that are more significant than the impact of any one individual measure. One particularly striking example of this relationship occurred many years ago, when a state decided to eliminate the mainline toll booths on a major congested interstate. The motivation was to increase the capacity of the interstate (supply) by eliminating the delays and queues caused by the tolls. However, eliminating the tolls also increased demand on the interstate, with the result that the quality of service being offered remained unchanged or degraded. Although the regional impacts were not evaluated, it is possible that the quality of servThinking Highways Vol 1 No 1

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The Thinker

ice on alternate routes improved due to reduced demand on these routes, or alternatively, that the overall demand increased due to reduced usage of mass transit due to the lower cost of travel on the interstate. This one example points to the importance of considering supplydemand relationships as well as regional impacts when considering operational changes. These relationships can be most readily visualized through the use of traditional supply-demand plots such as the one shown in Figure 1. In this figure, the vertical (Y) axis represents disutility (also called level of service) which may be represented in terms of increased travel cost, trip time, user costs, or level of service. The horizontal (X) axis represents demand, which is usually expressed in terms of vehicle miles of travel (VMT). The supply curve shown in the figure is a representation of the degradation of service (increasing disutility) that occurs for a fixed amount of supply (roadway or corridor capacity) with increasing demand. The demand curve depicts the quantity of travel demand that will be generated, when differing levels of service are incurred. The slopes of these lines are known as the elasticity of demand. The point at which these two curves intersect is the equilibrium point. It represents the demand that occurs for a given amount of supply.

From A to D In their definitive analysis of these relationships Wagner and Gilbert identified four classes of measures as follows: Class A – Actions that reduce travel demand such as: pricing (tolls, fares, value pricing, etc), transit enhancements, telecommuting and ridesharing. Class B – Actions that enhance highway supply such as: construction (additional lanes, grade separations, intersection improvements, etc.), improved signal timing, elimination of mainline tolls and ramp metering Class C – Actions that reduce demand and degrade supply such as: take a lane for high occupancy vehicles (HOVs), auto restricted zones and reductions in offstreet parking and; Class D – Actions that reduce demand and enhance supply such as: new HOV lanes and on-street parking restrictions. The impacts of these actions described using the classical supply-demand curves which are shown in figures

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2 through 5. Note that these figures represent increased supply by the downward movement of the supply curve, and increased demand by a shift to the right of the demand curve. From these figures, it can be seen that all classes of measures improve mobility (reduce disutility) except for Class C. However, since Class C reduces demand, it offers the potential benefits of reduced fuel consumption and reduced emissions.

Class dismissed

These figures also demonstrate that Class B actions which increase VMT, tend to work against the Class C actions which are intended to reduce VMT. Other conclusions that can be reached from these curves include the fact that actions which tend to reduce demand also offer the potential to reduce emissions and fuel consumption. These curves do not account for the relative magnitude (impact) of the changes they represent. Data must be obtained from project results available from sources such as the Deployment Support Databases of the US Department of Transportation’s Joint Program Office. The approach described here is a powerful analysis tool. It provides the ability to represent the impact of growth in demand (VMT) without any change in supply (no additional roadway lane-miles) by sliding the demand curve to the right, and observing the change in the location of the equilibrium point which, in turn, will show an increase in disutility. www.h3bmedia.com

The Thinker The change in the equilibrium point can be used to represent improvements in mobility, fuel consumption and emissions, depending on its direction of change. When the point of equilibrium moves downward, mobility has been improved. When the change in the equilibrium point is downward and the right (both disutility and demand are being reduced), energy and emissions benefits are being reduced.

An interesting example

It is important to thoroughly understand these concepts prior to their application. One potentially confusing example is the construction of a new toll road. It would be tempting to consider this facility a Class A action, since pricing has been listed within this category. However, the Class A pricing actions are oriented toward the pricing of existing facilities with the specific intent of decreasing demand. A new toll road represents an increase in supply which is a Class B action. The tolls imposed on this new facility are, in fact, a technique for regulating the demand on the road, but their net result is to ensure that the newly supplied capacity is operating at peak efficiency, rather than to achieve an overall reduction in regional VMT. Thus the new toll road must be considered a Class B action with the end result that disutility will be decreased (level of service improved), while demand will be increased. This conclusion is consistent with the expectations of

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regional transportation officials when a facility of this nature is being constructed. Criticism of new facilities is often based on the very possibility that the new facility will result in increased VMT. To counter this argument, a combination of actions must be taken that produce results such as those shown for Class D actions, which produce improved levels of service without increasing demand. This is accomplished through the use of complementary Class A measures such as transit improvements, increased cost of parking, encouraging telecommuting, etc. that will reduce total VMT without reductions in capacity. The combined impact of these actions can be analyzed as described earlier, using data available for individual projects that make up the combined package of actions being considered. This analysis framework will both enhance the agency’s understanding of the potential impacts of a proposed project, and will serve as an effective graphic for communicating with the public and elected officials, many of whom are more familiar with the economic analysis than with the details of transportation engineering.

The holistic view

Unfortunately, the ability of transportation agencies to take a holistic approach toward improving mobility is hampered by stovepiping of operations that occurs within the industry. Examples of the negative impacts of stovepiped operations are easy to find. For example, individual modes (highway, transit, and rail) are operated independently by agencies with little concern about the impact of their operations on each other. Nowhere is this problem more evident and potentially damaging than in our failure to integrate measures that impact transportation system supply and demand. State DOTs emphasize the use of supply-oriented measures such as freeway ramp metering, traffic signal control and rapid incident clearance. When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The overall effectiveness of a transportation system is determined by its individual components. For this reason, it is essential that the roadway and vehicle infrastructure be considered as a system rather than its individual parts. TH

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Homeland Security

The future and how to map it RICHARD BISHOP believes that we’ve come a long way with advanced driver assistance systems, but wonders how much further we have to go

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) based on radar, lidar, and image processing technology are now available around the globe on dozens of car models – offering increased driver convenience and safety. Even in the lawyer-saturated US, the most challenging market for active safety technology due to liability concerns, sophisticated emergency braking systems are now available. The current offerings are really just a beginning, but they are nevertheless impressive. If you’re on the highway side of ITS, it can be a bit challenging to stay abreast of how far the car industry has come. You know – those metal and plastic things that keep filling up the roads? Here’s a brief run-down. The automotive industry is moving rapidly from crash protection to ADAS. In recent years, industry decisionmakers reached a consensus that we have reached the point of diminishing returns with occupant protection -active safety is the way forward. Why not avoid the crash in the first place? The forerunner of all ADAS was Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC), which operates like regular cruise control when the road ahead is clear. It uses forward sensing (radar or lidar) to detect slower vehicles ahead and

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matches their speed at a constant gap. Essentially, footfree driving. Early versions only operated at highway speed, offering quite a benefit to commuters but leaving one hungry for more support at lower speeds. Today’s Full Speed Range ACC does just that – it will follow a lead car to a full stop, thereby extending the convenience of ACC to city driving. Collision warning systems are built on top of the ACC technology, and Collision Mitigation Braking systems actually hit the brakes full-on if the driver doesn’t respond to warnings and a collision is imminent. Lane departure warning and blind spot warning systems are also available.

Blurred vision

Night vision systems arrived with great fanfare on Cadillacs in the 1990s, but were only marginally useful due to blurry images. Now, a new generation of night vision systems is on the march, spreading rapidly through the luxury vehicle models. Oops … did I say luxury? What about the rest of us that want to avoid a crash but can’t readily afford a luxury car? Well, when it comes to high tech electronics, this is how the car industry works – the price of ADAS range from several hundred to a couple of thousand dollars. That’s a modest percentage of the purchase price of the www.h3bmedia.com

Homeland Security

average Mercedes or Infiniti. However, the good news is that early systems such as ACC are starting to move into mid-range vehicles. For instance, BMW now offers ACC on the 2007 3-Series. With a base price of US$36,000, the 3-Series dominates BMW sales in both Europe and North America. Sales are close to 60 per cent higher than the combined sales of their luxury models – close to 400,000 3-Series vehicles will be sold this year. ACC and related systems are now available on many makes and models by the likes of Volvo, Volkswagen, and Toyota. ADAS entered the heavy truck market in the early 90s with radar-based forward collision warning and blind spot monitoring. Today well over 50,000 trucks are equipped with this type of system in the U.S. and penetration in Europe is creeping upwards. Lane departure warning became available in the late 90s and tens of thousands of systems are now on the roads. Stability systems, preventing rollovers and jacknifing, are now widely available. Imagine – we have begun an era where road closures, traffic fatalities, and infrastructure damage due to truck rollo-

vers will begin to decrease. ADAS systems are poised for ever-more growth. In 2006 we passed the 100,000 annual unit sales mark for ADAS worldwide. In coming years, a rapidly growing older driver population will highly value ADAS. As prices come down due to larger volumes, the appeal will broaden to encompass the average family who now values airbags and side crash protection. What are the major trends going forward? Two main themes will revolutionize our experience of driving in the future. One is “the connected vehicle,” i.e. ubiquitous communications to/from our vehicles, which is the focus of the current U.S. Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) program and similar programs worldwide. VII has received so much attention that I’ll not dwell on it here. But there is another major theme not quite as prominent – map-supported vehicle systems.

“The good news is that early systems such as ACC are starting to move into mid-range vehicles”

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Mapping the future

Let’s dig into this a bit. We’re not talking about navigation systems here, as useful as they are. We are talking Thinking Highways Vol 1 No 1

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ADAS about vehicles becoming safer and more efficient because their “information horizon” has been extended to hundreds and even thousands of meters ahead of the vehicle. Communications provide the dynamic lookahead picture, while advanced digital maps provide highly detailed but relatively static information. With increasingly lower cost GPS receivers, geo-position and maps together make a powerful combination.

The digital age

So, how can ADAS systems perform more robustly when informed by digital maps? What new ADAS applications are enabled by digital maps? A variety of research projects have investigated these questions, including EDMap in the U.S. and NextMAP, ActMAP, and MAPS&ADAS (www.prevent-ip.org) in Europe. By far, the most significant development work in this area is in Europe, funded by the European Commission eSafety program. Other programs at the national level, include the Swedish Intelligent Vehicle Safety Systems (IVSS) program. Several auto manufacturers and suppliers are actively developing map-supported ADAS, and mapping companies such as Intermap, Navteq, and TeleAtlas are quite active. In fact, the first map-supported application is already on the market in the latest BMW ACC system. Map data from the navigation system is interfaced with the ACC controller to adapt to the degree of road curvature ahead, and to refrain from accelerating improperly on freeway exit ramps. Siemens VDO developed the system for BMW.

The benefit of maps

Generally speaking, map-support becomes more useful the greater the range in front of the vehicle. Close-in applications, such as blind spot warning and lane departure warning could only benefit marginally from map data. However, lighting applications, forward sensing, passing support and similar functions can benefit immensely. Today’s digital maps are two dimensional, essentially laid out on a “flat earth.” Unfortunately, the accuracy of these maps offers limited help when it comes to most

ADAS applications. A new generation of 2D maps is needed and they will require increased accuracy. There is also increasing interest in adding the third dimension, i.e. elevation or slope data, to better support vehicle functions. While this has been a major challenge for the mapping industry, some new techniques have emerged that are very promising. The table below lists ADAS applications that are enabled/supported by 2D and 3D maps. A “supported” application is one which can be accomplished with other sensors but performs better with map data. An “enabled” application is one which requires map data to function.

Electronic Stability Control

ESC maintains vehicle stability in emergency maneuvers through individual wheel braking. Knowledge of road curvature, transverse slope (banking), and longi-

Map-Supported ADAS Safety and Efficiency Applications 2D Map 3D Map Application Supported Enabled Supported Enabled Electronic Stability Control • Forward Sensing* • Curve Speed Warning • • Dynamic Pass Prediction • • Predictive Adaptive Lighting • • Lane Change Support • • Brake Cooling (trucks) • Predictive Powertrain • * Includes ACC, Forward Collision Warning, Collision Mitigation Braking

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ADAS

tudinal slope would assist in optimally actuating brakes to optimally adjust the vehicle trajectory. There is disagreement in the industry as to how much benefit can be gained.

Forward Sensing

Forward sensing is the classic long-range function for which map data can be very useful. Typical sensing ranges are 80-100m. Over this range, road curves/ slopes can certainly be present. Current forward sensing systems attempt to assess road curvature via vehicle yaw rate and steering angle, which works better on freeways than on smaller roads. Next generation forward sensing will integrate radar/lidar with forward-looking cameras. Image processing to detect lane/ road boundaries will help immensely with target tracking. Nevertheless, road slope in particular will tend to confuse the sensing system, as targets will “disappear” as they crest a hill and then reappear as the host vehicle crests the same hill. Knowledge of road slope will inform the target tracking algorithms so as to maintain robustness. The industry is moving towards implementing these enhancements via “sensor fusion” techniques, which are actively being researched and prototyped. Eventually, a sensor fusion subsystem will exist on the vehicle, which will accept data from all on board physical sensors, as well as data sources such as maps, and data communicated wirelessly from outside sources (other cars, road agencies, private providers, etc.). Thus, the opportunity for map support for this function will track with the implementation of sensor fusion.

Even though the customer’s ability to perceive the difference between today’s forward sensing systems and a sensor-fused, map-supported forward sensing system is limited, vehicle OEMs are moving towards sensor fusion to make their systems ever-more robust. We may see map-supported ADAS for forward sensing, using 2D maps, as soon as 2011, with 3D maps not far behind.

