L. Fabian, Aug 28, "There are those who think that solar panels on guideways are the magic to make PRT work. Others look at slick propulsion systems and very high speeds. A more viable future is with robocabs and robovans on tamed local streets that feed into a ZIPway of sorts. Dual mode is the key to viable PRT, in which vehicles get recharged on guideways while going at higher speeds freed of outside traffic conflicts. ...
The most
credible US
supplier of
guideway-locked
PRT has closed
shop. Taxi
2000, aka
Skyweb
Express, never
opened to
dual-mode....Guideway-locked
Skytran,
Spartan
(SJSU),
EcoPRT,
TransitX and
Jpods are not
gaining
ground.
Instead a
Michigan
“trade
association”
has emerged to
make sure
robocars are
only personal
consumer
items...
Meanwhile,
Lyft has
scored big
with shared
bookings with
Amtrak...
IN
MEMORIAM:
Dennis (John)
Manning,
long-time
promoter of
PRT and
retired
Caltran
engineer,
passed away
last week at
the age of 77
in Fresno CA.
ATRA
benefitted
from his
vision for
many years and
he was key to
a conference
in Aspen in
the 1990s and
in defending
PRT interests
in Cincinnati.
His legacy
includes a
$37m fund for
innovative
transit for
his beloved
Fresno....Read
more Hmmmm... RIP Dennis, we will miss you! RiP Alain
K.
Kokalitcheva,
Aug 28, "On
Sunday night,
Uber's board
of directors
finally chose
its next CEO:
Dara
Khosrowshahi,
Expedia's
chief
executive. The
Uber CEO job
has been
vacant since
late Junem
when
co-founder
Travis
Kalanick
stepped down
after being
pressured by a
group of
investors.
Why it
matters:..."
Read
more Hmmmm... Looks like a good call. See also NY
Times. and
NY
Times 8/30
Alain
E. Mulero,
Aug 28, "U.S.
Department of
Transportation
leaders
reaffirmed
their
commitment to
ensure the
adoption and
implementation
of automated
technologies
across
transportation
modes, the
agency
indicated in a
new policy
document.
“As new
automated
technologies
are rapidly
advancing,
they carry
with them the
potential to
dramatically
change
commercial
transportation
and private
travel,
expanding
access for
millions and
improving
safety on our
roads, rails
and in our
skies,”
regulators
with the
office of
Transportation
Secretary
Elaine Chao
outlined in
the
department’s
semi-annual
summary of its
regulatory
agenda.
“We will
remain
vigilant for
opportunities
where
regulatory
action can
help
strengthen and
modernize our
infrastructure,” the regulators added. The
document was
released Aug.
24. Read
more Hmmmm... Read the Proposed
Rule in the
Federal
Register.
This seems to
be the only
words out of
US DoT on this
topic. While
not much, it
does touch on
Automation and
NOT
Connectivity.
That's
progress.
Alain
T. Romm,
Aug 24,
"...Six months
later,
however, the
Trump
administration
has
essentially
pumped the
brakes on some
efforts to
advance
technology
that could
redefine how
Americans
travel, reduce
traffic
congestion and
save lives.
As tech and
auto giants
forge ahead in
testing and
developing
driverless
vehicles, the
U.S.
government is
still lacking
a number of
key safety
regulators to
oversee and
study the
nascent
industry.
Meanwhile, a
key federal
advisory board
focused on
driverless-car
technology — a
committee
comprised of
top executives
from Apple,
Ford, GM, Lyft
and other tech
and auto
giants — has
fallen
entirely
inactive...But
the snail’s
pace of its
policymaking
efforts stands
in stark
contrast to
the all-out
blitz on
Capitol
Hill." Read more Hmmmm... So sad! But
Washington
hasn't been
the thrust
behind
SmartDrivingCars. The marketplace has led this r-evolution and it is
looking better
every day. In
a sense the
role of the
council was to
make sure that
Washington
didn't stand
in the way of
the
technology.
