CPUC, Nov
23, '20, "This
decision
creates two
new autonomous
vehicle
programs that
authorize fare
collection
(deployment
programs), one
for drivered
autonomous
vehicles and
the other for
driverless
autonomous
vehicles.
Among other
requirements,
applicants to
the existing
driverless
pilot program
and the new
driverless
deployment
program must
submit
Passenger
Safety Plans
that outline
their plans to
protect
passenger
safety for
driverless
operations.
In addition,
the decision
establishes
four goals
that apply to
both the
existing pilot
programs and
the new
deployment
programs; 1.)
Protect
passenger
safety; 2.)
Expand the
benefits of AV
technologies
to all of
Californians,
including
people with
disabilities;
3.) Improve
transportation
options for
all,
particularly
for
disadvantaged
communities
and low-income
communities;
and 4.) Reduce
greenhouse gas
emissions,
criteria air
pollutants,
and toxic air
contaminants,
particularly
in
disadvantaged
communities.
The Commission
will collect
data to
monitor permit
holders’
progress
toward each of
the goals...."
Read
more Hmmmm...
Sorry for not
reporting this
sooner, and
thank you Doug
Coventry for
bringing it to
my attention.
It is must
reading
for any
jurisdiction
making
regulations
regarding the
provision of
autonomousTaxi
mobility.
Its four goals are laudable, especially the 3rd, even if
it may end up
violating part
of the 4th.
Moreover, the
clauses of the
3rd should be
re-ordered to
be: ...
Improve
transportation
options for
disadvantaged
communities,
low income
communities
and those with
disabilities,
and, if
possible, for
all... This
also reduces
the goals to 3
important
ones, ...
safety, the
environment
and improved
mobility for
those that
have been left
behind by the
personal
automobile
Of course, one wants to improve mobility for those that
drive their
own personal
car; however,
that is a entrenched
well-served
set of
customers that
are not
readily going
to flip from
driving their
car to
something that
isn't really
better and may
largely be
perceived as
no cigar.
Certainly, the
public sector
should in no
way use public
resources to
give car
drivers yet
another good
but inferior
choice as was
done with many
public transportation investments
that actually
provide
inferior
mobility to
those that
were to be
attract as
customers.
These systems
are rebuffed
by many that
they were
intended to be
taken off the
road for the
trips they
already make,
let alone
deliver
quality-of-life
benefits by
providing
mobility to
new places
that they
couldn't
previously
access.
A properly designed Operational Design Domain focused on from and where low income communities want to go is, to my mind, where the best opportunity exits for these safe, environmentally responsible systems . In such ODDs these driverless aTaxis can actually improve quality-of-life; and thus, deserve accommodation and promotion by public agencies such as CPUC. Alain
[log in to unmask]" _mf_state="1" title="null" src="cid:[log in to unmask]" class="" width="44" height="44" border="0"> The SmartDrivingCars eLetter, Pod-Casts, Zoom-Casts and Zoom-inars are made possible in part by support from the Smart Transportation and Technology ETF, symbol MOTO. For more information: www.motoetf.com. Most funding is supplied by Princeton University's Department of Operations Research & Financial Engineering and Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering (PAVE) research laboratory as part of its research dissemination initiative
Diana
Furchtgott-Roth,
Aug, 3.
"Driving
through
upstate New
York, every
other vehicle
appears to be
a pickup truck
such as a Ford
F-150 or Chevy
Silverado. But
on August 11
the California
Air Resources
Board (CARB)
will hold a
public meeting
to present
draft
regulations on
requirements
for
Californians
to purchase
low- and
zero-emission
vehicles. CARB
is charged
with
implementing
California
Governor Gavin
Newsom’s 2020
Executive
Order banning
sales of new
gasoline-powered
passenger cars
and trucks in
the Golden
State from
2035.
If California
rules just
applied to
Californians,
drivers in New
York State and
elsewhere
would not have
to worry. But
rules that
start in the
Golden State
drift east,
like smoke
from the
wildfires. The
Clean Air Act
permits
California to
pass its own
standards for
new cars,
subject to
Environmental
Protection
Administration
approval. Auto
manufacturers
like to
produce for
one market, so
California has
disproportionate clout...."
Read more Hmmmm...