Curve Speed Warning (CSW)

CSW advises the driver as to whether their current speed is appropriate for an upcoming curve. This function is enabled by an on-board digital map. Research and evaluation thus far has focused on 2D map support as to the radius of the curve. The complete system, of course, would also integrate knowledge of tire-road friction. Further, a complete safe speed calculation would also take into account road slope within the curve. From a user perspective, the driver wants his/her vehicle to maintain a “situation appropriate speed.” ACC does this by responding to slower vehicles ahead. CSW would do the same by responding to the road ahead. CSW could very likely be an add-on to a future generation ACC.

“Lighting applications, forward sensing and similar functions can benefit immensely from map support”

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Predictive Adaptive Lighting (PAL)

As currently offered, adaptive lighting steers headlight beams into curves based on the steering wheel angle. It is a relatively cheap safety application which is rolling into the market quite rapidly. Predictive adaptive lighting uses map data to anticipate a curve and begins swiveling the lamps earlier for optimum illumination of Thinking Highways Vol 1 No 1

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ADAS the intended vehicle path. All work thus far to prototype PAL has focused on 2D maps. Clearly, the function also calls for 3D maps so as to better illuminate the road ahead in hilly areas even when the road is not curving. PAL is one of the strongest applications driving mapsupported ADAS. It is readily understood by the customer, and the benefit is provided virtually every day (night). Compared to other active safety systems which use expensive sensors such as radar, PAL can be implemented at low cost. 3D PAL is only at the “talk” stage currently, as auto suppliers are wait on a full 3D road vector database. In terms of automotive integration, sources indicate that actuation in the vertical dimension is already covered by a European regulation for automatic headlamp levelling. This was put into place to ensure that, as the pitch of the vehicle varies due to load and other factors, the headlights are not misaligned angled and blind oncoming drivers. The dynamic headlight levelling systems are quick-response respond quickly, and appear to be a perfect match for 3D PAL. First introductions of 2D PAL could come as soon as 2010. The first systems may actually be 3D if the maps are ready in time. Uptake on PAL is expected to be relatively strong, as regular adaptive lighting will be fairly mature in the marketplace. by then.

tomer sees the system in operation every day. It is unclear as to how much the customer would value DPP. Customer demand for the feature is expected to be stronger in Europe, where there is more travel on twolane roads and more inclination to pass. DPP has the advantage of relatively low cost. Industry sources have noted that no additional or upgraded hardware is needed to integrate DPP into today’s navigation systems.

Lane Change Assist (LCA)

LCA comes in many forms, from blind spot monitoring to long range systems. Map-support applies to long range systems, which (typically) use radar to look far behind the vehicle to detect fast-approaching vehicles in the adjacent lane. This is a real concern when changing lanes on high speed freeways, such as the German Autobahn. However, most freeways have only very modest curves and slopes. Map-support would theoretically be helpful, but the degree of utility needs to be established through additional research.

“Compared to other active safety systems PAL can be implemented at low cost”

Dynamic Pass Prediction (DPP)

Dynamic Pass Prediction, developed by BMW but not yet on the market, informs the driver when it is not recommended to overtake -- based on vehicle dynamics and road information from digital maps. The current system uses the existing 2D map database in the navigation system. This function could be enhanced significantly with a 3D map database. DPP has the same advantage as PAL, in that the cus-

Brake cooling

Brake cooling is important for heavy trucks on long downhill slopes. Knowledge of the extent of the slope can assist an on-board system in activating countermeasures to the brake pads overheating – if the pad temperature is approaching a critical level, yet the slope is about to end, no action need be taken, whereas a longer slope would call for the countermeasures to be implemented. This function, currently at the conceptual stage, is enabled by a 3D map.

Predictive Powertrain

Predictive powertrain systems using digital maps hold significant promise in improving fuel economy for both

(Left) Predictive adaptive lighting (PAL) uses map data to anticipate a curve and begins swiveling the lamps earlier for optimum illumination of the intended vehicle path. (Right) Regular ‘straightahead’ headlamp illumination

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+%%0).'#)4)%3-/6).' Transurban is a US$5 billion company with more than 10 years experience in open road tolling and the development and active management of toll roads. We work in partnership with governments and communities to find innovative solutions to congestion problems in urban road networks. Currently we’re working with the Virginia Department of Transportation in the US on HOT lane solutions for the heavily congested Capital Beltway (I-495) and I-95/395 corridors.

COR1101

Transurban brings a long term view to developing and managing its roads. Our key areas of expertise include: – traffic network modeling – full electronic toll collection – concession management – financial management – stakeholder engagement – customer service, and – project delivery.

For more information contact: Michael Kulper on +1 646 278 0870 or visit www.transurban.us.com

Driving Life Leading the world in technology solutions for safety and mobility All too often we communicate with other drivers only by flashing lights, sounding horns, making brief eye contact, and with short gestures. But for the most part, we remain unaware of interesting and important information from other road users. Volkswagen is using new communication technologies that actually enable vehicles to communicate with each other and with the infrastructure. The result is a qualified exchange of information that ensures greater safety, efficiency, comfort and driving enjoyment. For example, vehicle-to-vehicle communication can warn of traffic hold-ups like the end of a traffic jam just around the curve ahead. Communicating road signs can actively inform drivers of potential hazard zones and make those data available in the vehicle. We predict that direct communication and conversations between vehicles will be considered completely normal in the not-too-distant future.

ADAS internal combustion engines and gas-electric hybrids. Commercial trucking is the target market. Three key applications are in play: • Predictive speed control • Predictive gear shifting • Predictive control of auxiliary systems Predictive speed control can be used either for conventional cruise control ACC. The key function of predictive speed control is to accelerate ahead of a slope so as to bring more kinetic energy into the slope. Also, to decelerate prior to the crest of the hill and allow a speed reduction but have enough forward motion to reach the crest and then gain the benefits of the downhill. This also reduces braking on the downhill sections, and therefore reduces brake wear and brake maintenance costs. With predictive gear shifting, the benefit of gear shifting based on instantaneous measurement of road slope versus shifting based on preview information must be examined. Today’s transmission controllers can detect slope and adjust in milliseconds – thus, some would argue that only limited gains can be had with preview information. The operation mode of vehicle accessories that may affect the fuel consumption (A/C, fan, defogger) can be scheduled with respect to road data. The idea is to switch accessories off in a situation where high power output is required, such as in an uphill slope, and switch accessories back on when the higher power output no longer is required. On a typical heavy truck, the combined energy consumption of all auxiliary systems is estimated to account for 4–7 percent of the total fuel used. The opportunity is in developing algorithms to manage their energy consumption appropriate to the demand on the engine due to road slope. A fair amount of academic and corporate research has been done in these areas, and more is underway. Work in Europe (primarily in Sweden and Germany) has focused on heavy trucks, along with some work in North America. Work in Japan has focused more on passenger cars. Several studies focusing on heavy trucks indicate a fuel economy savings of 2% for predictive powertrain is feasible. Qualitatively, there is wide (but not 100 per cent) industry agreement as to fuel economy benefits derived from slope data. Extensive and more in-depth investigations need to be completed to scope the degree of benefit, which depends on (in part): • Nature of terrain • Transmission system design • Throttle system design • Cruise control system design • Portion of long haul travel on terrain in which benefits are significant In terms of market timing, 3D map availability is the dominant factor. The prevalence of GPS navigation systems on heavy trucks will also play a role. Navigation has not yet been of strong interest to the trucking indus-

try, as drivers are expected to be able to find and follow proper routes as part of their professional duties. However, in a key development, Kenworth has introduced optional GPS navigation on several Class 8 models.

Where will the data come from?

Currently, the perception that today’s maps are not up to the job of ADAS support is dampening product-oriented activity. R&D momentum is reasonably good for mapsupported ADAS; however the entire field will not be taken seriously until a map player steps up to the plate with a reliable and consistent map, and cost-effective means of gathering and updating the map data. While the major mapping companies are constantly updating their maps for navigation, the prospect of reacquiring all of the roads at greater accuracy to support ADAS is daunting. A technique from the geo-spatial industry has recently come onto the scene. Intermap Corporation (www. Intermap.com) acquires topographical information for entire countries using an aerial interferometric synthetic aperture radar technique. They have developed methods to extract roadways from this data, promising accuracies in the less than 2 m range for the x and y dimensions and less than 1% slope for the z dimension. Their current plans are to have complete, national 3D map datasets available in 2008 for Europe and 2009 for the U.S. Interestingly, map accuracies at this level are meeting or going beyond the accuracy offered by current mass market GPS receivers.

“Many challenges remain, such as how to keep the next generation of maps current”

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Smart thinking

Between the combined forces of the established map players and these new techniques, it appears that the much-needed next-generation maps are on the way. Many challenges remain, such as how to keep them current – this is yet another area in which vehicle communications will be a key enabler. With applications such as predictive adaptive lighting and predictive powertrain, we will rapidly evolve from 2D ADAS maps to 3D maps. These vast databases will underpin a substantial amount of the “smarts” going into tomorrow’s vehicles. TH Richard Bishop, founder of Bishop Consulting, supports clients internationally in research and business development within the intelligent vehicles arena - providing services in partnership development, intelligent vehicle applications, industry trend analysis, and business strategy. Clients include federal government agencies, public transit providers, vehicle manufacturers, suppliers, research laboratories, state DOTs, and technology firms worldwide. He lectures as an expert in intelligent vehicle systems and is publisher of IVsource.net, the only website focusing exclusively on coverage of intelligent vehicle developments. He is the author of Intelligent Vehicle Technology And Trends, published by Artech House in 2005. Thinking Highways Vol 1 No 1

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VII

Leader of the pack GREG LARSON and BEN McKEEVER with the latest VII California Bay Area testbed developments. Improved satety and mobility The core of VII is vehicle-to-roadside and roadside-to-vehicle communications are high on the priority listif we’ve come as far as we should

VII California is a joint public and private sector initiative. Originally conceived of by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and Caltrans, the first phase of the program included participation from DaimlerChrysler Research & Technology NA, Inc. and Volkswagen of America, Inc. More recently, Toyota InfoTechnology Center USA and BMW of North America have joined the program partnership. MTC and Caltrans are now seeking to expand the program through partnership with additional Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), other public and private sector entities, and new applications and services. This expanded program will enable the partners to demonstrate and evaluate the potential of VII with a successful conclusion serving as a catalyst for the decision on national deployment. VII California is being implemented in two phases: a World Congress Demonstration and a VII Proof of Con-

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cept Testbed. • We successfully implemented the World Congress Demonstration (Phase I) in November 2005 as part of the Innovative Mobility Showcase (IMS). • Our focus has now shifted to the full deployment of Phase II, the VII California Bay Area Testbed.

Background

MTC and Caltrans view the VII Program as an opportunity to provide significant improvements to the safety and operation of the transportation system. To that end, both organizations are active members of the National VII working group. While there is considerable activity at the national level, the California partners believe that VII in the San Francisco Bay Area can play a valuable role to facilitate national decision making regarding VII deployment. The San Francisco Bay Area consistently ranks as one www.h3bmedia.com

VII

of the most congested metropolitan regions in the country. It recently placed second behind Los Angeles in terms of annual hours of delay per traveler1. Part of the reason for this high level of congestion is the unique geography of the Bay Area, which is surrounded by mountains and several bodies of water. The result is a transportation system that relies on a limited number of freeways and seven major toll bridges. In response to these challenges, Bay Area transportation agencies have already deployed one of the most advanced transportation system management programs in the country. Important tools to better manage our transportation system include ramp metering, electronic toll collection (FasTrak) and advanced traveler information (511). Hence, one of the biggest values of our VII testbed demonstration will be its ability to help transportation agencies around the country understand how VII can support the deployment and operation of these system management tools. Silicon Valley is also an important asset with its vibrant community of technology innovators prepared to provide the public sector useful tools based on current technologies, and to develop new applications to support and enhance the transportation and economic benefits of a VII system. These innovations also offer the opportunity to collaborate on the development of future transportation technology products. www.h3bmedia.com

These are our goals

The goals of VII California are to better manage the safety and productivity of the surface transportation system; to combine the resources, research, and innovations of the public sector, universities, the auto industry, aftermarket suppliers, and other private sector participants for the benefit of the traveling public; to build upon California’s already considerable existing infrastructure investments; and to create opportunities for innovation in the transportation system, and explore commercial uses of the system to fund its deployment and operation. The VII California partners believe that these goals are achievable, but before the California partners – or the nation – can commit the financial resources and support any companion legislative actions, there needs to be concrete evidence of the feasibility and value of VII. This evidence should be based on a combination of field testing and off-line simulation and analyses. The field testing results should be made available in a timely fashion to inform national program decision milestones. Accordingly, the VII California partners have identified the following objectives for Phase II of the program: To assess real-world implementations of VII infrastructure, architecture and operations; to inform future decisions for California and Bay Area investments for system management programs; and finally to inform the decision for the National VII Program in 2008. Thinking Highways Vol 1 No 1

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VII Strategy

Our key strategy to meet these goals is to produce a testbed that will showcase the value of VII in terms of safety and mobility benefits. We believe that the urgency of the 2008 decision makes the concept of a showcase even more important. The viability of the VII California applications will be evaluated by Caltrans, MTC, and their contractors. Safety and mobility benefits will be evaluated in terms of user perception of the usefulness of VII-generated traveler information delivered invehicles, as well as value provided to the public agencies. Caltrans and MTC have already begun the deployment of the testbed, through initial installations of 10 roadside equipment (RSE) locations equipped with 5.9 GHz radio units (partially compliant with the emerging Dedicated Short Range Communications specifications) in and near the city of Palo Alto. We are now finalizing our

concept of the remainder of the testbed for a much larger installation. The VII California program will strive to complement other work being done, while taking advantage of the unique attributes of the San Francisco Bay Area. We will therefore coordinate our Bay Area testbed with tests conducted elsewhere in the US. Caltrans and the MTC have identified the following public sector VII applications as testing priorities: Traveler Information, Ramp Metering, Electronic Payment (Tolling), Intersection Safety and Curve Overspeed Warning. In addition to these applications, Caltrans and the MTC are interested in supporting innovative, commercial applications that would be developed and provided by individual automobile companies or other private sector organizations. In the current work, the VII California partners have adopted the following roles and responsibilities. These

“As owner and operator of the state highway system, Caltrans leads the development of roadside infrastructure”

Volkswagen of America are among the leading developers of on-board equipment (OBE) devices and are responsible for providing vehicles to the testbed

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VII roles and responsibilities are carried out through an informal agreement between the partners. As owner and operator of the state highway system, Caltrans leads the development of roadside infrastructure and serves as overall project manager. Caltrans has contracted with the University of California PATH Program to develop the RSEs, including vehicle-to-infrastructure messaging and communication of the VII data at the roadside. As a regional transportation agency with various operational responsibilities, MTC operates some critical system management tools, such as the region’s 511 traveler information system and the Fastrak electronic toll collection system. MTC serves as facilitator/coordinator with local agencies. MTC is leading the effort in back-end processing, backhaul communications and development of traveler information applications for the VII testbed. MTC has contracted with Telvent Farradyne to design backhaul communications and handle data collection, processing and archiving. As owners of the vehicles and onboard equipment, DaimlerChrysler Research & Technology

NA, Inc., Volkswagen of America, Inc, Toyota InfoTechnology Center USA, and BMW of North America are leading the development of on-board equipment (OBE) devices and are responsible for providing vehicles to the testbed.

