2014-02-14

February 14, 2014Newsletter archive →

Eric Jaffe Jan 13, 2014 "If connected vehicle technology becomes mandatory in American cars, as the Department of Transportation recently suggested it might, the most obvious benefit would be safety. Cars that can tell other cars their speed and position are far less likely to crash. But as David Zax pointed out at Cities earlier this week, that's just the beginning. Combine connected vehicle technology with intelligent infrastructure and driverless cars and you get a commute that's both quicker and hands-free. You could even rely on autonomous taxis to chauffeur you from home to work. In that sense, a world without car crashes may just be the first step to a world without car ownership.

Think about this world of shared autonomous vehicles for a moment. You wake up and get ready for work, and a few minutes before it's time to leave you press a button and order an SAV. The car has been strategically positioned to wait in high-demand areas, so you don't have to wait long. You might share the ride with a couple travelers just as you share an elevator, or perhaps pay a premium to ride alone. Either way, you clear your inbox or read the paper during the commute, which is safer and more reliable than it used to be.

"It's a game-changer," says autonomous car researcher Alain L. Kornhauser of Princeton University. "What I think is going to happen is that nobody will own a car. … If you can get [mobility] by the drink, you won't buy the bottle."

The problem with buying the drink today, says Kornhauser, is that the labor cost of on-demand taxi service is enormous. As a result, we buy the bottle just in case we want a drink. Driverless cars change the whole equation. Read more

What I really said was.. "Nobody" will buy a car for mobility. Sure, some will buy one just to drive for fun, as a toy or as a status symbol, much as some buy Ferraris, Teslas, '57 Chevys and.... However, that's not the point, what is important is that finally a popular article looks at the transit and ride-sharing opportunities of SmartDrivingCars. This is the game changer, plus I'd go even farther by emphasizing that, this future doesn't need mandatory anything. The driverless vehicle will be owned and operated by the "transit" company of the future. Of course that company will monitor its vehicles and manage them optimally to maximize mobility, safety, efficiency and profit (which, when computer controlled and managed, are no longer counter productive). Instead of mandating, NHTSA and DoT should be helping, encouraging and facilitating. Alain

Jane Bierstedt, et al Jan 2014 " Executive Summary...Impact on Vehicle Miles Traveled...at 50% market penetration AVs are likely to produce increases in VMT ranging from 5% to 20% depending on facility class...When fleet penetration reaches 95% and non-drivers are permitted to travel in robotic cars, VMT increases may reach as high as 35% "

"Effect on Highway Capacity...Initially, AVs will either have no impact, or at worse they could degrade highway capacity..." Read more

Humm... True! However, even if better algorithms don't turn around this trend, car sharing robotic taxis will reduce VMT in congested corridors and resolve the capacity issue without needing new infrastructure. Alain

Another problem with this report is that it defines its own automation "Levels" based on "the industry" but who are they? It's not NHTSA. SAE?, who?. The text claims "five" levels, yet 6 are listed on page 5. Some levels are self-contradictory. (Although I just call everything SmartDrivingCars. so I shouldn't be complaining.) For example:

Level 3: "Driver is not expected to constantly monitor the roadway... Does require the driver to maintain full vigilance..."

What????

Level 4: "Driver need only provide destination or navigation input.."

If that is all the "driver" needs to do, can't the driver be the passenger saying "take me home; I prefer the scenic route." That's an automatedTaxi (aTaxi)! I guess that makes their Level 5: "AutomatedTaxis... capable of negotiating rights of way with one another" the "Priceline" version of autonomousTaxis with The Negotiator! A nice timeline is provided on pages 7 and 8; however, references are not listed and some of the claims have little substance "... 2016... Tesla expects..." Really???

C'mon Man!!

There are some interesting footnotes on page 11. The word "texting" appears on page 12 in what may be the understatement of the report: "Anecdotal evidence suggests drivers will often engage in other activities while driving including eating, drinking, speaking on their cell phones, checking email, or texting"! ("Anecdotal"? Aren't we all secretly doing it? Plus it should probably be:... and texting)

On page 18 they conclude "...a certain percentage of transit users ...may switch to autonomous vehicles, thereby increasing VMT". However, they fail to realize that the autonomous vehicle that is "switched to" is in fact a driverless transit vehicle, with ridesharing, that is also carrying persons that have ditched their private car. While PMT may have increased (a good thing because it correlates with quality of life), VMT is reduced.

Also, the numbers don't make sense. Nationally, an overwhelming majority of trips are taken by auto. Something like 82%. (14% are by walking and cycling, 2% by school bus and 2% by transit). But that's mode share. what about PMTshare. I suspect that the numbers are more like 92% auto, 2% walk&Bike (much shorter trips), 3% school bus and 3% transit. (I've never been able to find good data, it may not have ever been measured). However, VMT can't increase more than 10% (it only has 8 points to go for it to have it all) even if all trips went to personal "Next-generation vehicles" with today's average car occupancy (as they assume, which is really essentially 1.0 during weekdays)!

On page 15 they discuss "car sharing" from a private ownership perspective but fail to consider "car sharing" from a fleet perspective as occurs today with conventional taxis. In conventional taxis the value of the driver is primarily in getting the taxi to the passenger and the getting rid of it when the passenger gets out. In most cases, that passenger could have just as easily asked the cabbie to hop in the back seat..."I'll drive". Similarly with aTaxis. The automated system is absolutely necessary to get the aTaxi to me and then from me to the next person (car sharing). I could easily drive; however, why should I? The automated system can drive me and I'll text! That's real car sharing.

