2013-07-14

July 14, 2013Newsletter archive →

Transportation Research Board's premier multidisciplinary research and policy conference on Vehicle Automation.

"…Mobileye, a provider of driver-assistance technology systems, said on Sunday that it had raised $400 million in financing, valuing the company at about $1.5 billion. The money, raised in an oversubscribed financing round, is coming from five new investors, according to a person briefed on the matter: the money management firms BlackRock, Fidelity Management and Wellington Management; a Chinese investment firm, Sailing Capital; and Enterprise Rent-A-Car, the privately held rental car company…In some ways, the goal is not dissimilar to the already famous Google driverless cars, though the search giant's systems allow for completely hands-off driving. But Mobileye is aiming to get most of the functionality into cars for much less, with fewer cameras and computer equipment that cost hundreds of dollars, rather than the tens of thousand of dollars that Google's array of sensors is estimated to cost at the moment…" Read more This is a major announcement because of the involvement of BlackRock, the Chinese and a car rental-firm. Since Enterprise will "pick you up", it is understandable that they would be looking toward the substantial labor saving of an autonomous rental car. However, they may be also looking at the short-term opportunities of the collision avoidance and self-parking capabilities that could substantially reduce their insurance costs as well as streamline their vehicle storage and retrieval site design and operations. With respect to the Chinese, since their car industry is still emerging, they have an opportunity to bake collision avoidance technology into their yet evolving system. Such technologies could streamline their roadway infrastructure and allow them to create a more efficient, safe and less expensive system than one completely dependent on human drivers. This could be a technological leap-frog opportunity that rivals that of wireless over copper in telephony. For more on vision based systems see Vision System Design Alain

Disruptions: How Driverless Cars Could Reshape Cities "…That city of the future could have narrower streets because parking spots would no longer be necessary. And the air would be cleaner because people would drive less. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 30 percent of driving in business districts is spent in a hunt for a parking spot, and the agency estimates that almost one billion miles of driving is wasted that way every year. …" Read more…Driverless cars would transform cities substantially more because this disruptive technology would allow for the evolution or revolution of the taxi and limousine industry to an autonomous Taxi (aTaxi) industry. Currently, the greatest value of the taxi driver is to get the taxi from the termination of the last served trip to the origination of its next customer and to babysit the taxi during the intervening time. The number of taxi drivers is set so as to have sufficient taxis available during peak times varying. Since demand varies substantially and is not symmetric, taxis must wait and move empty during much of a drivers work day. To have a viable industry, taxi drivers need to earn a living wage, so their daily compensation must be paid by the few trips that each serves during each work day. The biggest advantage of aTaxis will be the opportunity to offer service at costs that are comparable to the variable cost of the personal automobile, neither of which would then incur a labor cost. More importantly, a managed fleet of aTaxis could more readily offer shared rides during peaks and thus more efficiently utilize the underlying vehicle asset. Such a new "public transit system" would allow the operator to invest in an array of vehicle sizes, the larger of which would be used to serve large ride share opportunities while smaller vehicles would be managed dynamically to serve personal demands. Individually, aTaxis could be substantially smaller because the collision avoidance technologies (rather than bulk-oriented collision mitigation designs) would enhance safety. Such systems should deliver less financially expensive urban mobility, but also can eliminate essentially all congestion (through ride sharing during peak demand), substantially reduce energy and environmental impact and provide "door-to-door" mobility to all (the young, the old and everyone in between). Alain

Volvo Car Group reaches landmark safety milestone: one million cars with pioneering auto brake technology sold "…Volvo Cars' technology for automatic braking includes several world firsts: City Safety, which is standard and works at speeds up to 50 km/h; Collision Warning with full auto brake; and Pedestrian and Cyclist Detection with full auto brake. "Several recent reports state that our groundbreaking auto braking technologies help reduce the risk of being involved in a rear-end accident by more than 20 percent. One million Volvos with auto brake on the roads take us towards our aim that nobody should be killed or suffer serious injuries in a new Volvo car by the year 2020," says Thomas Broberg, Senior Safety Advisor at Volvo…"

This is a major accomplishment that should be recognized and promoted by NHTSA. At a minimum, NHTSA should complete overhaul of the 5-Star safety rating system which needs to move on from its exclusive focus on collision mitigation to the much more beneficial and effective collision avoidance. Auto manufacturers such as Volvo and Mercedes that have been leading safety need to be recognized and rewarded for their leadership. C'on Man!!! Alain

Gizmo takes a ride in Volvo's most autonomous car yet While the article above describes Volvo's adoption accomplishments this article is all about what is coming next; unfortunately, it seems like it is going to take yet another year for these enhancements to appear in the Volvo showrooms. By that time Volvo may well have been leapfrogged by Mercedes with its Intelligent Drive systems which are beginning to appear in the showroom today. This article contains some nice videos of autonomous parking, and cruise control with steering assist.