VII California approach

A key issue in testing the technical feasibility of VII is confirming its ability to work in a multiple OEM environment. In order to have a meaningful sample of data to evaluate, VII California will need a relatively large fleet of vehicles equipped with OBE or aftermarket products capable of performing the desired VII functions, and a large network of RSE locations. Ideally, this would consist of hundreds of vehicles and RSEs. Therefore, VII California is inviting additional OEM partners and other public or private sector participants, including fleet owners and managers, to help build out the Phase II testbed. Some of the steps that we are taking to increase the size and scope of its testbed are: 1). Soliciting participation from additional light vehicle OEMs. MTC and Caltrans are reaching out to OEM executives to encourage them to participate in the VII California testbed. Ideally, this participation will include provision of hundreds of vehicles equipped with VII OBE and full scale testing on the VII California testbed corridors. In return, these participants will be permitted use of the testbed for their own commercial application development. 2). Soliciting participation by vehicle fleets. MTC and Caltrans are considering direct provision of additional vehicle fleets. In return, fleet partners will receive access to data from the testbed, including estimated travel times and other VII functions. 3). Exploring opportunities for public-private partnerships with telecommunications firms. MTC and Caltrans are pursuing opportunities with telecommunications companies to provide telecommunications services to the VII California testbed in exchange for access to State right of way. 4). Exploring partnerships with other public agencies. MTC and Caltrans are interested in inviting local jurisdictions to participate in the showcase. We are in discussions with various local agencies whose jurisdictions overlap with our planned testbed corridors: US-101, I-280 and State Route 82 in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties. MTC and Caltrans are strongly committed to investigating the potential for VII to significantly improve safety and mobility for California. We believe that the VII California testbed, used in conjunction with our partners, will enable us to quantify the magnitude of these benefits. TH Greg Larson is Chief of the Office of Traffic Operations Research at Calfiornia DOT’s Division of Research and Innovation. Ben McKeever is 511 Program Co-ordinator for Metropolitan Transportation Commission 1

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Urban Mobility Study, Texas Transportation Institute Thinking Highways Vol 1 No 1

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Homeland Security

The road ahead

The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute’s PETER SWEATMAN and DAVE LeBLANC look at the evolution of the Vehicle Infrastructure Integration program (VII) and at what is in store 12

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VII VII is many things to many industries, governments, R&D organizations and academic disciplines. VII has political, economic, social and technological dimensions. After a century of motorization, our world of personal mobility still comprises the three somewhat independent elements of vehicle, infrastructure and driver. VII is trying to change that throughout the United States, by forging a more or less formal relationship between the automotive industry and the community of highway managers. That relationship will need to allow for a sustained long term investment on both sides, providing a durable architecture for communication – communication among vehicles and the roadside to support systems with attributes of quality and immediacy as if they were contained within the vehicle. These VII systems (or “applications”) will provide totally new and purposeful ways to improve safety, mobility and convenience. For example, crashes at intersections involving vehicles with intersecting paths will simply be prevented from occurring.

collaboratively by the major players in the US auto market under the VII Consortium (VII-C). Figure 1 (below) shows the VII communication architecture adopted nationally, in this case representing priority passage for emergency vehicles. While VII may seem revolutionary, it is evolutionary in important respects. First it represents further steps down an already established path of advanced driver assistance. Second, it will be deployed gradually, with the numbers of VII-equipped vehicles and highways increasing incrementally over a period of many years. The protracted deployment period will mean that newer technologies will need to be incorporated and that stages of driver (consumer) acceptance and market demand will need to be negotiated. UMTRI has been active in developing and evaluating advanced safety systems involving driver assistance for well over a decade. More recently, we have seen Michigan move to the forefront of VII, with strong leadership from the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT). MDOT’s efforts are establishing a VII Test Bed in Southeast Michigan for evaluating all types of VII applications, as well as providing a focus on business systems for maximizing VII benefits to highway agencies.

“Crashes at intersections involving vehicles with intersecting paths will simply be prevented from occurring”

Incubation period

Under the auspices of the US Department of Transportation (USDOT), and with strong automotive industry input, VII is being incubated as both a set of technologies and a business partnership. VII became firmly grounded when Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) at 5.9 GHz was set aside for licensing by VII applications. Clear plans were made to develop and assess certain VII applications and the USDOT has awarded significant funding for critical safety applications being developed

Bedding in

The VII Test Bed is a conurbation of freeways and major arterials with DSRC installed, including 32 signalized intersections and encompassing several key locations where the headquarters of major automakers are to be found, as well as facilities of Michigan DOT (MDOT) and the Road Commission of Oakland County (RCOC). Vari-

Figure 1.VII architecture

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VII

Figure 2.VII intersection warning application

ous components of VII have already been demonstrated. The Motorola MOTODRIVE 5.9 GHz system is being demonstrated in the vicinity of the RCOC Traffic Control Complex in Waterford MI. Utilizing two DSRC roadside units located at intersections and two DSRC-equipped vehicles, we have seen video being streamed from one vehicle to another and from the RCOC facility to the vehicles. Similar demonstrations have been carried out by Ford in the vicinity of their Dearborn facilities.

This is not a test

Preparations are now being made for several thousand OEM fleet vehicles to be equipped with DSRC, and to be operated through the Test Bed. The OEM will benefit from data such as maintenance status and component performance; MDOT and its partners will obtain asset management and safety data, such as low surface friction and emergency response. The first round of OEM-wide VII applications is currently being developed by VII-C, based in nearby Novi. This package of applications is heavily biased to safety but includes examples for mobility, commerce and asset management. The safety applications include electronic brake light, intersection warnings and curve

speed warning. Such applications have benefits for consumers even when VII-equipped vehicles are present in the traffic stream in very small numbers. In-vehicle signage is also included and offers certain benefits for early adopters, and eventually major opportunities for asset managers when high density deployment is achieved. Figure 2 shows the architecture for a VII red light warning application at an intersection. The deployment of VII vehicle and roadside units, and its many and varied applications, will depend on consumer reactions and acceptance; and real system benefits will only occur when VII applications bring about actual changes in driver behavior. These challenges are not being under-estimated and the strong USDOT research model of rigorous evaluation in largescale naturalistic driving studies will be put to good use. The research methods being used by UMTRI in the current Integrated Vehicle Based Safety Systems (IVBSS) program for NHTSA provide a powerful lead. This program takes four warning applications and combines them, filtered and prioritized, into a single system which communicates to the driver through a single Human Machine Interface (HMI).

Field of view

Rigorous IVBSS evaluation will take place under sustained usage by drivers going about their normal business. We call this a Field Operational Test (FOT), amethodology we have perfected over more than a decade. We will be looking for measurable changes in driver behavior. And the changes we will look for will be based on driving scenarios we have identified by poring over many miles of naturalistic driving data from previous FOTs. We have found that certain patterns of driving behavior repeat during certain incidents. These incidents,some of which rate as“conflicts”, are defined in terms of proximity to crash, for example time to collision, and may be extracted from our huge naturalistic databases using special query tools. Figure 5 shows that these scenarios, while totally different in driver intent, can only be distinguished within a small window of time. Good data and database tools

Figure 3. Forward crash warning

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VII

Figure 4. Accessing FOT data

Figure 5. High resolution data needed to identify scenarios

are definitely needed to develop and evaluate VII applications. This same thinking will be applied to the evaluation of VII applications in the Southeast Michigan Test Bed. We can be certain that a successful VII deployment will have impact far beyond the applications being studied today. The only thing that is certain is that, in the process, specific areas of knowledge will be pushed ahead: • Better understanding of “what traffic is like,” including models and databases that capture how drivers manage the motion of their vehicle, how drivers can share the driving task safely with other tasks, how to provide safe and effective driver interfaces; • Reliability of communications, both the wireless channels specifically related to VII as well as the architectural ones on the vehicle; • Transformation of public agencies that will be direct www.h3bmedia.com

users of VII information, since their operations will undergo a sea change from standard operating procedures to data-driven ones; • Privacy: law, ethics, and public perceptions need to be carefully treated; and • Business models: who will take on the challenge of finding the models to sustain VII? Government and OEMs are probably not enough to do more than catalyze VII. TH The authors may be contacted via email at [email protected] and [email protected] Thinking Highways Vol 1 No 1

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Emergency Management

A call and response BRUCE ABERNETHY examines the roles of ITS and trauma center hospitals in emergency management

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Intelligent Transportations Systems’ (ITS) architecture typically includes Emergency Management Centers (EMCs). These are responsible for assigning emergency resources to emergency requests received via a Public Safety Access Point (PSAP) also known as a 911 Call Center. Most EMCs have the 911 call center integrated with the emergency dispatchers. Smaller cities may utilize 911 call-takers as emergency dispatchers. EMCs typically arrange dispatching positions by service type such as police, fire and emergency medical. In cities where the fire department is also responsible for emergency medical services, then dispatchers are arranged by police and fire/emergency medical. A supervisory and a training position are usually implemented with 911 rollover to the supervisory position, should this be required. The EMC dispatcher and the “first responders” are a team that work together to take care of the emergency. There is also an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) that is a critical part of emergency management architecture. During a major emergency that requires evacuation and/or quarantining, use of service resources over and above those under the management of the EMC, or

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use of emergency services from other jurisdictions, the EOC may be activated.

Levels of responsibility

There are multiple jurisdictional levels for an EOC including City, County, regional association of governments, and State. If the emergency covers a multi-jurisdictional level, then the EOC associated with the area would be activated. The EOC is staffed only when activated. There is a core staff that has the responsibility of keeping the EOC’s communications network, information processing, and information display system environment ready for immediate activation. The major function of the EOC is to provide critical information to senior decision makers to allow them to make significant decisions related to saving lives of citi zens and minimizing loss of property. Senior service directors related to the jurisdictional area are key participants. The EMC(s) implements management decisions of the EOC. Public Works may be a support element in clearing debris from corridors in support of evacuation. Public Works is equally responsible for advising senior decision makers related to the condition of the water

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Emergency Management and sanitation system and its ability to support safe living conditions various jurisdictional areas. City (and County) public health director(s) will be involved in coordinating activities of trauma centers, providing communications to the public related to health related actions (inoculation, decontamination, quarantining, etc.) and coordination with federal agencies such as the Center for Disease Control (CDC). The jurisdictional coroner may be responsible for managing the disposition, storage and identification of the dead. The Director of jurisdictional social services may be involved in evacuation center coordination, assisting in providing information to family members that have been separated, assisting in the coordination of movement of handicapped, and other similar activities. Thus information provided to senior staff in the EOC must be accurate, provided in a manner that can be quickly understood and provided in a time line appropriate to managing the event, such as evacuation progress related to the spreading time line of a HAZMAT emergency plume. The trauma centers of the jurisdictional area are the ones that will receive the first casualties related to the emergency. The trauma centers play a major role in emergency management. Discussed herein is the role of emergency management within the trauma centers.

Emergency Medical Comms Center

Major trauma centers typically have an emergency communications center that includes a staff adequate to co-ordinating incoming casualties. The center includes wireless communications with ambulances and emergency medical helicopters and the ability to provide coordination information to the receiving area of the emergency room and the staff. Communications may also be established with temporary medical staging areas established to coordinate loading of ambulances at the disaster area. Radios typically include 800 MHz for city emergency communications and 150 MHz for County emergency communications, with possibly low VHF frequencies as may be required for wide area emergency communications and even HAM radio equipment as a backup. Satellite communications may be included from emergency medical staging area to the EMCC. If there is an agreement between the jurisdiction and any military base emergency resources, them a military frequency radio may be included.