Since the
White House is
silent and
Congress is
"all-out",
then "all
systems are
go" and there
may not be a
need for the
advisory
board. Alain
M. Peterson, Aug 29, "...Photos of the vehicles, which are easily distinguished because of their large LIDAR apparatuses, were reportedly taken near an Apple office in Sunnyvale, California. ...But after a relatively bumpy road, Apple switched gears to focus on creating a suite of underlying autonomous driving systems." Read more Hmmmm... The car sure is UGLY! No wonder Apple just wants to focus on the AI. Alain
D. Etherington, Aug 29, "Torc Robotics, a company focused on autonomous vehicle tech in the commercial world that’s turning its attention to the consumer market, is teaming up with leading auto industry chip supplier NXP Semiconductor on self-driving systems. Torc is using NXP’s radar-specific chips to boost 360-degree imaging and offer real-time info about a vehicle’s surroundings to its self-driving systems...." Read more Hmmmm... Interesting Torc is a strong player. Alain
Americans Plans for Acquiring & Using Electric, Shared & Self-Driving Vehicles- Neil Quarles & Kara Kockelman
Fleet Performance & Cost Evaluation of a Shared Autonomous Electric Vehicle (SAEV) Fleet: A Case Study for Austin, Texas - Ben Loeb & Kara Kockelman.
What Will Autonomous Trucking Do to U.S. Trade Flows? Application of the Random-Utility-Based Multi-Regional Input-Output Model - Yantao Huang & Kara Kockelman.
Analyzing the Dynamic Ride-Sharing Potential for Shared Autonomous Vehicle Fleets using Cellphone Data from Orlando, Florida - Krishna Murthy Gurumurthy & Kara Kockelman.
Deeper Understanding of Americans Autonomous Vehicle Preferences: Questions on Long-Distance Travel, Ride-Sharing, Privacy, & Crash Ethics - Krishna Murthy Gurumurthy, Kara Kockelman, & Jeffrey (Hyungseung) Hahm.
Anticipating
Long-Distance
Travel Shifts
due to
Self-Driving
Vehicles -
Ken Perrine,
Kara Kockelman
& Yantao
Huang.
http://orfe.princeton.edu/~alaink/SmartDrivingCars/Papers/
M. Sena,
Vol 4, issue
9,
"UNCERTAINTY
IS TROUBLING
for
businesses,
individuals
and
governments....
In one way or
another, all
businesses,
including and
especially
transport, are
completely
reliant on
four macro
factors:.. I'd add one more: where are children learn and play
.... A United
Nations study
projects world
population to
reach 8.5
billion by
2030, up from
7.5 billion
today, driven
by growth in
developing
countries...India
will have
traded places
with China as
the world’s
most populous
country in
around seven
years...So the
large bulk of
those
additional one
billion
inhabitants of
the planet by
2030 will be
looking for
places to live
in Mumbai, not
in Madrid. The
takeaway from
this is that
the so-called
‘developed’
countries,
with a few
notable
exceptions,
are either
losing
population due
to not
producing
enough
children or
seeing their
populations
staying
basically
stable. In
2030, Tokyo
will still be
the most
populated city
with an
estimated
population of
37.2 million.
Delhi will be
in second
place with
36.1 million,
up from 3.5
million in
1970! (How has
it coped?)
Shanghai will
be in third
place and New
York/Newark
will have
dropped off
the top ten
list. But what
will it be
like to live
in these
cities? The
Economist
Intelligence
Unit ranks
cities as the
most and least
liveable. ...
It ranked
Melbourne,
Australia as
number one,
...
Melbourne’s
density is 460
persons per
km2 compared
to 6,158/km2
for Tokyo and
2,059/km2 for
Shanghai....
None of the
most liveable
cities is
among the top
ten places
where venture
capitalists
have been
placing their
money bets
during the
past
year....These
four city
regions are
ranked below
30th place on
the EIU
Liveability
Index. In
other words,
they may be
successful,
but not that
liveable...
(in US) 50%
live in rural
or less urban
areas
occupying more
than 90% of
the land area.
Is there any
wonder why
over 50% of
the vehicles
sold in the
U.S. are not
passenger cars
but SUVs and
pick-up
trucks?...If
everyone who
lived in the
dense urban
areas stopped
buying cars,
there would
still be over
50% of the
population who
would continue
to be car
purchasers.