Seems as if
regulating the
How (EV,
ICE, Steam,
Horse, ...)
instead of the
What
(pollution
produced) is
not good
public
policy. All
one needs is
to look at the
latest California's
Lawrence
Livermore (LL)
Energy Flow
Map to
seriously
doubt that
banning ICEs
in favor of
EVs is going
to deliver
environmental
benefits that
are in line
with the
likely
societal angst
associated
with the cure.
It remains questionable that any environmental benefits accrue from switching from an EV from an ICE. The LL Energy Map shows that 40% of California's electricity is now generated from natural gas. I'm assuming that California operates its electrical systems so as to minimize environmental impact so that it is burning natural gas only because the other, less polluting, sources are maxed out. Thus, each new user of electricity in California, such as each conversion of an ICE to EV will be powered by natural gas. Moreover, two-thirds of the the generated electricity is lost ("rejected energy") even before it gets to the car's electric charger. So, one has to do some careful computations in the various scenarios to determine if powering personal cars with natural gas today in California is even infinitesimal better than with gasoline. (The answer is more obvious in states like Texas where almost 30% of electricity today is generated by coal. Not even close!)
For 2035 one needs to have a clear vision of how
electric
generation
will evolve,
how
transmission
losses can be
reduced and
how
improvements
in the ICE may
emerge before
one
institutionalizes
executive
orders aimed
at the How.
Alain
N. Doodall,
Aug '21, "Most
automobile
manufacturers
and several
technology
companies are
testing
automated
vehicles on
public roads.
While
automation of
the driving
task is
expected to
reduce
crashes, there
is no
consensus
regarding how
safe an
automated
vehicle must
be before it
can be
deployed. An
automated
vehicle should
be at least as
safe as the
average
driver, but
national crash
rates include
drunk and
distracted
driving,
meaning that
an automated
vehicle that
crashes at the
average rate
is somewhere
between drunk
and sober. In
this paper,
automated
vehicle safety
benchmarks are
explored from
three
perspectives.
First, crash
rates from
naturalistic
driving
studies are
used to
determine the
crash risk of
the model
(i.e., sober,
rested,
attentive,
cautious)
driver.
Second, stated
preference
surveys in the
literature are
reviewed to
estimate the
public’s
acceptable
automated
vehicle risk.
Third, crash,
injury, and
fatality rates
from other
transportation
modes are
compared as
baseline
safety levels.
A range of
potential
safety targets
is presented
as a guide for
policymakers,
regulators,
and automated
vehicle
developers to
assist in
evaluating the
safety of
automated
driving
technologies
for public
use. ..." Read more Hmmmm... This is a really good
paper. It
addresses the
safety metric
and in Table 2
summarizes the
various safety
measures
across various
modes,
including
elevators. As
pointed out to
me by Glenn
Mercer,
elevators
don't score
very well as
compared to
many other
modes; yet,
few seem to
hesitate using
operatorless
elevators.
My only issue is that the paper seems to focus on safety
as being the
only criteria
in making
decisions
about AVs.
Sure, safety
is important,
but there are
other
attributes of
autonomousTaxis that are not irrelevant.
Buses may well be safe, but they offer lousy mobility
and incur a
high cost per
passenger mile
to deliver
that lousy
service.
Cars are pretty safe and offer fantastic mobility, but
require
substantial
expertise that
needs to be
free for cars
to be
affordable.
Elevators aren't all that safe but provide great up&down mobility without incurring a labor cost. Moreover, their capital costs are gladly covered by the locations that benefit (owe their very existence) from the mobility being delivered.
Anyway... very good paper. Alain
K. Horan,
Aug 3, "A
six-mile
portion of
I-24 will soon
be the test
site for a
first-of-its-kind
study on how
autonomous
cars impact
traffic. Atop
110 foot tall
poles, 300
ultra high
definition
cameras will
view the
section of
road between
Bell and
Waldren
roads. The
goal is to
collect data
about how
autonomous
vehicles move
in traffic and
improve the
flow of
vehicles for
everyone.
"Human drivers
are actually
less
consistent
than
autonomous
vehicles are
today," said
Dan Work,
engineer and
researcher for
Vanderbilt
University.