Security begins at home

The SAFECOM initiative of the Department of Homeland Security is addressing emergency communications interoperability and is stressing the APCO P-25 radio solution and transition to digital voice and data in internet protocol (IP) packet form.Voice over IP (VoIP) digital voice supports effective coordination between field and center, field-to-field, and center-to center. Phase 2, P-25 defines the new digital voice standard. Phase 1 P-25 standard defines carrier air interface supporting digital transmission and analog voice; various radio manufacturers offer proprietary options for enhanced radio

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communications, which ultimately defeats the purpose of the open standard. Information of interest to the EMCC includes: • Causality Identification; • Estimated Time of Arrival at the emergency room “dock”; • Nature of trauma; • Decontamination status. For many EMCCs, this information is manually translated from voice messaging into digital form using a workstation integrated with the hospital network. Unfortunately many of the hospitals have not designed this network to be fully fault tolerant, as it should be for critical emergency operations. Information is received at the emergency room and preparation initiated to receive the incoming causality. It is important that the emergency room staff understand the status of the casualty related to decontamination of exposed to chemical or nuclear (dirty bomb) material. If the incoming causality has been exposed to biological agents, then this information is also critical in preparation to receive the casualty. A decontamination dock and area may be required and an isolation area may be required, depending on the exposure.

Misinformation

It may be stating he obvious but casualties exposed to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) must not be mixed with normal patients at the hospital. In Homeland Security exercises, one major problem encountered has been mismanagement of information related to exposure of the casualties to WMD and the need for decontamination. Field to hospital communications and coordination is necessary to prevent making a bad situation even worse through improper processing of causalities exposed to WMD. Technology that would help with emergency medical co-ordination includes: • Mobile Data Terminals with Automatic Vehicle Location which could provide Current Location translatable to ETA considering evacuation route and status; • Pre-processing of causality; • Summary of all trauma; •En-route sustaining treatment administered by paramedics; • Image of trauma scene which helps emergency staff evaluate possibly injuries. While transmitting causality’s vital biometric information to a computer at the emergency room is definitely helpful, in a major emergency with mass causalities, most likely the emergency staff will not have time to review this incoming information. With P-25 radios limited to 9600 baud digital communications, bandwidth limits information transfer from ambulance to the hospital EMCC. Possible use of 4.9 GHz, wireless mesh, Ethernet network would support incoming ambulance “dump” of en-route collected information on the causality before the ambulance reached the “dock”. However, with perhaps multiple, simultaneous attacks by terrorists, a mesh network may not survive. www.h3bmedia.com

CARE, COMPASSION AND CONCERN ON THE FREEWAY

Some of the differences between Samaritania Incorporated’s service patrol programs and others: 01 Our patrol vehicle operators have state and national public safety certifications. 02 We provide a complete turnkey program at not cost to motorists. 03 Provide Internet based Fleet Management Systems. 04 Provide public safety grade AVL/GPS incident recording/reporting systems. 05 Personnel, vehicles, equipment, AVL/GPS, patrol dispatch centers, and public relation programs. 06 The most experienced provider. Over 27 years providing service patrol programs throughout the U.S.

07 Provide the widest variety of quick clearance, motorist, and public safety assistance. 08 Provide a variety of different custom service patrol vehicles with and without tow capabilities. 09 Endorsed by Departments of Transportation and State Governments. 10 Endorsed by State Police, Fire/Rescue, and other public safety agencies. 11 National award winning programs. 12 Consistent media recognition. 13 Rural, remote area, and urban program applications.

Samaritania Incorporated, 10 Riverside Drive, Lakeville, MA 02347, USA Tel: +1-508-947-3700 Fax: +1-508-947-5544 www.freewayservicepatrol.com [email protected]

14 All program service costs included in single patrol hourly billing rate. 15 Operators adhere to detailed conduct policies 16 Standard Operation Procedure Development 17 Local office and project management 18 Provide Complete Indemnification and hold harmless agreements. 19 Provide audited financial resources. 20 Operators have perfect no-fault safety records. Zero fatalities. 21 Private Sector funding available to offset costs.

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*UPITER3YSTEMSOFFERSTHEBROADESTRANGEOFPROCESSORSFORCOMMANDANDCONTROLAPPLICATIONS &ROMTRAFFICMANAGEMENTCENTERSTOEMERGENCYRESPONSECENTERS ANDFROMSECURITYTODEFENSE *UPITER CAN SATISFY ANY CONFIGURATION AND BUDGET REQUIREMENT WITH SUPERIOR TECHNOLOGY AND EXCELLENTVALUE &/2-/2%).&/2-!4)/.'/4/ 777*50)4%2#/- %-!),).&/ *50)4%2#/- /2#!,,  

Emergency Managenment

“The trauma centers of the jurisdictional area are the ones that will receive the first casualties related to the emergency” Hospital Emergency Management Center

Hospitals that are designated as major trauma centers must have a hospital emergency management center (HEMC). The HEMC is activated when the EOC is activated and is the primary point of communications between the EOC and the hospital. The HEMC is staffed by senior hospital staff, which is usually provided with wireless communications devices to communicate with key subordinate staff. The HEMC provides remaining capacity information to the EOC and also information related to: • Remaining, critical medical supplies; • Loss of public utilities and status of emergency backup resources; • Additional diagnostics of casualties that may assist the EOC in assessing the nature of the terrorist attack and emergency situation; • Answers to questions of EOC decision makers; • Advice to EOC public information officer for communications to the public. The HEMC makes senior level decisions related to allocation of staff and hospital resources to meet the needs of the emergency. Unfortunately, few hospitals in the USA are set up for effective communications and management during a major emergency.

In summary

During routine emergencies, the emergency medical communications center of the hospital is capable of handling information on incoming trauma patients and coordinating their arrival at the emergency room dock. They are also capable of providing coordination to emergency medical helicopter pilots assisting them in www.h3bmedia.com

locating the helicopter landing pad at night. However, during a major emergency, it is virtually impossible to manually process and manage information on incoming ambulances and helicopters as well as information on their “important payloads”. The issue is that improper coordination can lead to exposure of other hospital patients to chemical and biological agents as well as nuclear contamination. Even worse, there is little provision for “air traffic control” around the emergency helicopter pad nor even management provisions for queues of ambulances. EMCCs in U.S. trauma hospitals are most likely a conference room, rather than an integrated management center with management information wall displays updated in real time from data bases related to current status of critical hospital resources and the ability of senior hospital management to quickly communicate emergency activity decisions and monitor their execution. Integrated emergency management is necessary to effectively manage a major disaster. There will not be time for a lot of manual processing of information. Information must be integrated and presented to emergency management in a form that is readily understood. Hospitals must be brought into the integrated emergency management system related to the city, county and/or regional area. For private hospitals, the public must be willing to fund the cost of emergency communications and emergency management within the private hospital. Otherwise, the emergency medical system will fail the public during a major disaster. TH Bruce Abernethy is president of Vector Alpha Systems Inc in Dallas, Texas. He can be contacted via email at [email protected] Thinking Highways Vol 1 No 1

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Homeland Security

Safe and secure? Sa and secure?

KEVIN AGUIGUI looks at the potential for digital video for surveillance and homeland security purposes and wonders if we’ve come as far as we should have done… The use of cameras for surveillance and security has typically been done using analog-based systems. This required each camera to be brought to a central location for processing and viewing. In addition, each camera required a dedicated analog communications channel which required baseband video to be transported which resulted in very inefficient use of communications mediums. Now, with the overwhelming demand and feasibility for IP-based video systems, there are tremendous opportunities for implementing robust security and surveillance systems including the capturing, distribution, recording and retrieval of video on demand. There are many wireless systems that offer highly reliable and secure communications with mesh networking topologies utilizing licensed spectrums dedicated to emergency responders. These systems make it more possible than ever to deploy cameras in hard to reach target areas in a cost effective manner. Moreover, vendor products have become significantly more affordable, and technologies for encoding and analyzing video on demand have become more robust. However, even with all of the research and offerings of automated video monitoring and processing systems that use video analytics, there is only so much a video

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analytics application can accomplish before human intervention is necessary. This article describes some of the issues associated with IP-based video and video analytics and the limitations of using video as part of Homeland Security.

Homeland security

The use of digital video for surveillance is no doubt very effective. The major challenge is the effective placement of cameras at strategic locations to properly cover a target area. For airports where passengers are funneled into lines at security checkpoints and access points, cameras can be placed to capture each and every passenger, or at toll plazas to bridges and toll roads, each passenger in each vehicle and their license plate can be captured on video for processing. In other target areas such as transit stations, and port facilities a significant challenge can present itself. These facilities typically have wide open multiple access points where passengers and movements are more distributed and random as they enter and exit the facility. Agencies must place numerous cameras to attempt to capture a majority of the passenger’s faces for facial recognition or to attain the proper fields of views and viewing angles (i.e., typically a face must be turned www.h3bmedia.com

Homeland Security Frames per second 15 30 15 30 30

Resolution (CIF) 4 4 4 4 4

Encoding Rate (Mbps) 1.50 2.00 1.5 2.00 2.00

towards a camera at least 35 degrees for a proper reading of the up to 80 nodal points on a person’s face). As more and more cameras as installed, the issue now becomes that of properly staffing a command center for both active monitoring and responding to alarm situations. This requires the video security and surveillance system to be intuitive to the security personnel who will use it.

Video encoding

Given the increased efficiency and use of encoding techniques, including MPEG4 and MJPEG, high quality video for surveillance is much more feasible to attain than ever before. It is now very affordable to encode a video stream at 30 frames per second with a full D1 (640 x 480) resolution. With the video streams in digital format, enforcement agencies are now able to process and distribute the video information much more seamlessly and with great accuracy and precision. Video encoded using the MPEG4 standard requires that all video information be sent to the viewer/decoder, since delta or predicted frames are dependent on prior frames. This is due to the compression technique utilizing key video frames as reference frames for predicting future frames (also known as I frames). If predicted frames are dropped or skipped due to network issues, the video will appear corrupted (or “pixelized”) until the next key frame arrives. To overcome this issue, there are some surveillance systems that automatically transcoding MPEG4 streams to MJPEG during live viewing, since all frames using MJPEG are key frames and thus losing any key frame will not affect the video stream.

Video distribution and storage

With video streams encoded in a digital format (typically the stream is encoded and encapsulated within an Internet Protocol - IP packet), it becomes much easier to distribute the video to other parties and systems. A video stream can be captured by multiple parties simultaneously, processed separately for different aspects and features (facial recognition and object movement),and recorded by different systems if desired so. A significant part of a video security system’s arsenal is its storage, processing and retrieval capabilities. If one does the maths, the video storage for a single camera can occupy as much as two-thirds of a terabyte (650 gigabytes), or for 25 cameras, as much as 16.5 terabytes (16,500 gigabytes). The table below provides a brief summary of storage requirements for various conwww.h3bmedia.com

No of Cameras

Days Recording

1 1 25 25 100

30 30 30 30 30

Storage Required (terabytes) 0.49 0.65 12.15 48.60 64.80

figurations. With this much potential video “data”, it will be essential to have a retrieval system that can search the entire database or portions of it efficiently so as not to waste valuable time and effort. There have been many situations where security personnel have had to spend countless hours (as much as 40 hours to locate one scene) wading through video files to gather specific video evidence without the use of an effective video retrieval system. There are new video retrieval systems that can search video files by type of scene, type of alarm/event, or day/time.

Video authentication

Using encryption methods like hash authentication (FIPS PUB 198) and other digital signatures, digital video can be authenticated for prosecuting criminals. There are some systems that record with one set of authentication techniques, and when the video is extracted to be used as evidence, a second set of authentication rules and processes are used for the video that is extracted.

Wireless networks

There are many wireless products that offer medium bandwidth communications between two endpoints. However, a growing concern amongst agencies responsible for providing security and surveillance is the reliability of these wireless links. There may be situations where a wireless link can be down due to inclement weather, power outages or a failed repeater site. To overcome the potential situation of a downed wireless link, newer wireless systems are now offering mesh topologies where access points act as repeaters with other access points to form a fault tolerant wireless network. In addition, with the freeing up of the licensed 4.9 GHz radio frequency for first responders and transit agencies, the probability of interference with a wireless transmission of significantly reduced compared with the use of unlicensed radio spectrum (900 MHz, 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz). It should be noted that when designing a wireless system for the transport of video, careful consideration must be given to the total number of hops, or the number of times a video signal has to be forwarded from one access point to another access point. Each hop can add in as much as 50 milliseconds of latency (delay) to a video signal. If several hops are needed to secure communications to a target area, then the delays could become intolerable, especially for security personnel wishing to track a person or moving object in real-time. Thus, it is highly Thinking Highways Vol 1 No 1

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Homeland Security

recommended to minimize the number of wireless hops when designing a wireless system, preferably keeping it to less than two hops total end-to-end, or to a wireline access point.

Video analytics

If a system is performing video analytics using the live video streams, producing high quality video with the fewest amounts of dropped frames is essential. There are numerous software systems being utilized to perform both simple and complex analytics anywhere from tracking movements of people and objects (cars, trains, boats) to facial recognition and determining whether the image in a view is a human or an object. Systems are now offering analytics that are applied to the video stream at the point of capture (at or near the camera). This is one way to avoid the need to send all video to centralized servers for analysis. The most common analytics include perimeter or area detection (where an object enters, exits, or is moving within a target area), facial recognition and object tracking (when an object is left behind or taken away from a target area). Camera preset views can be engaged when an event occurs including an alarm sent to security personnel for live confirmation of the event, or with the case of facial recognition, the video analytics system is linked to a database of photos of known criminals. However, with the increased sensitivity of video ana-

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lytics, so does the possibility of increased false positives, e.g., an object is detected to be left behind but in fact it may be a permanently stationary object that was mistakenly identified. These false positives combined with the lack of confidence in the ability of the analytics to identify different types of situations make the use of analytics for incident detection less frequent for the difficult target areas.