Can we conclude from this that the exodus from city regions to the suburbs of both jobs and families has now stopped and central cities once again will be where people live and work? No, not unless people will be willing to give up everything they have come to value in terms of living standards and will accept being packed into sardine can-sized apartments stacked a mile high.... Living in a central city in the most desirable neighborhoods will continue to be the privilege of the wealthy and very wealthy...They also have homes and dachas in the Hamptons, Vinyard and Vermont, else they couldn't stand it. ... When younger people build families and need more space, preferably with a yard, and that space is too expensive in the city, they find it further out...Visions of young professionals dashing around in robotic cars gobbling up mobility as a service are, to put it kindly, a bit fanciful. Read more Hmmmm...I love it!! So many good one-liners. Alain
D. Hall,
Apr 17, "In
the race to
the autonomous
revolution,
developers
have realized
there aren’t
enough hours
in a day to
clock the
real-world
miles needed
to teach cars
how to drive
themselves.
Which is why
Grand Theft
Auto V is in
the mix.
The
blockbuster
video game is
one of the
simulation
platforms
researchers
and engineers
increasingly
rely on to
test and train
the machines
being primed
to take
control of the
family sedan.
Companies from
Ford Motor Co.
to Alphabet
Inc.’s Waymo
may boast
about putting
no-hands
models on the
market in
three years,
but there’s a
lot still to
learn about
drilling
algorithms in
how to respond
when, say, a
mattress falls
off a truck on
the
freeway....The
idea isn’t
that the
highways and
byways of the
fictional city
of Los Santos
would ever be
a substitute
for bona fide
asphalt. But
the game “is
the richest
virtual
environment
that we could
extract data
from,”
said Alain
Kornhauser..."
Read
More Hmmmm... Well...we have a slightly different
view of
history wrt to
GTA5. The
'Alain view'
is that Chenyi
Chen*16
independently
started
investigating
the use of
virtual
environments
as a source of
Image -
Affordances
data sets to
use as the
training sets
in a 'Direct
Perception'
approach to
creating a
self-driving
algorithm.
Images of the
road ahead are
converted into
the
instantaneous
geometry that
is implied by
those image.
An optimal
controller
then
determines the
the steering,
brake and
throttle
values to best
drive the
car. The
critical
element in
that process
are the Image - Affordances data
sets which
need to be
pristine.
Chenyi
demonstrated
in his PhD
dissertation
, summarized
in the ICCV2015
paper,
that by using
the pristine
Image -
Affordances
data sets from
an open-source
game TORCS
one could have
a virtual car
drive a
virtual race
course without
crashing.
More
importantly,
when tested on
images from
real driving
situations,
the computed
affordances
were close to
correct.
This encouraged us to look for more appropriate
virtual
environments.
For many
reasons,
including:
"wouldn't it
be amazing if
'Grand Theft
Auto 5'
actually
generated some
positive
'redeeming
social value'
by
contributing
to the
development of
algorithms
that actually
made cars
safer; saving
grief,
injuries and
lives".
Consequently,
in the Fall of
2015, Artur
Filipowicz'17
began to
investigate
using GTA5 to
train
Convolutional
Neural
Networks to
perform some
of the Direct
Perception
aspects of
automated
driving. With
Jeremiah Liu,
he continued
his efforts in
this direction
last summer
which were presented
at TRB in
January.
Yesterday, he
and Nyan
Bhat'17
turned in
their Senior
Theses focused
on this topic.
A. Kornhauser, Jan 14, "Orf467F16 Final Project Symposium quantifying implications of such a Nation-wide mobility system on Average Vehicle Occupancy (AVO), energy, environment and congestion, including estimates of fleet size, needed empty vehicle repositioning, and ridership implications on existing rail transit systems (west, east, NYC) and Amtrak of a system that would efficiently and effectively perform their '1st mile'/'last-mile' mobility needs. Read more Hmmm... Now linked are 1st Drafts of the chapters and the powerPoint summaries of these elements. Final Report should be available by early February. The major finding is, nationwide there exists sufficient casual ridesharing potential that a well--managed Nationwide Fleet of about 30M aTaxis (in conjunction with the existing air, Amtrak and Urban fixed-rail systems) could serve the vehicular mobility needs of the whole nation with VMT 40% less than today's automobiles while providing a Level-of-Service (LoS) largely equivalent and in many ways superior than is delivered by the personal automobile today. Also interesting are the findings as to the substantial increased patronage opportunities available to Amtrak and each of the fixed rail transit systems around the country because the aTaxis solve the '1st and last mile' problem. While all of this is extremely good news, the challenging news is that since all of these fixed rail systems currently lose money on each passenger served, the additional patronage would likely mean that they'll lose even more money in the future. :-( Alain
September
2016,
"Executive
Summary...For
DOT, the
excitement
around highly
automated
vehicles
(HAVs) starts
with safety.