"So, we can
actually pick
up the nuances
of the way
that you or I
drive that are
distinct from
the way
automated
vehicles
drive..."Read
more Hmmmm... A really good idea;
however,
unless some
Teslas tend to
drive this
road segment,
it will be a
while before
there may be
enough
"Self-driving"
cars out there
to measure
anything but
rare
occurrences
and a very
long time
before there
are Driverless
cars or trucks
there.
What could be done with this system is to test the
implications
of cruise
control, both
the
"unintelligent"
(throttle only
control) and
the
intelligent
varieties.
Vanderbilt
could capture
images of the
existing flows
and then ask
TDoT to
install a VMS
to encourage
drivers to use
cruise control
in their
travels
ahead. It
would be very
interesting to
determine if
the
encouragement
to use cruise
control had
any effect.
This seems
like an easy
thing to do;
however, I'm
not aware that
any state DoT
has ever
encouraged the
use of cruise
control in any
manner.
please let me
know if I'm
wrong on
this. Plus,
to make sense
out of the
results
Vanderbilt
will need to
determine the
extent of
cruise control
use in the
before and the
after
recordings.
They will also
need to
differentiate
between
non-intelligent
and
intelligent
cruise control
users. All no
trivial
details.
Should be
interesting.
Alain
D. Meyers,
Aug. 3, "The
de Blasio
Administration
wants to force
companies that
road-test
self-driving
cars on the
streets in
spots around
the five
boroughs to
apply for
permits,
according to
recently
proposed
changes to
city
rules...." Read
more Hmmmm... First thing to do is
to ban them in
Manhattan.
Talk about the
last
Operational
Design Domain
that these
vehicles
should operate
in. Also, the
only reason
anyone would
do such a
thing is for
the buzz and
not the
substance.
Since
this is all
about the buzz
and not the
substance,
each of these
companies need
to be charged
a very large
fee for the
use of the
city's streets
for its
promotional
activities.
The city's
streets are
for mobility
and not click
bait. Alain
K. Shalvey,
July 31, ""If
we are wrong,
we are wrong,"
he said on
Twitter on
Friday. "In
this case, we
were."
Tesla agreed
to pay $1.5
million to
settle claims
it had reduced
the charging
capacity on
some vehicles
in 2019,
according to a
settlement
agreement
filed in US
District Court
in San
Francisco on
Wednesday.
"Tesla policy
is never to
give in to
false claims,
even if we
would lose,
and never to
fight true
claims, even
if we would
win," he
said...." Read
more Hmmmm... Very nice. Now he
needs to
change the
name of his
driver Comfort
& Control
systems and to
insist that
his owners
remain alert,
diligent and
not mis-behave
while these
products are
engaged. Alain
R.
Stern, July 9,
"No doubt,
Rafaela
Vasquez should
have seen
pedestrian
Elaine
Herzberg
sooner on
March 18,
2018, and
taken action
before the
autonomous
Uber vehicle
she was riding
in hit and
killed her.
Widely seen
interior video
from a camera
inside the
Volvo SUV
shows that
Vasquez was
not looking at
the road in
the seconds
before the
impact.
But there's
far more to
the story than
that, and
Vasquez's
defense team
says the grand
jury didn't
get to hear
information
critical to
the case
before
deciding to
indict her
last September
on a charge of
negligent
homicide.
Yavapai County
Attorney
Sheila Polk
decided that
Uber was not
criminally
liable in the
crash in March
2019.
Her private
lawyers,
Albert
Morrison and
Marci Kratter,
filed an
extensive
motion in
Maricopa
County
Superior Court
on Tuesday
demanding that
the case be
remanded back
to the grand
jury for a new
determination
of probable
cause...." Read
more Hmmmm...In short my ethics
say... Yes!
See also Vasquez
Remand Motion,
July 9.
The algorithm "saw" Elaine 6 seconds before it hit her.
The algorithm
wasn't written
to side on
caution ...
slowing down
to take more
time to
resolve its
confusion.
The algorithm
was written in
such a way
that it simply
continued on
"full steam
ahead". The
algorithm had
disabled the
Automated
Emergency
Braking (AEB)
system. The
AEB was
supposed to be
explicitly
deactivated
only at speeds
under 40 mph,
yet the
algorithm had
the car
traveling at
41 mph.