Conclusion

Using IP-based video is much more effective and feasible for security and surveillance systems. From the perspectives of distribution, processing, storage and retrieval, an IP-based video system provides more tools for security personnel to conduct surveillance. With the use of the licensed 4.9GHz spectrum and wireless mesh networks, it is now more feasible than ever to install surveillance cameras and communicate with them in hard to reach target areas. However, the use of video analytics for automated real-time and on-demand detection of suspicious events should be considered carefully. Requiring the video system to perform too many complex tasks automatically may actually result in more manual intervention with security personnel spending more time confirming false positives. Having an adequate number of security personnel actively monitoring the surveillance cameras should be considered in any security and surveillance system. TH www.h3bmedia.com

DE:C9:H>
In the fast lane. www.trmi.com 845.626.8655

Personal services A business model for safety-oriented telematics that actually works, as presented by YUKA GOMI, RICHARD WEILAND and VALERIE SHUMAN Telematics, the wireless provision of information and services to a vehicle, has been used to encompass everything from stolen vehicle tracking to automatic crash notification to concierge services to wireless mobile entertainment. In some of its incarnations, such as fleet management, it has been successful. However, providers of consumer-facing telematics have struggled to find a business model that is both appealing to their customers and profitable. To understand this situation better, let’s take a look at the range of current offerings, think about why they aren’t working in most contexts, and begin to formulate a new and more promising business model for telematics.

Traditional services

“Traditional” vehicle telematics includes three kinds of services, typically provided through monthly or annual subscription:

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• Vehicle Manufacturer-Centered Services. These services are interactions between the vehicle manufacturer and the vehicle. More precisely, they are interactions between a vehicle manufacturer computer system and systems onboard the vehicle. Examples are remote diagnostics, collection of anonymous data about vehicle performance, support for customer relationship management, and the wireless management of the in-vehicle software that is increasingly being used to control basic vehicle functionality. • Vehicle-Centered Services. Vehicle-centered services help the vehicle and its driver operate more safely and productively. Examples are automatic collision notification (ACN), remote door unlock, remote activation of the horn and headlights to help locate a vehicle in a parking lot, stolen vehicle tracking, and probe data support for in-vehicle safety systems. While a service provider is often involved and while some of these services start with a telephoned request from the www.h3bmedia.com

Telematics

driver, the primary interaction is again with systems onboard the vehicle. • User-Centered Services. User-centered services are the information and entertainment services that the public most often associates with telematics, including music download, email access, off-board navigation and routing, emergency voice calls, and concierge services. While the user-centered applications have received the most public attention, it is important to note that on the whole, they really have nothing intrinsically to do with the vehicle. In fact, consumers are increasingly coming to expect the ability to access information and entertainment services wherever they are. When the inflexibility of having cellular phones built into vehicles started to be recognized, the witty remark was “You mean I have to sit in my car to make a phone call?” Catching up with the current scene, the wits are now asking “You mean I have to sit in my car to make a restauwww.h3bmedia.com

rant reservation?” As a casual look around readily reveals, it is the new generation of mobile phone (cum PDA, cum personal media player) that is rapidly emerging as the primary platform for personal portable applications, including the applications that we are used to thinking of as usercentered telematics. Even navigation, now in the midst of migrating from dashboards to portable devices, is likely to end up on a near-future-generation phone. Some wireless carriers are already offering a basic wireless navigation service. Given sufficiently fast and cheap bandwidth, this has some clear attractions. The phone’s wireless capabilities can keep it in touch with the latest version of the digital map and the latest traffic information, with directions generated and transmitted by a centralized service. And once navigation is in your pocket instead of your dashboard, the field is opened for delivering walking and cycling directions Thinking Highways Vol 1 No 1

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Telematics

Consumer Services Demand 80% 70%

Entertainment

Actual interaction

Communications

10%

Information Services

20%

Vehicle Diagnostics

30%

Remote Door Unlock

40%

Stolen Vehicle Tracking

50%

Safety & Security

% Requesting

60%

0% Accenture Automotive Survey, 10 April 2006

as well. If the phone that handles the user-facing services happens to be in the vehicle, an appropriately equipped vehicle can provide an enhanced user interface, for example via Bluetooth. With a current Bluetooth-enabled phone and car kit, you use the vehicle’s microphone and speakers, but the call is still handled by the phone in your pocket. Similarly, for other information and

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entertainment applications, a future phone will be able to link to the speakers for better sound, the LCD touch screen for both better displays and easier inputs, the microphone for voice commands, etc. This kind of enhanced interface may eventually start showing up in living rooms and offices as well, as the phone-based application suite continues to expand. But the applications, including the associated wireless connectivity, will run on the phone, ready to continue providing the services wherever the user may go. In contrast, vehicle manufacturer-centered and vehiclecentered services really do involve specific interaction with systems onboard the vehicle. Vehicle diagnostics require a vehicle. Stolen vehicle tracking requires a vehicle. What these services do not require is a subscription. The services are either so inexpensive to provide that their lifetime cost can be readily built into the price of even a mass market vehicle (e.g., ACN), or so infrequently needed that they can be charged as pay-peruse (e.g., remote door unlock) or, they have the vehicle manufacturer as their primary beneficiary (e.g., collection of diagnostics and performance data), in which case the owner should not be expected to pay for the service (and is likely to figure this out sooner rather than later). In the medium term at least, consumer-facing telematics services will continue to be offered by the manufacturers of high-end vehicles to help nurture the relationship with their vehicle’s purchasers and to provide a very high level of personalized, manufacturerwww.h3bmedia.com

Telematics Today’s Telematics Applications Vehicle ManufacturerCentered Services

Vehicle-Centered Services

User-Centered Services

• Wireless diagnostics

• Safety System Support

• Information

• Data gathering

• Automatic Crash Notification

• Entertainment

• Customer relationship management

• Remote door unlock

• Concierge services

•Remote horn/lights

• Emergency calls

• Vehicle software configuration management

•Stolen vehicle tracking

branded services. But even these relatively price insensitive customers do not appear to like telematics subscriptions. We observe that the current approach of the high-end manufacturers is to include several years of user-centered telematics service in the purchase price of the vehicle, and to offer some services (like wireless traffic information) for the life of the vehicle without any subscription charges. For the mass market, however, a different kind of subscription-free business model is needed, an important part of which is to recognize that the user-oriented applications that made the subscriptions necessary are going to be provided via the user’s telephone, not through the vehicle.

A new approach to telematics

“The right focus for telematics is on safety and other services that are inextricably linked to the vehicle”

The new mix of vehicle manufactureroriented and vehicle-oriented services enables an entirely different approach to telematics. Freed from having to rely on subscription revenue to deliver telematics, vehicle manufacturers have the opportunity to redesign their offerings to provide the safety and productivity services that are genuinely inseparable from the vehicle. Let’s start by adopting a less fuzzy definition for telematics: in the new vision, telematics is wireless-enabled services provided by vehicle manufacturers to help make their vehicles and their vehicles’ drivers safer and more productive. Except for some high-end vehicles, this implies an orientation toward vehicle manufacturer-centered and vehicle-centered services. The foundation of this approach is safety – an idea that consumers consistently support.

Implications for wireless communications

Focusing first on delivering high-quality safety services has important implications for wireless communications in the vehicle. Safety as a vehicle-centered service means that it is the vehicle that’s communicating with www.h3bmedia.com

land-based systems, not the driver. Take crash notification as an example. The first line of notification is still telephone calls: emergency calls to 911 (North America) or 112 (Europe). These can come from driver and passenger phones, initiated either manually or via a Bluetooth trigger from a crash sensing system. However, these emergency calls are not telematics – they’re emergency telephone calls, and like all emergency telephone calls they are required to include the location of the call. The responsibility of the in-vehicle telematics system is to send a data message to a land-based center, totally independent of the emergency phone calls, providing as much information about the crash, the vehicle, and the occupants as vehicle sensors are able to convey. Indeed, throughout the suite of vehicle manufacturer-centered and vehicle-center services, there is not a single service which requires a voice interaction. This is a great advantage. It lets the telematics radio embedded in the vehicle be data-only, allowing it to be a device that is cheaper, more robust, and more likely to get a message through in fringe coverage areas than a wireless telephone. In addition, separating user-centered services out of telematics means that the data-only telematics radio can be securely embedded inside the firewall, with no requirement for user interface. No user interface means relatively cheap hardware. In addition, having the radio inside the firewall is particularly important when, in the medium term, vehicles will be ready to accept, from trusted sources, road hazard information that may result in a steering or braking intervention to avoid a crash.

Cost to consumers

Reducing costs for technology and communications drives the most important aspect of the new model – the cost to the consumer. Today, telematics subscription Thinking Highways Vol 1 No 1

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Telematics New Safety Telematics Model

• Lower costs

• Lifetime CRM • Larger market

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• Better vehicles

Vehicle-Centered Services

•Wireless diagnostics

• Safety support syste,m

• Data gathering

• Automatic crash notification

• Customer relationship management • Vehicle software configuration management

fees are significant, typically ranging from US$200-400 a year. While many people do choose to pay these fees, many more do not. And in a telematics environment operated on subscription, when the subscription lapses, so do the safety services. So consider a different model in which: • ACN is provided for the service life of the vehicle through a modest up-front charge (around US$50-$100) built into the purchase price of the vehicle; • Remote door unlock, remote horn/lights, and stolen vehicle tracking are pay-per-use with fees ranging from US$15-50 per incident; • Vehicle manufacturer-oriented applications are paid for by their primary beneficiary, the vehicle manufacturer . Probably the most surprising of these numbers is the ACN cost, so consider: industry estimates are that less than one-half percent of all vehicles are involved in an airbag-deploying incident in any year. If the cost of handling one ACN data message was US$100 (in our view a wildly high estimate), then the average cost per vehicle would be about 50¢ per year! The clear conclusion is that when user-oriented services are separated out of telematics, the basic vehiclemanufacturer-oriented and vehicle-oriented services can be provided, for the service life of the vehicle, without any subscription fees. Probably the most important consequence is that the safety capabilities are available not only to the relatively affluent purchasers of new vehicles, but to all subsequent owners as well, including the college sophomore buying his or her first, already-well-used car.

Details

Making this model work involves some important considerations, which we touch on briefly here, leaving the details for subsequent articles. One consideration is that if the new telematics is going to work for the service life of the vehicles, the embedded communications device also has to work for the

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• Remote door unlock •Remote horn/lights

Consumer • Safety

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Vehicle Manufacturer

Vehicle ManufacturerCentered Services

• Convenience • Better vehicle • Lower price

• Stolen vehicle tracking

service life of the vehicle. Communications devices do break, although they do not break very often. (When was the last time you had to take your car radio to be repaired?) An equipment failure, in the rare case it occurs, requires a repair. However, a much more significant issue is the rate at which wireless technology is evolving, especially wireless data transmission. These days, vehicles last an average of 12 years, many of them far longer. This represents several generations of wireless data communications technology, and the device risks becoming incommunicado by becoming obsolete far more probably than by breaking. As long as the wireless carriers are prepared to handle the aging protocols, the land-based systems that receive them can be backward compatible. But if the wireless pipe goes away (as analog cellular is about to do), both the vehicle and the land-based systems are potentially out of luck. One approach to dealing with this situation is the use of software-reconfigurable radios that can adapt to new communications environments. Such devices are currently being energetically explored in standards organizations and government spectrum agencies.

Variability

The second consideration is more complex. It would be nice if the messages a vehicle sends, particular safetyintensive messages (like ACN, could go directly to their final intended recipient (in this particular case a public safety answering point (PSAP), the people who answer 911/112 calls). If would be nice if vehicles could send one another safety messages when one of them discovers a potential road hazard that other vehicles should know about.

Evolving in an evolutionary way

However,vehicle sensors are going to continue to evolve, and the messages that will start getting sent in a few years are going to be very different from the messages www.h3bmedia.com

Telematics that vehicles will be able to send five (or 10) years later. Variations will arise from manufacturer to manufacturer and model to model, as well as from year to year. It is unreasonable to expect every PSAP to be able to keep up to date with potentially hundreds of new ACN message variants arising each year. It is probably impossible for vehicles to be able to remain reliably forward and backward compatible with all of the other vehicles on the road. Standards come to mind, but speaking as enthusiastic supporters and developers of ITS standards, we suggest that this is not the place to create them. Message content and format standards in this area will lock future communications into the lowest common denominator of the time at which the standard was created, making years of future technological progress inaccessible. For the foreseeable future, this argues strongly for the creation of a utility, most sensibly a single utility, overseen by vehicle manufacturers that can act as the intermediary for the data messages traveling to and from all vehicles. Such a utility would be a central, land-based server-router whose job is to understand all the message variations and to put them into a form that their intended recipients can use.

Conclusions

Current telematics approaches have not provided a successful value proposition for the mass market for many vehicle manufacturers. The lessons learned from these efforts strongly suggest that the right focus for telematics is solely on safety and other services that are inextricably linked to the vehicle and which benefit both vehicle manufacturers and their customers. Such an orientation opens the possibility of a technical solution based on data-only messaging supported by a land-side communications utility. This technical approach in turn enables a new and workable subscription-less business model in which vehicle owners/drivers pay a modest one-time charge for connectivity and ACN, and per-use fees for other, one-off services. A primary benefit of this approach is that safety services, like ACN, remain available for the service life of the vehicle, and not only as long as subscription fees are paid. TH

“The basic services can be provided, for the service life of the vehicle, without any subscription fees”

Yuka Gomi is President, Rick Weiland Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer and Valerie Shuman is Director, Corporate Strategy at Ygomi LLC, based in Oak Brook, Illinois

Traveler Information Systems are moving!