(p5)
...The
development of
advanced
automated
vehicle safety
technologies,
including
fully
self-driving
cars, may
prove to be
the greatest
personal
transportation
revolution
since the
popularization
of the
personal
automobile
nearly a
century ago.
(p5)
...The benefits don’t stop with safety. Innovations have the potential to transform personal mobility and open doors to people and communities. (p5)
...The remarkable speed with which increasingly complex HAVs are evolving challenges DOT to take new approaches that ensure these technologies are safely introduced (i.e., do not introduce significant new safety risks), provide safety benefits today, and achieve their full safety potential in the future. (p6) Hmmm...Fantastic statements and I appreciate that the fundamental basis and motivator is SAFETY. We all have recognized safety as a necessary condition that must be satisfied if this technology is to be successful. (unfortunately it is not a sufficient condition, (in a pure math context)). This policy statement appropriately reaffirms this necessary condition. Alain
"...we
divide the
task of
facilitating
the safe
introduction
and deployment
(...defines
“deployment”
as the
operation of
an HAV by
members of the
public who are
not the
employees or
agents of the
designer,
developer, or
manufacturer
of that HAV.)
of HAVs into
four
sections:(p6)
Hmmm...Perfect!
Alain
"...2.
Model State
Policy (p7)
The Model
State Policy
confirms that
States retain
their
traditional
responsibilities...but... The shared
objective is
to ensure the
establishment
of a
consistent
national
framework
rather than a
patchwork of
incompatible
laws..." Hmmm... Well done. Alain
"...3. NHTSA Current Regulatory Tools (p7) ... This document provides instructions, practical guidance, and assistance to entities seeking to employ those tools. Furthermore, NHTSA has streamlined its review process and is committing to..." Hmmm... Excellent. Alain
"...4. New Tools and Authorities (p7)...The speed with which HAVs are advancing, combined with the complexity and novelty of these innovations, threatens to outpace the Agency’s conventional regulatory processes and capabilities. This challenge requires DOT to examine whether the way DOT has addressed safety for the last 50 years should be expanded to realize the safety potential of automated vehicles over the next 50 years. Therefore, this section identifies potential new tools, authorities and regulatory structures that could aid the safe and appropriately expeditious deployment of new technologies by enabling the Agency to be more nimble and flexible (p8)..." Hmmm... Yes. Alain
"...I.
Vehicle
Performance
Guidance for
Automated
Vehicles
(p11) A.
Guidance: if a
vehicle is
compliant
within the
existing FMVSS
regulatory
framework and
maintains a
conventional
vehicle
design, there
is currently
no specific
federal legal
barrier to an
HAV being
offered for
sale.(footnote
7) However,
manufacturers
and other
entities
designing new
automated
vehicle
systems
are subject to
NHTSA’s
defects,
recall and
enforcement
authority.
(footnote 8)
.
and the "15
Cross-cutting
Areas of
Guidance"
p17)
In sum this is a very good document and displays just
how far DoT
policy has
come from
promoting v2v,
DSRC and
centralized
control,
"connected",
focus to
creating an
environment
focused on
individual
vehicles that
responsibly
take care of
themselves.
Kudos to
Secretary Foxx
for this 180
degree policy
turn focused
on safety.
Once done
correctly, the
HAV will yield
the early
safety
benefits that
will stimulate
continued
improvements
that, in turn,
will yield the
great
mobility,
environmental
and
quality-of-life
benefits
afforded by
driverless
mobility.
What are not addressed are commercial trucking and buses/mass transit. NHTSA is auto focused, so maybe FMCSA is preparing similar guidelines. FTA (Federal Transit Administration) seems nowhere in sight. Alain
Hmmm...What we know now (and don't know):