Finally, the
AEB itself may
have been
miscoded to
explicitly
disregard
objects in the
lane ahead for
which the
component of
their speed in
the direction
of the lane
centerline is
sensed to be
zero. Please
don't write
code that does
that!. Much
of this
miscoding by
those that
devise, chart
and write
these
algorithms is
out of a
tendency to
prefer comfort
over
safety/caution.
The act of driving down a road naturally involves the
encounter with
numerous
objects for
which "their
speed in the
direction of
the lane
centerline" is
in fact zero.
These are all
of the
stationary
objects one
encounters
when
traveling.
Buildings
along the side
of the road,
parked cars,
telephone
poles, picket
fences,
pedestrians
waiting
patiently for
the light to
change, etc.
Unfortunately,
the sensors
that sense
these objects,
including
LiDAR, are not
perfect
(nothing is),
and will,
while rarely,
misplace these
objects as
being in the
lane ahead.
Moreover,
there are
stationary
object that
are indeed
correctly
sensed to be
in the lane
ahead, but
these can
readily be
passed
under...
overhead
signs, tree
canopies and
overpasses.
Consequently,
none of these
stationary
objects pose
any danger.
They can
readily be
passed under
if they are
really in the
lane ahead and
can be readily
bypassed, if
they are
mis-located
common
stationary
objects that
line the road
ahead...
Unless it
really is an
object whose "speed in the direction of the
lane
centerline" is
zero and it is
really located
in the lane
ahead, as it
was with
Elaine
Herzberg.... and with the rash of Tesla
crashes with
trucks
sprawled
across the
lane ahead,
firetrucks and
police
cruisers
parked in the
lane ahead, NJ
barriers
located in the
center of an
inappropriately
striped exit
lane, and
trees in the
lawn ahead.
Luckily, stationary objects in travel lanes are
extremely
rare, but,
unfortunately,
sensors and
algorithms
much more
often
mis-position
objects in the
lane ahead
that are
actually
beside the
lane, not in
the lane. To
avoid the
"discomfort"
of slowing
down to be
sure, these
algorithms
have been
written to
disregard,
rather than be
careful.
I my view, it is those that have written and implemented
these
algorithms
that are the
true folks
that are
"responsible"
for this
tragic crash.
They didn't
have to write
the algorithms
that way.
They could
have written
them to be
better and
more rarely
mis-position
stationary
object.
Moreover, they
knew they had
a problem
here, because
the code
over-simplistically
and
irresponsibly
dismisses its
shortcoming.
It is the way
this code was
written that
caused this
crash. The
code required
Rafaela to
save it from
this
disaster. I
doubt that
Raphaela was
informed about
this
fundamental
shortcoming in
the code.
Consequently, my ethics side that she is wrongfully
charged.
Whether or not
the algorithm
designers and
coders need to
be charged, is
another
question.
They certainly
should be
aware that
they are
complicit
here. So
should the
Society of
Automotive
Engineers who
preaches
"cause no
harm' and thus
suggest that
one never
brake when one
shouldn't be
braking. The
person who is
tailgating you
may rear-end
you. In a
perfect world,
then maybe.
But, all of
us, except for
maybe SAEers,
get confused,
miss identify,
mis locate and
hopefully we
all do hit the
brakes at
least a little
to give us
some time to
get things
straight.
This
philosophy
should also
apply to these
automated
gizmos. Alain
H. Poser'77, Sept 13, 2020. "Creating Value for Light Density Urban Rail Lines" . See slides, See video Hmmmm... Simply Brilliant. Alain
These
editions re
sponsored by
the SmartETFs
Smart
Transportation
and Technology
ETF, symbol
MOTO. For more
information
head to www.motoetf.com
July 12
-> 15,
"..." Read
more Hmmmm...I haven't been able to
find a public
source for any
of the content
from the
symposium but
there were at
least three
sessions (of
the few that I
was able to
attend) that
were really
good. One
was B-101-
An inside Look
at
Policy-Making
for Automated
Vehicles,
moderated by
Baruch
Feigenbaum of
the Reason
Foundation.
Pay particular
attention to
the insights
offered by
Kevin Biesty
of Arizona
DoT. So far,
no one in the
world has done
it better.
A second one was