SpeedInfo is an immediate and tested solution for improving real-time traffic data. SpeedInfo technology provides an immediate, easy to install and low cost solution to improve the accuracy, reliability and coverage of traffic flow for any metro highway, arterial or rural roadway. Using existing wireless infrastructure and simple Doppler radar to measure average traffic speed, SpeedInfo solutions can fill coverage gaps at the rate of 40 miles per day, and provide data measured every minute, 24x7. Enabling agencies to improve financial efficiency for traveler information systems, and improve data quality and reliability to commercial levels, literally in a matter of days.

SpeedInfo 100 Park Center Plaza, Suite 590 San Jose, CA 95113 USA Phone: +1-408-446-7660 xt 102 Direct: +1-408-333-9960 Fax: +1-408-289-9171 email: [email protected] website: www.speedinfo.com

Brazil’s efforts are being closely followed by countries with big fuel bills. India and China have sent a parade of top officials to see Brazil’s programme

Cane and able After spending three decades and billions of dollars developing it, has Brazil engineered the most viable alternative to oil yet? JAMES JOSEPH wonders if ethanol can ever break oil’s stranglehold

Alternative Fuel “It should not take another 30 years.” So sums up an alternative fuels expert at the news that the world has belatedly discovered that Brazil, after 30 years of technological breakthroughs and at enormous cost, has converted a worldplentiful, renewable resource, sugar cane, into a practical engine fuel, freeing itself from dependency on imported oil.

The world’s two largest fields - Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar and Mexico’s Cantarell - are on the decline. Cantarell production is predicted to plummet by 10 per cent or more a year, a decline not likely to be bolstered by newly discovered Noxal, a deep water but unproven field not expected to become productive for at least a decade.

Currently, some 40 per cent of Brazilian vehicles, including diesel engines and even some commercial aircraft, run on sugar cane ethanol, a clear, cleanburning, rum-derived alcohol. More than 80 per cent of new vehicles sold in Brazil are, at no extra cost, certified “flex-fuellable”, or able to burn gasoline (which in Brazil, must contain 25 per cent ethanol) or 100 per cent ethanol, both available in side-byside pumps throughout the country. For Brazil - as for the world, predict many experts - sugar cane ethanol is “freedom fuel,” the first biofuel capable of breaking oil’s stranglehold. Understandably, those who procure vehicles for street and highway operations are increasingly specifying the flex-fuellable, whose minimal factory tinkering generally involves only fuel system-upgrading against ethanol’s somewhat more corrosive nature and water content. While some vehicle makers charge a small premium (roughly, US$100-300) for the flex-fuelled, General Motors gives Brazilian buyers a choice - flex-fuelled or standard - at no extra cost. Ford and GM are expected to build a total 680,000 flex-fuel vehicles this year. What, then, are the realities and promise of ethanol, from any of a number of possible sources, compared to other projected alternatives such as hydrogen, and against the predicted ever-decreasing availability at ever-increasing cost of petroleum-derived fuels. Questions like these will affect the very existence of world highways and their vehicles in a surprisingly close-athand “future.”

Readers are doubtless well aware of oil’s projected alternatives: hydrogen, biomass, ethanol, methanol, plug-in electricity, liquid coal, organic wastes and various compressed or liquefied natural gases. None precisely meets the strict criteria for an alternative to petroleum: an operationally priced and pumpavailable vehicular fuel able to perform efficiently in today’s gasoline and/or diesel engines, delivering substantial mileage with minimum/acceptable contamination of the atmosphere or contribution to global warming. And, ideally, these would come from a renewable, natural source. Almost all of these alternatives are currently under test or development or in actual limited use - as CNG is fuelling many city buses and even store-bought vegetable oil is capable of fuelling some reinvigorated small vehicular diesel engines. While it may be patently unfair to dismiss any or all of the projected hydrocarbon alternatives in a few sentences, when it comes to the above criteria, a sentence or two will usually do, barring unforeseen major technological breakthroughs.

Oil’s obituary?

One doomsday scenario predicts that oil reserves will peak within the next two decades and that when the world’s new big users China and India come online, we will run out of readily obtainable (and affordable) oil within a scant five decades. A landmark, five-year study of world crude oil and natural gas reserves by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), released in April 2000, sets a 2 per cent annual demand growth through 2020, peaking between 20372047 at an annual demand volume of 53.2 billion barrels. From then - but only some 40 years ahead - the fall-off of available and/or affordable oil is dramatic to 2100-2125 when, predicts the USGS study, the world will run out of usable oil unless equally dramatic new sources or technologies are developed. The USGS’s true “doomsday” period is 2050-2070, when production will be only 20 billion barrels a year, about one-third of predicted peak world demand. It is during these shortage years when some predict oil will cost US$100 or more a barrel. Already the world’s once-believed all-but inexhaustible oil reserves are plainly running out.

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Alternatives and their parameters

Hydrogen

Generally derived from depleting hydrocarbons - from natural gas, coal and petroleum. Not a promising alternative until massive and cheap nuclear power manages through electrolysis of water (H2O) to produce prodigious amounts of low-cost hydrogen. Despite obvious negatives, General Motors is all but staking its future on the development at a cost of billions of hydrogen-fueled vehicles. In 2005 President Bush promised to invest US$1.7 billion over the next five years on development of hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles.

Methanol

Widely used as a race car fuel. Today mostly made from natural gas, but also from plentiful coal. Considered only a “niche” alternative, due in part to considerable greenhouse gases released in the coal-to-methanol conversion and its dangerous toxicity. Even a small amount accidentally swallowed can cause blindness, nerve damage or even death.

Plug-in electricity

Powering battery-engined vehicles, plug-in power depends on a new world family of vehicles, the availability of plug-in places and the fact that some electricity is derived from hydrocarbons.

Biomass

Virtually any usually cellulose naturally grown “crops” are convertible to ethanol or a similar fuel. In April 2005, www.h3bmedia.com

Alternative Fuel the Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, issued a 60 page report, funded by the U.S. Departments of Energy and Agriculture, predicting that by mid-century the US could annually produce more than 1 billion tons of biomass - from sources ranging from forest products, switchgrass and crop residue to animal manure - enough to supply 30 per cent or more of the U.S.’s annual petroleum needs. However, the report makes scant mention of conversion-to-fuel costs nor, oddly, of sugar cane, grown in the U.S., and Brazil’s ethanol staple, as one possible biomass source. Asked “why not?” by Thinking Highways, one of the report’s authors replied, “Well, we were funded by the Departments of Energy and Agriculture, and ultimately by the US Congress, which wanted the study to cover readily available US biomass stocks,sugar cane not being one of them.”

Biodiesel

A promising diesel fuel from a variety of alternates, as soyabeans, animal fat and cooking oil but tallow in some biodiesels hardens in cold climates.

You’ve seen the rest…

Ethanol is clearly the leading alternative to oil. And here’s why. Ethanol is produced worldwide from a variety of lesser-than-sugar-content agri-products, as sugar beets, cassavas, rapeseeds, wheat and similar others. But the cost of conversion to usable fuel is often high. The US, on a corn-to-ethanol binge, will by 2012 nearly double its annual ethanol production, mostly from corn, to 28.39 billion litres (7.5 billion gallons). The cost of conversion, even for the highly (54 cents a gallon) US-subsidized process requires more energy than corn ethanol’s energy output: by some estimates, 34,610 Btus to produce a corn-liter of ethanol with an energy output of only 20,340 Btus. Some now claim that the sale of fermented corn would even the conversion costs. Despite some of ethanol-from-sugar-cane drawbacks (the fuel produces a quarter to one third less power than gasoline so more must be burnt for equal mileage; in colder climes, starting engines fueled with 100 per cent ethanol is difficult so in those regions 85 per cent ethanol and 15 per cent gasoline is the preferred mix) Brazil has, during its 30-year road to ethanol, solved many problems which might ordinarily cast doubt on sugar cane’s challenge to hydrocarbons. Certainly ethanol’s ace is its ability to fuel existing vehicular engines, unlike the vast engineering challenges that lie ahead, among them fuel cells and electric motors, to enable use of many of the other alternatives. Still, Brazil’s most formidable trump card is technology. At its unique, sugar grower-funded science centre, Centro de Tecnologia Canavieira in the heart of the sugar country, scientists decoded the DNA of sugar cane, leading to varieties more resistant to drought and pests, and vastly increasing yield. In 1975, at the launch of its sugar cane ethanol campaign, it managed to squeeze 2,000 liters, or about 520 gallons, of ethanol from a hectare (2.5 acres). Today, the

same hectare produces nearly 6,000 liters of ethanol and ethanol yield is annually growing by about 3.5 per cent.

The appliance of science

The Wall Street Journal was suitably impressed by Brazil’s eforts: “While other countries were busy mapping the human genome, Brazilian scientists were decoding the DNA of sugar cane.” Currently, some 5.5 million hectares grow sugar cane, 85 per cent of it (as a near-like percentage of ethanol) produced in the country’s centersouth region, dominated by the state of Sao Paulo. By contrast, more than 50 times more land (300 million hectares) is devoted to livestock pasture. These contrasts, and lessening need for pasturage through technology advances, explain why Brazilian experts say that an additional 100 million hectares of former pasture lands could be planted to cane without deforestation or soil degradation. By 2014, Brazil expects to double its current canebased ethanol production to 31 billion liters. Unlike many alternate fuel processes elsewhere, Brazil’s ethanol is produced at no electrical cost. Rather, the cellulosic stalks of sugar cane, called bagasse, are burnt to produce not only all the conversion power Brazil’s

Brazil’s most formidable trump card is technology. This is a sugar cane fermentor Thinking Highways Vol 1 No 1

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Alternative Fuel some 330 cane-to-ethanol mills require, but a surplus sold to local utilities. A medium-size mill, processing 1m tons of sugar cane a year, sells about 15 per cent of its bagasse-produced power, reaping a bonus US$1m. New electrical technology should significantly up the electric surplus output. Recently, Brazil announced plans for 92 new cane mills at a cost of US$10 billion.

Fuelling the debate

Statistically, sugar cane ethanol is a “green fuel” producing 57 per cent less carbon monoxide, 74 per cent fewer hydrocarbons and 13 per cent less nitrogen oxides than fossil fuels. It is also a price-competitive fuel, as must be any serious petroleum alternative. By World Bank estimates, Brazil can produce a gallon of ethanol for about US$1 (about 27 cents a liter), but only 80 cents a gallon for Brazil’s most technologically advanced and most efficient producers, against an international gasoline gallon price of about US$1.50. Production costs for ethanol produced from corn, as in the U.S., are at least 30 per cent higher than Brazilian cane-ethanol, reports the U.S. Department of Energy. One reason: an extra production step is required. Corn’s starch must first be turned to sugar before it can be distilled into alcohol. But developing technologies can turn marginal ethanol sources into potentially big-time players. For example, in 2004 Iogen Corporation, a Canadian enzyme manufacturer with its partner The Royal Dutch/Shell Group, became the world’s first to turn the cellulose in straw into ethanol. The trick was to use genetically engineered enzymes to change straw’s cellulose to fermentable glucose. Iogen’s demonstration plant can produce up to 3m liters of cellulose ethanol per year and hopes to have ‘shovel in the ground’ for a commercial scale facility by summer 2007. By 2008, with a larger, more advanced facility, Iogen hopes annually to produce 200,000 tons of straw-derived ethanol at a cost of about US$1.30 a gallon. Even so, escalating oil prices can quickly alter the equation. In June 2006 when the price of a barrel of oil averaged US$65, it cost US$2.20 to produce a gallon of gasoline - about US$1.56 for the oil, 64 cents for refining costs. At the same time, Brazil was selling a barrel of caneethanol for US$25, less than half the cost of crude oil. But even figures such as those can be elusive, as Brazil discovered during its fledgling attempt to break its imported oil dependency.

program, massive research, subsidies to growers and processors guaranteed prices for ethanol, tax breaks to companies producing flex-fuel vehicles and decreed a starting level of 10 per cent ethanol mix with gasoline. Perhaps most importantly (erasing a distribution problem envisaged by many other countries), it ordered Brazil’s state-run oil giant Petrobras to make ethanol available at its far-flung filling stations. Today, some 29,000 service stations, including those of major oil companies, serve ethanol along with gasoline. Between 1979 and the mid-1990s Brazil spent an estimated US$16 billion on loans to sugar companies and on price supports. In 1986, as drivers grew fond of lower cost, high-performing ethanol, the bottom fell out of the market. Just as Brazil’s new government drastically cut back on price supports, international oil prices plunged. Brazil’s romance with ethanol withered at a time before its advanced research was able to match oil’s lower pricing. Today, Brazil’s ethanol industry is deregulated and unsubsidized. Despite the setback, researchers continued their goal toward high-producing cane (they studied some 140 often new varieties),cost-cutting production and devices fitting existing engines to ethanol fueling. Brazil and future producers of ethanol can probably rightly proclaim that whatever petroleum’s pricing, they can produce and sell ethanol for significantly less. Declares an ethanol mill owner: “We can produce ethanol for far less than oil, whatever oil’s price.”

“Recently, Brazil announced plans for 92 new sugar cane mills at a cost of US$10 billion”

Bio basics - land ahoy?