Driverless trucks: Irre$i$tible? "…Here's the bottom line, or the punch line, depending on whether you're a fleet manager looking to cut costs, or a truck driver doing a job you like: "The use of autonomous long-haul trucks (ALHTs) could add up to a multibillion-dollar opportunity for companies throughout the trucking value chain." Read more. Also see: The Next Autonomous Car Is a Truck The trucking industry will not need to wait for world that allows a truck to be driverless to gain many of the benefits of driverless vehicle technology. The industry can begin to adopt crash avoidance technology as is becoming available in passenger cars. Systems like Volvo's "City Safety" and the Mercedes "Intelligent Drive" which should be implementable at an incremental cost that is substantially less than the $70,000 discussed in these articles. Such systems have the opportunity to be completely paid for by reductions in insurance liabilities as they make long-haul trucking substantially safer. See Volvo truck video. As these technologies improve, they should also enable driver hours of service to be extended to offer productivity improvements of 20% or more that are all paid for by reduced insurance premiums or self insurance reserves. Alain

Smart Driving Cars
Sunday, June 30, 2013
State Senator Thomas H. Kean, Jr.: autonomous vehicle legislation. Introduced on June 24, 2013, Senate, No. 2898 directs NJ's Motor Vehicle Commission to establish driver's license endorsement for autonomous vehicles. The legislation establishes its own definition of "autonomous vehicle" as one that uses technology to "…carry out the mechanical operation of driving without the active control and continuous monitoring of a human operator." (lines 15-17, p1.) At first reading, this seems to imply that if a vehicle performs lane keeping and intelligent cruise control simultaneously then the vehicle is an autonomous vehicle (It is steering, braking and throttling as directed by a "computer" that is receiving information/data/actions from sensors rather than a human operator). However, "active control" is not defined. Is "active control" the instructions/data/actions that result in the steering/brake/throttle actions or is it the decision to allow the steering/brake/throttle to operate in a desired fashion.

Smart Driving Cars
Wednesday, Jun 16, 2013
Sneak peek at what Dr. Jerome Lutin, former Senior Director at NJ Transit will say at the symposium entitled:

Application of Autonomous Driving Technology to Transit - Functional capabilities for Safety and Capacity

USA Industry-wide average of 63,000 bus crashes per year, resulting in 14,000 injuries and 351 fatalities.

· NJ TRANSIT had four pedestrian fatalities in 2012 and 217 injured in 34 bus collisions and 163 incidents.

· NJ TRANSIT reported paying out $43.2 million in injury and damage claims in FY 2012. Assuming 33% of claims are allocated to Bus Operations on the basis of passenger miles suggests $14.0 million in bus claims. With an owned and contracted fleet totaling 2,403 buses (excluding 624 buses leased to private carriers), the average claims cost is estimated $6,404 per vehicle for the year 2012.

Smart Driving Cars
Thursday, June 6, 2013

NHTSA Preliminary Statement of Policy Re: Automated Vehicles contains the details of this preliminary policy. I highly recommend that you read it. My interpretation: http://orfe.princeton.edu/~alaink/SmartDrivingCars/CommentOnNHTSA_PrelimStatement.pdf

Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities in 2012 Not a pretty picture. Early estimates show a 5.3% increase in fatalities over '11 to 34,080 due to a very large YoY increase in Q1 (12.6%) and a an extremely large increase of greater than 15% in the Northeast region. While some of this may be attributable to increased VMT, Fatalities per VMT also increased. http://orfe.princeton.edu/~alaink/SmartDrivingCars/PDFs/EarlySafetyFacts2012NHTSA.pdf

Smart Driving Cars
Wednesday, May 29, 2013

May 15 2013 2:30 PM Russell Senate Office Building - 253

AlainK Analysis

Smart Driving Cars
Thursday, May 14, 2013

Mercedes "Hard to Imagine" Commercial. I watch little TV, but I am pleased that Mercedes continues to hit prime spots with this ground-breaking commercial. NBC had it right after the running of the Kentucky Derby and it aired several times in the New York market during the Rangers Playoff games. They are even playing this spot on during the Daily Show. They must be seeing traction.

Uncongested Mobility for All: NJ's Area-wide aTaxi System Part 1, The Demand for Mobility This year my students and I have been conducting a quantitative assessment of the mobility implications of the ultimate in Smart Driving Cars. The task was simple: How well could a truly safe fleet of self-driving cars serve the full spectrum of personal mobility needs…

Smart Driving Cars
Thursday, May 2, 2013

Smart Driving Cars
Friday, April 25, 2013
Mercedes is 1st Mover and Lifts Bar with '14 Mercedes E-Class Safety Features Supported by the following TV Commercials (If you haven't seen them on TV they are worth watching "
"Hard to Imagine" Commercial
"Clown" Commercial

From the Public Sector: My response to the US DoT on Surface Transportation System Automation (http://orfe.princeton.edu/~alaink/SmartDrivingCars/Kornhauser_%20Response2AutomationRfI.pdf