In the end, this study focuses on the capacity issues of automation, probably because of the legacy of a "v2v mentality". NHTSA Level 3 and level 4 automation don't need "v2v centralized governmental oversight"; consequently, they have some real hope of becoming a reality...Level 3 (textingMachines) as a "Business2Consumer" (B2C) play and Level 4 (aTaxis) as a "Business2Business" (B2B, auto industry 2 fleet owner) play. Indeed, an FAA was created, which is a "v2v centralized governmental overseer" for airliners; however, that system was conceived at the infancy of air travel and grew with it. It would be a substantially more difficult, likely unlikely, undertaking to convert a mature anarchical system to a centralized system. FAA's "biggest" problem has been reeling in private pilots. Can you imagine trying to reel in pickups with gun racks? That ship is not sailing! Alain

CINCINNATI—Feb. 3, 2014 – "According to a recent study commissioned by Seapine Software ... survey, conducted online by Harris Interactive...Rick Riccetti, President and CEO, Seapine Software. "This research confirms that consumers likely won't hand over the wheel until auto companies can prove equipment is safe from software glitches or failures." Read more Survey results

Well worth reading but as with all surveys, the details of the question are very important, especially in the light of Danny Kahneman's System 1 / System 2. Surveys tend to get System 1 responses which are OK; however, the deep question is in which of these situations does System 1 dominate the ensuing behavior? A possible follow-up question could have been

"Have you ever ridden in an automated people mover at an airport? Did you have similar reservations? Why? Why not?...

"Have you ever ridden in an elevator? Did you have similar reservations? Why? Why not?...

What if those questions were asked first?? Fortunately, there will be an evolution. NHTSA Level 2 will get us comfortable with automated collision avoidance, textingMachines will get us comfortable with not paying attention and finally we'll all just say, "why bother having a driver?" QED :-) Alain

February 12, 2014 "According to Israeli news source Haaretz, Jerusalem-based vehicle safety systems manufacturer Mobileye and Tesla have entered a partnership with the goal being to develop a driverless car...In the past, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the company would have a 95 percent (emphasis added) driverless car by 2016 and that 100 percent automation is difficult to achieve.

Mobileye founder Amnon Shashua also said that the system wouldn't be fully automated, but would allow the driver time to check a text (emphasis added) message, change the radio, and do other tasks which would normally divert attention from the road for a short time (emphasis added)..." Read more

In the true Tesla Hype tradition "short time" = 95%! Hmmm However they both know that the market will gobble up textingMachines. That's what they're shooting for. Stat with a text message, then 2, then3, then.. by 2016?? Maybe, but it is a very long way from a to 95% Alain

With Walking, Cycling, aTaxis and Trains; Mobility, Congestion and Environmental Consequences. Very interesting student PowerPoints and Drafts of Chapters. A little rough in places but still well worth browsing. Alain

Drafts of chapters: http://orfe.princeton.edu/~alaink/NJ_aTaxiOrf467F13/Orf467F13_FinalReports/

Andrew Chatham, Principal Software Engineer, Google will lead the plenary session on Tuesday, March 11. Chatham leads the offboard software and mapping efforts for Google's self-driving cars. He joined the project in 2009 and has helped the team achieve over 500,000 miles of autonomous driving. He is especially interested in the intersection of Google's technology and the existing transportation world. He joined Google in 2002 and is a graduate of Duke University.

Sponsored by the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society

February 9, 2014

I prefer to call this: Volvo's "Texting Machine" concept video. It demonstrates very clearly that it is the "NHTSA Level 3" feature that will be needed to make the car as good as transit; otherwise everyone is simply going to take transit. Who cares about far the walk, how long the wait and the ride and the crowded conditions. I can be in my own world doing what I want to do during that whole process. Without Level 3 I have to be off the grid focused on keeping the hulk between two white lines and not running into things. Transit wins. Play video Alain

February 4, 2014

European Commission agreed upon the demonstration schedule Adrianon Alessandrini

By far the BEST Super Bowl Commercial Play video Alain

January 26, 2014

by Emily Badger, Jan 17, 2014 "...The great promise of autonomous cars is not that we could each own one in our own driveway – the 21st century's version of owning your own Model T, or your own color TV, or your own bulky Macintosh – but that no one would need to own one at all..." Read more In fact read the whole thing as well as the 266 Comments. This may be the first time that these concepts have received any attention in any of the public press, the better reports by KPMG and Rand or the Congressional hearings. Alain

January 17, 2014

by James M. Anderson, Nidhi Kalra, Karlyn D. Stanley, Paul Sorensen, Constantine Samaras, Oluwatobi Oluwatola

This report is excellent

January 6, 2014

Jan. 2, 2014 "Accident rates will plunge to near zero for SDCs, although other cars will crash into SDCs, but as the market share of SDCs on the highway grows, overall accident rates will decline steadily". Self-driving cars (SDC) that include driver control are expected to hit highways around the globe before 2025 and self-driving "only" cars are anticipated around 2030, according to an emerging technologies study on Autonomous Cars from IHS Automotive, driven by Polk.

In the study, "Emerging Technologies: Autonomous Cars—Not If, But When," IHS Automotive forecasts total worldwide sales of self-driving cars will grow from nearly 230 thousand in 2025 to 11.8 million in 2035 – 7 million SDCs with both driver control and autonomous control and 4.8 million that have only autonomous control. In all, there should be nearly 54 million self-driving cars in use globally by 2035. Read more

December 27, 2013

December 20, 2013

How Large Companies Can Out-Innovate Start-Ups" by Chunka Mui and Paul B. Carroll Now Available Highly Recommended. See also Chunka's Dec. 19 Forbes article Will The Google Car Force A Choice Between Lives And Jobs?

2014-02-14

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June 8 - 11, 2014, Dearborn, Michigan, USA

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