Currently, some 100 nations produce sugar cane contrasted to 46 petroleum producers. Even so, the sizable question is whether these sugar cane growing regions especially Central and South America, Australia and South-East Asia and much of Africa - can grow enough (or any other renewable biofuel) or have land enough to replace petroleum, and especially before oil’s predicted peaking and gradual decline. “Without Brazil’s knowledge lead,” concedes one insider, “it is doubtful whether world-renewable biofuel, especially from sugar cane, could take on oil and outproduce it, barrel for barrel. And at significantly lower cost. Can that happen within 30 years?” he asks. “I think the world - and highway people - can count on it.” TH

Oiling the mechanism

As international prices dramatically rose during the 1973 Middle East war, oil accounted for half of Brazil’s total imports, up from 10 per cent. The country slid into recession, as 40 per cent of its foreign exchange income was spent on imported oil. Brazil’s then military government acted, decreeing a state-run sugar cane to ethanol

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www.h3bmedia.com

Alternative Fuel

Developing technologies can turn marginal ethanol sources into potentially big-time players

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY by James Joseph The world’s press has been quick to jump on the ethanol-powered bandwagon. Here’s a selection of quotes from around the globe. Proof, if proof were needed, that ethanol is now considered the most viable alternative to oil, and not just in Brazil Dow Jones “Brazil’s No. 1 sugar and ethanol equipment manufacturer, Dedini SA Industrias de Base, has launched a new process, jointly developed with Germany’s Siemens AG, for the more efficient distillation of hydrous ethanol. Dedini, (among) the first to offer Brazilian sugar and ethanol integrated mills, has also formed a joint venture with the German automation company Proleit AG (to produce the systems).”

Al-Jazeera Network “Thirteen of Africa’s poorest nations have joined forces to become global suppliers of biofuels, produced from organic material or plant oils. In a meeting in Senegal, they formed the African Non-Petroleum Producers Association (PANPP). Africa produces a range of crops that could be used to make biofuel, including sugar cane, sugar beet, maize, sorghum and cassava. All can be used to make ethanol. Also peanut oil can run diesel engines.

Jamaica Observer Reporter (Jamaica is among the world’s 100 or so sugar cane producing nations) “(This country’s) sugar expert is currently in Brazil discussing the prospects of setting up a second ethanol plant in Jamaica.” African News Dimension “Nigeria has established an ethanol programme - expected to augment the nation’s inadequate crude oil refining capacity, The programme is targeted to produce 100m litres of ethanol annually, requiring at least 80,000 metric tonnes of sugar cane.” Los Angeles Times “In Colombia, ethanol’s future is now. Since November, motorists in three large cities - Cali, Bogota and Popayan - have been required by law to fill their tanks with at least 10 per cent ethanol. Over time the list of cities and the share of ethanol will increase as the country seeks to reduce its dependence on oil.”

On Line Opinion/The Brisbane Institute Hawaii/TV station KGMB “Three of the state’s largest landowners - who together own roughly 10 per cent of the state’s land - have formed a new company to produce ethanol from various sources,including sugar cane and pineapple. David Cole, who heads Maui Land and Pineapple, says the group will study the feasibility of building an ethanol-processing plant in Hawaii.” www.h3bmedia.com

“Not all countries can produce ethanol from sugar cane as cheaply as Brazil. But many are close - including Australia, India and many tropical countries in Africa. For the latter, a little dose of technological assistance from the developed world would create an ‘ethanol zone’ covering Brazil and Central America, India and South-East Asia and Africa, that is every bit as productive of liquid fuel as the Middle East is productive of oil today.” Thinking Highways Vol 1 No 1

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T-Focus

Using new technology and a different approach to ITS, data management for road networks moves to where it belongs: in the Information Technology age, as CHARLIE ARMIGER explains In urban areas and on surrounding roadways there are three facts of life: there will be traffic, there will be incidents and, as a result, there will be congestion. Northern California’s San Francisco Bay Area is no exception. In fact, it is fast becoming the rule. Traffic congestion on Bay Area freeways increased in 2005 for the first time since 2000, according to the latest congestion-monitoring data released by the region’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission and Caltrans District 4. Backing up this data is Texas Transportation Institute’s 2005 Urban Mobility Study that ranked the San Francisco Bay Area congestion as the worst in the USA after Los Angeles. Bijan Sartipi, Caltrans District 4 director and MTC commissioner, pointed out that in light of this reversal in congestion relief “we need to manage our regional system with more efficiency through intelligent transportation system (ITS) strategies.” These ITS improvements include ramp metering, changeable message signs with accurate travel times, FasTrak carpooling and transit interconnectivity, as well as mechanisms such as the 511 traveler information system that helps the public make informed travel decisions.

Sensors working overtime

Heeding Sartipi’s advice SpeedInfo, an enterprising young company, has deployed more than 300 traffic sensors in the region and by doing so, has helped the Bay Area take a giant step to abate its congestion issue. The San Jose-based company is delivering dependable traffic flow data by partnering with Caltrans and the San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Commission to augment its existing inductive loop and other data gathering equipment. This hybrid, real-time traffic solution is made possible by the company’s patented, and low cost portable radar

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device that now covers over 1000 miles of limited access highways and arterials in the San Francisco Bay Area. The deployment provides near-blanket coverage of existing gaps in loop detector data as well as providing for some overlap in large congestion areas. SpeedInfo CEO Doug Finlay spearheaded the concept of an easy-to-deploy, reliable, low-cost solution for speed detection and takes pride in a relationship that brought the public and private sectors together to solve a pressing problem. “This is an example of how public agencies can work more effectively with private industry to assess existing technology and budgets and fund a new hybrid traffic flow sensor and data model,” he says.

Mix and match

The Bay Area is certainly a start, but SpeedInfo sees a bigger picture. While the company admits that it’s an emerging concept, this hybrid sensor network would consist of a mix of loop detectors, VOC side-mounted radars and average-speed radar detectors. Each device would be deployed where its individual functionality provided the best solution for the overall data collection requirement. A hybrid model could redirect existing budget expenditures to technologies that require no disruption to the road surface or to traffic flow. Finlay claims this revolutionary concept is changing the way transportation agencies view data collection models without stretching their budgets. “The hybrid model and new technology will allow for greater road coverage which, in turn, will empower the traveler information systems with more comprehensive coverage and high-quality speed data,” he explains. The hybrid model may be a new way of thinking about real-time traffic flow. It at least breaks the chains of existing technology solutions and expands the focus of traffic engineering. SppedInfo provides an example of the portability of its traffic speed devices that would enable www.h3bmedia.com

Homeland Security

Exception proves the rule www.h3bmedia.com

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T-Focus

This hybrid sensor network would consist of a mix of loop detectors, VOC side-mounted radars and average-speed radar detectors

construction zone monitoring where destruction of existing loop detectors could create a blind spot for traffic management centers. This new paradigm can lead traffic engineers to make more informed decisions about signal timing patterns and flow management with improved data. In turn, that data may be accessed in virtual real time through existing or timely sensor deployments that will provide more time for evaluating design alternatives. The added time can result in millions of dollars in project cost savings, reduced future costs and more robust and efficient designs. “Our business goal was to develop a statewide deployment utilizing the lowest cost method to collect and distribute real-time traffic flow data for emerging consumer markets,” Finlay says. “As our solution progressed, it became clear that the market for accurate, timely and reliable real-time traffic flow data was still in its early days, but speed data availability is providing new approaches for traffic engineering.”

Supply and high demand

As traffic information moves into the car or mobile phones, delayed and/or incorrect information derived from old sensor technologies is insufficient to supply comprehensive coverage, and inadequate to meet the high degree of data quality demanded by the commercial markets, and public traveler information systems. Currently, private traffic aggregators have relied on the state Department of Transportation to provide public traffic flow data originally derived for internal use only. Some have tried incorporating additional data from GPS-equipped trucking fleets and other private sensors to provide more data for predicting flow and

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improving accuracy. SpeedInfo is one of the companies that are leading a charge to change the way we think in terms of traffic data collection and engineering. One of the lessons learned is the knowledge that new technologies can help metropolitan areas, regions and MOTs/DOTs by providing accurate, real-time data, while containing costs. With disruptive prices and new speed sensor technology, new techniques are available to open up the possibilities for public agencies to select a business model with private industry and a combination of technologies that maximize public benefits – and more directly ties costs to benefits. Adopting a hybrid data model can divert the market pressure requirements of a commercial business to private industry and leave one less concern for a public entity. The immediate benefit is focusing government funds to improve mobility and traffic operations. The ultimate outcome is an efficient and effective deployment of resources that maximize the benefits to the public by improving efficiency and information. With the potential for improved financial efficiency and improved data quality, the hybrid model will become more than an exception. It will become the rule. TH Charlie Armiger is Vice President of SpeedInfo, a leading innovator of real-time traffic data networks. Its network systems are designed to augment exiting public traffic sensor infrastructure to improve accuracy, and provide a geographical region or metropolitan area with more comprehensive traffic speed coverage. Founded in 2002, SpeedInfo is headquartered in San Jose, California. The author can be contacted via email at [email protected] or by calling +1 408 333 9960. www.h3bmedia.com

When good enough isn’t good enough JOHN KASIK on how the HOT Shot is set to revolutionise HOV and HOT Lanes The intent of road user charges, taxes or tolls, is to allocate these funds in ways that ultimately benefit the road user. However, these funds are often diverted to public transportation initiatives although mass transportation utilization is progressively decreasing. State and local highways suffer because funds are not always available or allocated to improve road conditions, throughput capacity, and the expansion of our highway systems. As we watch our national highway infrastructure deteriorate in many areas, traffic congestion continues to increase with the expected rise in population. In the early 1990s, High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes were implemented on a wide scale across the United States.The intent of this concept was noble. Divert daily commuters who carpool to dedicated lanes for a faster trip. Unfortunately, the concept did not catch on and enforcement was difficult and costly. Beating the system became the norm and personal independence and comfort took precedence over the car pool approach. If the concept had caught on in full-force, those dedicated HOV lanes might eventually have become just as congested as the non-HOV lanes.

A particularly HOT topic

Federal and State transportation authorities and private sector concessionaires are now embracing the concept of High Occupancy Tolling (HOT) lanes, where singleoccupant vehicle users are charged a variable toll to utilize dedicated and less congested lanes based on time of day and distance traveled. For single occupant vehicles, users pay a premium to use the faster lane. For multi-occupant vehicles, users pay a reduced toll or no toll, depending on the road program. Vehicle occupancy enforcement of HOT lanes by means of advanced technologies is currently the hot

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topic in the industry. Dallas-based EFKON USA has developed a fail-safe solution known as HOT Shot™ (patent-pending) that will make HOT lanes easily enforceable and truly interoperable with various types of system infrastructure. The technology provides precise individual identification and vehicle occupant count through the use of a transponder and registered contactless Smart Card. The technology also serves as a platform for the advancement of robust technologies that will define the roadway networks of the future. Tolling agencies and transportation authorities need a fool-proof means of identifying and recording the number of occupants inside vehicles traveling on HOT lanes so they can charge tolls accordingly. The HOT Shot transponder identifies and records the number of occupants in the vehicle with flawless accuracy.

The heat is on

HOT Shot differs from other technologies being introduced for High Occupancy Tolling in that it does not utilize photos or video images of the occupants, which are subject to a image quality, time of day, weather conditions, false positives, and unidentifiable objects in vehicles that are presumed to be passengers. HOT Shot does not rely on thermal detection to determine vehicle occupancy which may not always be reliable because drivers often travel with pets or other heat generating items that cannot be used as evidence in violation processing enforcement. HOT Shot also addresses recent speculation that linking occupancy count to airbag seat pressure sensors is not an accurate means of determining occupancy because drivers often have packages and other heavy objects on seats in their vehicle. Moreover, not all vehicles have pressure sensors that trigger the functionality of airbags, which disqualifies this approach as a universal method of HOT enforcement. HOT Shot virtually www.h3bmedia.com

T-Focus

eliminates reliance on the honor system to determine vehicle occupancy. The HOT Shot solution is a small in-vehicle on-board unit and a contactless Smart Card that verifies the identity of each occupant through pre-registered biometric identification information. The Smart Card stores personal identification information, including a fingerprint. Two wireless technologies, coupled in the HOT Shot, are used to transmit the necessary information to the roadside equipment. These technologies are adapted to typical wireless communications already in place at existing toll facilities and infrastructure. Infrared (IR) communication has the necessary bandwidth to accommodate the amount of information that is transmitted to roadside infrastructure.

Interoperability...

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is also incorporated into the device so that it is easily integrated with transponder-based toll systems throughout North America. Multiple protocols will soon be available such that the HOT Shot can be integrated into virtually any existing facility, and programmed to meet the requirements of future electronic toll systems. The system approach demonstrates EFKON’s philosophy of optimizing open architecture and national interoperability. Upon registering the Smart Card, an individual supplies a fingerprint scan and personal information according to the business rules of the specific toll agency or road authority. Personal information and the fingerprint scan are stored on the card and used as a fool-proof means of identifying the individual. Should the driver choose to utilize an HOT lane, the driver, or with multiple passengers, removes the HOT Shot from the windshield-mounted clip and touches his Contactless Smart Card to the face of the unit. The Smart Card transfers user information and fingerprint scan to the flash memory in the transponder. The LCD screen prompts the user to provide a fingerprint by swiping a finger on a small scanner that reads a multiple-point map of the fingerprint. The fingerprint scan stored on the flash memory is then compared to the real-time scan of the driver’s finger, and the biometric identification is validated. The LCD screen communiwww.h3bmedia.com

cates the validity of the user’s identity and if valid, HOT Shot stores the appropriate information. The individual’s account identifier is stored in flash memory which links to a credit card, bank, pre-paid or post-paid account. In addition to the account identifier, HOT Shot initiates a vehicle occupancy count. Any existing back-end accounting structure can be accommodated and integrated with EFKON’s payment software to meet individual authority requirements. The system does not require a full software replacement. EFKON can adapt to any payment scheme and will provide a full back-end payment solution if desired by the toll agency. After the driver registers with HOT Shot, the transponder is handed to other passengers, who also register. Upon validation, the flash memory stores the associated account identifier of the passenger and increases the occupant count by one unit. In this scenario, HOT Shot™ has stored, on its internal memory, the total occupant count in the vehicle along with all account identifiers. When the vehicle enters an HOV lane, the transponder communicates with roadside equipment. Using IR wireless communication technology, the number of occupants is transmitted along with their account identifiers and the appropriate toll is charged to the user’s account. Toll agencies are free to build any fee structure they desire. Depending on the frequency and location of the roadside equipment, distance tolling and congestion charging can be applied to the tolling scheme. The transponder is identified upon entering and exiting HOT lanes. How accounts are charged between entry and exit is a matter dependent only on the desire of the toll authority.