Smart Driving Cars
Friday, April 19, 2013

Smart Driving Cars
Monday, April 14, 2013

The Business Case for SmartDrivingCars: For the consumer, SmartDrivingCars have three main values: increased safety, comfort and convenience. Of these safety is most easily quantified because damages are largely adjudicated in monetary terms. AAA estimates that traffic fatalities and injuries amounted to $256B in 2011, or a cost of about $1,328 in '05 dollars for each licensed driver. Of this amount approximately 50% ($664) is paid by private insurance, the pass-through portion of insurance premiums. Individual crash victims absorb 26% ($340) of the cost (basically the deductible of what the insured has to absorb if involved in an accident), other 3rd parties absorb 14% ($185), the Federal treasury absorbs 6% ($80) and local municipalities 4% ($50). Google's simulation of the operation of its self-driving car on the range of real crash scenarios resulted in a forecast of 81% fewer fatalities and 65% fewer injuries. This substantial reduction in car crashes would save in the US $183 billion annually. Moreover, these safety improvements would be enjoyed proportionally by each owner/user of a Google car. Thus, the insurer of the average licensed driver switching to a "Google car" could expect to reduce its pass-through liabilities by an average of $475 per year. Since these are simply pass-through dollars, one could expect that an insurance price-leader might readily offer discounts of up to, say, $450, keeping the expected remaining $25 for its "generosity". The Google car user would also forgo $247 in expected "deductible self-insured" obligations.

The $450 insurance discount could readily finance, if not the expensive Google "lidars", the lower cost radars and cameras contemplated by the auto industry for its initial wave of automated lane keeping and "always-on" collision monitoring and avoidance systems. For example, the Mercedes "jam-assist" system is expected to be available on 2014 models as a $3,000 "driver assistance safety option". While jam-assist doesn't have all of the features of a Google car, it may be able to capture as much as two-thirds of the safety benefits through the collisions that jam-assist can be expected to avoid during the car's lifetime. If so proven, then the $300 discount that Flo, or the Gecko, or Good Hands or the General or some other insurer can readily offer would essentially finance this $3,000 safety feature. In fact Flo should escort you to the Mercedes dealer and pay for the option if you agree to buy a Mercedes and continue your current policy payments. (Remember, in giving Mercedes $300 per year over say 12 years, she is also keeping that $25 "generosity" for her effort, so she is happy.) In addition to substantially reducing the probability that this car is going to kill you, what's in it for you? Well, how about the two-thirds of the $247 self-insurance expected obligation that you would avoid each year. More importantly you get the anxiety-relief that flows from having driving assistance while traveling in some of the most tedious, boring and unpleasant roadway conditions. Finally, society wins because we can't really place a value on the injuries and fatalities that will be prevented. They are priceless!

Going all the way with Google Cars (or even just two thirds of the way with "jam-assist") would mean for New Jersey an annual avoidance of 500 (340) fatalities and 28,000 (19,000) injuries "valued" at $3.55 ($2.38) Billion per year.

We MUST make this happen. Everybody wins.

Smart Driving Cars
Monday, March 31, 2013

Smart Driving Cars
Monday, March 25, 2013

Smart Driving Cars
Monday, March 18, 2013
European Update: Workshop: Automation in Road Transport (contains links to participants & presentations)
….As background if you haven't read it: from June 29, 2011: Definition of necessary vehicle and infrastructure systems for Automated Driving Final report SMART 2010/0064

Smart Driving Cars
Monday, March 11, 2013
Best videos from Workshop: Automation in Road Transport (contains links to participants & presentations)

Smart Driving Cars
Monday, March 4, 2013

Smart Driving Cars
Thursday, February 28, 2013

This is BIG!!!

BMW Press Release
Continental Press Release

This is BIG, not only because they have "an agreement to jointly develop an electronic co-pilot for this purpose", but because…

· It aligns a component supplier with a manufacturer. Where does this leave Daimler and VW/Audi? To join up with Bosch?? What about Delphi? Join back with GM on this one?? Where does this leave the other manufacturers; will they align? The competitive race to attract consumers to the showroom has really heated up.

· They've realized that safety is now clothed in comfort & convenience. Together, they make a powerful message to the car buying public. This technology will draw people into the showrooms. The wake-up call was delivered by the emergent competitor, rather than government edicts or rule-makings. "… [I]n capitalist reality…, it is not [price] competition which counts but the competition from the new commodity, the new technology…- competition which commands a decisive cost or quality advantage and which strikes not at the margins of the profits and the outputs of the existing firms but at their foundations and their very lives." Joseph A Shumpeter (1883-1950)

Smart Driving Cars
Thursday, February 21, 2013

Smart Driving Cars
Thursday, February 14, 2013

Smart Driving Cars
Friday, February 8, 2013

Smart Driving Cars
Thursday, February 7, 2013

Thursday, January 31, 2013