...and integration

The device will be integrated with 915 MHz technology so that it is interoperable with existing toll facilities in North America. Users will not be required to have two transponders in their vehicles to utilize electronic toll and managed lanes transactions in neighboring toll facilities. This further supports EFKON’s open architecture philosophy and allows true interoperability between electronic payment applications and toll collection agencies. To avoid misuse, HOT Shot stores all information for a preset time that depends on local legislation and the complexity of the road system. In intricate road networks, where there are multiple HOT managed lane sections in one city at large distances apart, HOT Shot will require users to insert their information in transit, because the commute will outlast the preset timer. EFKON USA is conducting focus groups to more fully understand potential user obstacles or inconveniences. The goal is to develop a solution that is ideally suited for all: the road user, transportation authorities, and concessionaires. TH John Kasik is president and CEO of EFKON USA and be contacted via email at [email protected]. For more information visit www.efkonusa.com Thinking Highways Vol 1 No 1

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T-Focus

A handy device

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is actively changing the ITS market, as MICHAEL MODJESKA explains With the advent of low-power, long-range wireless technology, a new active RFID-based solution is now ready to change fee collection practices for a variety of vehicle-related services, while improving service quality and logistics for municipalities and infrastructure operators. If you think this sounds like yet another techno-era promise, read on. From what we saw at the recent ITS World Congress in London, and what municipalities and transit authorities have been saying about their real present and future needs, there’s clearly something new going on here. This is obvious when you see products like Yadilys, a newgeneration wireless device from Mayalys that makes it easy for

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people to use and pay for a variety of everyday vehicle-related charges, ranging from traditional toll-taking and parking, to new solutions like tollbooth-free highway fees, vehicle-sharing, carpooling, environmentally conscientious “green point” programs and more.

A little background

Yadilys is designed for people who pay fees and for people (and organizations) who collect fees, as well as national authorities who want to promote environmentally friendly behavior. On the surface, it is basically a wireless e-payment device that is connected directly to local services via a low-cost wireless infrastructure. The unit’s

Vol No 1 Thinking Highways

two-way communication ability means that drivers can issue payment simply by pressing a button, and that they can receive local information such as current rates, payment confirmation, and even brief messages. Obvious applications include payment for bridge and highway tolls, on-street parking, parking lots and garages, and congestion charges. More importantly, it opens the door to an entirely new set of services emerging in urban environments, including seamless charging for road usage by zone, vehicle sharing, and other types of per-usage payment systems. As traffic conditions worsen in major cities around the world and as increasing vehicle loads continue to www.h3bmedia.com

T-Focus pollute the air and try people’s patience, many municipalities and transportation agencies are finding that fees and “green-services” (such as vehicle-sharing and carpooling) are an effective way to moderate the problem. The only piece of the jigsaw missing is the right infrastructure to bring the solution to the public and measure the results. Today Yadilys is the only system that is flexible and scaleable enough to handle the entire range of electronic fee collection scenarios that we are likely to encounter.

Keeping it simple

The idea is simple. Users get a single, lightweight wireless device that they can use to pay for and/or access selected services. The most appropriate technology for this turns out to be a specially adapted RFID solution that offers long battery life and long-range connections. The device’s account can be prepaid or post-paid, or it can be setup as a credit or debit card reader. Because it is so small it fits easily on a car’s sunvisor or in your purse or pocket, and it is fully secure against unauthorized use. A simple interface guides you through transactions intuitively. When you park your car, for example, all you have to do is press a button to start payment, and another button when you are done. No more fishing for small change to feed the parking meter with. No more playing roulette with parking enforcement as now you are accurately paying for the exact time you are parked.

Plaza-free

Another practical example is freeflow highway tolling – without using toll plazas. RFID readers placed along the highway detect passing vehicles and debit the driver’s account for their actual road usage. While wireless tolling has already been proven to have a huge and immediately positive effect on traffic flow, the required infrastructure is generally extremely expensive, with range limitations due to chosen technology often forcing vehicles to pass only through certain lanes in overloaded toll plazas. Yadilys overcomes this by using the long-range, wireless Wavenis RFID

technology and very low-cost wireless access points, making it possible to not only detect vehicles at a greater distance, but also to limit the need for expensive gantries and lane restrictions. This same concept is used to implement zone-charge systems in congestion areas. The true breakthrough with Yadilys is that it is a single-source payment solution that covers all of today’s vehicle-related charges in one unit.

The operator’s perspective

Compared with other existing and proposed systems,Yadilys offers operators many advantages, not the least of which is extremely lowcost infrastructure. The Yadilys backbone is based on a series of

smart repeaters installed throughout the city, toll plaza, or at other strategic zones where fee collection and monitoring are required. End-user and infrastructure devices use the Wavenis protocol, which is specifically adapted for wireless machine-to-machine communications in which relatively low amounts of data are transmitted. In fee collection applications, for example, transmission is limited to just a few kilobits of data, when compared to video or Wi-Fi, which use up to many megabits/second. Because of this, battery-operated Yadilys devices consume miniscule amounts of power and offer longer connection range. Wireless network access points,

T-Focus

A Yadilys pole-mounted repeater

whether they are installed along the highway, in parking garages, or on city streets, provide reliable two-way connections with line-of-sight range up to hundreds of meters. The benefit to drivers is possible because of intelligent new systems. For the first time, they actually have the tools at their disposal to obtain difficult measurements in real-world situations. For example, in on-street parking installations, one of the most noteworthy features made possible by the Yadilys RFID system is that, with the regular transmission of data by each parked vehicle, remote operators can monitor statistics and usage patterns that would otherwise be impossible. When you press the button to start paying for parking, a network repeater captures the signal and forwards the information in realtime on to a remote payment transaction server. Yadilys keeps the server updated on how long you are parked by regularly sending identifying information over the wireless network.

road. The city you are going to implements a congestion charge, and you seamlessly pay the fee precisely for the areas you use. After parking your car, you use Yadilys to reserve and rent a bicycle that the local transit authority or parking garage has put at your disposal, paying of course only for the real time you use it. If your city is one of those that has opened its car-sharing (short-term car rental) service, you can use Yadilys to locate and reserve an available car, then open the door and drive away using the unit’s electronic RFID key, scoring “green points” along the way for using a pollution-efficient system. The reality is that all of these examples are being implemented around the world today, and it’s just a matter of time before we can enjoy their long-term benefits.

Conclusion

The most obvious markets for Yadilys today are those that are the most prevalent in people’s daily lives. This includes omnipresent onand off-street parking fees, bridge tolls and congestion charges. Some of

the most interesting applications are for innovative vehicle-sharing and green-point scoring applications. With a low-cost wireless infrastructure that is easy to manage, operators have no trouble deploying solutions that reap immediate benefits in terms of improved efficiency and more accurate remote monitoring. Not only that, but they can leverage the wireless infrastructure deployed for one type of service to support another type of service later on. A municipality can deploy an e-payment solution for on-street parking today, and then add a congestion charge or carsharing service with only a limited marginal investment. Additional services simply piggyback on the Yadilys infrastructure deployed for the first service. This is actually helping authorities and operators think not only about how to modernize their current collection mechanisms, but how to offer innovative new services in the near future with a single compatible system. TH Mayalys is seeking partners to fully address the North American market. For more information visit www.mayalys.com or contact [email protected]

The rest of your day

At the risk of sounding futuristic, with Yadilys the rest of your day will go something like this. When you take the highway to another city, you get charged for your exact use of the

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Vol No 1 Thinking Highways

Yadilys uses the longe-range, wireless Wavenis RFID protocol

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T-Focus

Get more. With Electronic Transaction Consultants Corporation you get more than promises, you get real technology solutions for today’s toll collection challenges. You get more than experience, you also get experts you can trust. And importantly, you get more than a provider. You get a partner to help you deliver successful results. ETC delivers a full range of products and services for the toll industry, from an integrated end-to-end solutions suite that can be customized for either new or existing operations, to maintenance and operations support. ETC’s solutions are supported by a team that includes some of the most talented and experienced in the industry. Call or visit our Web site today to learn how to get more from your systems integrator. 1200 Executive Drive, East, Suite 100 • Richardson, Texas USA 75081 • 214.615.2302 www.etcc.com

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Thinking Highways Vol 1 No 1

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Vehicle V ehi hiccle IInfrastructure nfr nf frastruc uct tur uree Integration Int nteegr graathe tion / F Forward orward Get beyond Collision Warning Electronic Stability Control C olllision W ol arni ning ng / E lectroni onicc S tability C ontrrol / ont buzzwords. Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control VII C ooperrative A oope dapt da aptive C rui uisse C ontrrol / V ont II ffor or Mobility M obillity / Cooperative obi Coope ooperrative Vehicle Vehi hiccle IInformation nfor nf forrmation Systems Vehicle-Vehicle Communications S ysttems / V ys ehi hiccle-Vehi hiccle C omm om muni uniccations / www.IVsource.net Curve Assist Low C urve ur ve Speed Spe pee ed Warning Warni ning ng / Traffic Traffic Flow Flow A ssist / L ow Speed Bus Rapid Transit Drowsy S peeed Automation pe Aut utom omaation / B us R apid T rans nsiit / D row owssy Driver Warning Truck D rive verr W arni ning ng / Heavy Heavy T ruc uckk Collision Col olllision Avoidance Blind Spot Monitoring Avoi voida danc ncee source /B lind S potfor M onit oni tor oriing / Automated Aut utom omaated Intelligent Parking Warning Electronic P arki king ng / Lane Lane Departure Depa parrture W arni ning ng / E lectroni onicc Stability Truck StabilitVehicle y Program Progr ograam / news. Truc uckk Rollover Rol olllove overr Countermeasures Cooperative Count ounteermeasur urees / C ooperrative Vehicle-Highway oope Vehi hiccle-Highw ghwaay Systems / Pedestrian Detection / Night Vision S yst ys t e m s P e des de s t r i a n D e t e c t i on N i ght gh h t V i s ion / IVsource covers the latest developments Traffic Traffic Signal gnall Detection gna Detection / Road Roa oadd Sign Sign Recognition Recogni ognittion / inSithe rapidly evolving fields of IIntersection nteersection Collision nt Col olllision Avoidance Avoi voida danc ncee / Driver Drive verr Decision Decision vehicles Support Driver Sintelligent upportt / Older uppor Olde der r Driver Drive verr Support Sand upporvehicle-highway t / Advanced Adva dvanc nceed D rive verr Assistance Systems Predictive Sensor A ssistance S ysttems systems. ys /P redi dicctive Lighting Light ghtiing / S ens nsor or Fusion Lane Keeping F usiion / Stop us Stop & Go Go ACC ACC / L ane K eepi ping ng / Predictive Precision Docking PrSearch edi dicctive Powertrain P oweeopen-access ow rtrain / P recision Doc ocki king ng / the IVsource External Vehicle Speed Control Integrated E xte xt e r nal na l V e hic hi c l e S pee pe e d C ontr ont r ol / I nte nt e g r a ted archives for in-depth information and Passive-Active Safety Collision Mitigation P assive ve--Active S afety / C olllision M ol itiga gattion links for government programs and Braking Lane Change Support Autonomous B raki king ng / L ane C hange ha nge S upportt / A uppor utonom ut onomous ous industry R&D worldwide. Subscribe to Driving Traffic Flow Drivi ving ng / T raffic Jam Jam Adaptation Ada dapt aptation / Vehicle Vehi hiccle F low Management Driver Workload M ana nage gem ment D rive ver orkl or kloa oadd Management Mnews ana nage gem m . ent / stay on/ top ofr W breaking Lane L ane Keeping Keepi ping ng A Assist ssist / Sag Sag A Assist ssist / Vehicle Vehi hiccle P Probe robe

The

Transportation Innovations, Inc. wishes H3B Media the best of luck on their new publication.Transportation Innovations is a consortium of professionals in the toll and ITS industry dedicated to applying their experience to create innovations in the transportation industry. Our mission is simple, focused and embedded in our name. We welcome this new addition and look forward to their continued contribution to the industry.

Advertisers Index Applanix ...............................................02 ASIM .....................................................15 Diamond Traffic Systems ..................79 EFKON USA .......................................13 EIS ......................................... back cover ETC Corporation ..............................79 GEWI ...................................................57 Image Sensing Systems ......................07 International Fiber Systems .............73 InVision Studios ..................................37 Iteris......................................................09 IVsource.net........................................80

Jupiter Systems ...................................52 OSI ............................ inside front cover PIPS Technology ..................................77 Samaritania ..........................................51 SpeedInfo .............................................63 Thinking Highways Online ...............05 Transportation Innovations .............80 Transurban ..........................................37 TRMI .....................................................57 Volkswagen North America .............38 Wavetronix ..............inside back cover World ITS Directory.........................21

For more information on advertisers in this issue of Thinking Highways

go online at www.h3bmedia.com 80

Vol 1 No 1 Thinking Highways

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Roads Scholar

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