2014-05-13

May 13, 2014Newsletter archive →

Gillian Yeomans, Lloyd's Exposure Management "...The insurance industry's expertise in risk management will be a factor in the adoption of autonomous ... technology. In an area where regulation and safety standards are yet to be developed, insurers can encourage prudent progress by making their own risk assessments and providing policies for responsible operators. There is an opportunity for insurers to engage in the transfer of new risks, making it possible for continued technological innovation. This technological innovation may give rise to new business opportunities, with corresponding opportunities for insurers.... Read more Nice to see Lloyd's weigh in here. Alain

Hill Wyrough's slide presentation of his evolution of the Princeton Trip Synthesizer (PTS). See especially slide 22 which lists the resulting data sets for each of the nation's 3,143 counties. We are still archiving the data sets. As soon as we have finished, this slide will be updated to include URLs so that you may download the synthesized people and trip files for any county in the US. Alain

Update from Corey Clothier:

"The liquidation attracted some interesting bids and the court will announce the "winner" on 15 May. They should be back to full-speed operation within a few weeks.

Both of the prospective new owners are quite impressive. Stay tuned for some big progress this year."

Junko Yoshida, 5/6/2014 "... I doubt that I'm alone in feeling a bit disturbed by the business media's breathless coverage of the autonomous car and the industry's aggressive forecasts for it.

Sure, seeing a glimpse of how Google Car is driving on surface streets in Mountain View, Calif., is exciting. But when I hear BMW predicting fully automated cars by 2025, I can't help but say, "Oh, come on, man."..." Read more

"The European project CityMobil2 has selected the first round of sites to run demonstrations and showcases of automated road transport systems, which are made up of vehicles operating without a driver in collective mode, under the control of a fleet and infrastructure supervision system.

The French coastal town of La Rochelle will kick off the first large-scale demo in autumn 2014, which will run for around six months. The 2015 World Exhibition in Milan will be the site of the second large-scale demonstration from May until November 2015. The EPFL campus in the West Lausanne region will host the third large-scale demonstration at a date still to be determined.

The Italian town of Oristano in Sardinia will host the first small-scale demonstrator this July and August, followed by a one-month demonstration in the city of Vantaa, Finland, in the summer of 2015...." Read more

"...Nokia has made US$100 million available for investing in connected car technologies. The Connected Car Fund will invest in companies that are innovating in connected and intelligent vehicles. The aim is to help grow the ecosystem around Nokia's mapping and location subsidiary, HERE..." Read more Once again, Nokia is betting on the 2nd place horse. Rather than earmarking the $100M on automation (that in fact could use some of the HERE stuff) that would address the problem, they are instead earmarking initiatives that will exacerbate the problem. I guess they didn't get the memo. Oh well. :-( Alain

By Philip E. Ross Somewhat OK even though it deals with "warning systems" instead of collision avoidance and lane centering systems until "...The early antilock braking systems (ABS) seemed so obviously good that the public flocked to buy them as optional features, and insurers offered discounts on policies for cars equipped with them. But when the accident reports rolled in, insurers found that ABS had made no visible improvement. It seems that drivers, emboldened by their super-automatic brakes, had driven a little more aggressively than before..." The unfortunate aspect of this paragraph is that it is referencing a study that had too few data points to be statistically significant and whose conclusions seemed to be heavily biased on one person's opinion. The data are unmistakably clear that accident and death rates have reduced substantially during a period in which there was substantial technological innovation in the automobile system. As to the contribution of one technology (anti-lock brakes) on both reducing accident probabilities and increasing driver's risk tolerance the answer is unclear. No one has done the sufficiently detailed analysis that is required to answer such a question. I would argue that even if antilock brakes hadn't saved one life, the fact that they apparently allow us to do something that we really want to do (drive more recklessly, which I contend is not what we want to really do except that the commercials coming out of Madison Avenue seem to often suggest that's the only thing that we want to do with a car), then as a society we've improved our quality of life without killing somebody. That's the beginning of a good floor to have on a value function. Alain

I'm getting too old. :-( Alain

Sponsored by the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society

http://www.auvsi.org/avs2014/register

Invitation ONLY

Save the date

September 6th, 2014 in Detroit

May 2, 2014

John Villasenor Apr 25 2014 "It may seem odd, but we already have the laws we need for dealing with this inevitable situation." Read more especially the source report:

April 18, 2014

Wyrough, Alexander Penn Hill Jr.: A National Disaggregate Transportation Demand Model for the Analysis of autonomous Taxi Systems

Included is one synthetic realization for each of the 308.7 Million individuals contained in the 2010 Census and each of the 1.01 Billion trips {oLat, oLon, oTime, dLat, dLon} these individuals were synthesized to have made on a typical weekday in October. Persons are organized in individual Home County Files (All 186,49 persons that lived in Peoria County, Il., or the 1,585,873 persons that lived in Manhattan, for example). Trips are available in files for each person residing in a county (with many trips diffusing into other counties, states and even countries) as well as by oCounty (the 649,781 trips that originate in Peoria County or the 8,085,055 trips that originate in Manhattan, many of which are made by 1.5 million persons that don't live in Manhattan.). For example, one can get all the trips made by the residents of Manhattan or by all trips originating in Manhattan. The user is left with the task of finding all trips that either originate, terminate or go through Manhattan. Note, trips to work where the workplace was greater than 200 miles from the home location were routed via the nearest major airports. Alain

Lee, Eileen: Uncovering Systemic Corruption in the ER: An Empirical Analysis of Motor Vehicle-Related Hospital Bill and their Impact on Insurance Companies

Sun, Zhuyi (Judy): Causal Price Discrimination: An Analysis of the Healthcare Costs Associated with Motor Vehicle and Transportation Collisions

Rhodes, Brandon Xavier: An Analysis of Economically Efficient Insurance Schemes for Automated Vehicle

April 11, 2014

By Scott Schaen on April 7, "...Lane keep assist worked very well if you're slow to make a slight turn. It doesn't work for the bigger turns. Similarly, smart cruise control and the automatic emergency braking system would slow you down a lot, but it won't bring you to a complete stop. They're SAFETY features; they're not intended to auto-drive (yet)..." Read more

April 4, 2014

Thursday, March 27, 2014 Video of Webinar. Excellent presentation by Prof. Alberto Broggi Alain

March 28, 2014

"...millennials, with their relative propensity for urban lifestyle components (whether they live in cities or in suburbs), dexterity with technology, while starting careers during economically constrained times can leave a lasting impact on society...." Read more

March 21, 2014

By BILL VLASIC and MATT APUZZO MARCH 19, 2014 "Eric H. Holder Jr., the United States attorney general, talked in impassioned tones on Wednesday about Toyota's behavior in hiding safety defects from the public, calling it "shameful" and a "blatant disregard" for the law. A $1.2 billion criminal penalty, the largest ever for a carmaker in the United States, was imposed. Read more

March 14, 2014

By DANIELLE IVORY and HILARY STOUT MARCH 13, 2014 "As lawmakers press General Motors and regulators over their decade-long failure to correct a defective ignition switch, a new review of federal crash data shows that 303 people died after the air bags failed to deploy on two of the models that were recalled last month...Read more

March 7, 2014

A.L. Kornhauser, et al March, 2014 ".... Examined are the rail ridership opportunities that NJ Transit (NJT) might enjoy if autonomous Taxis (aTaxis) were available to readily bring customers to or from its rail stations. Such collection and distribution services would not only shower NJT with new customers but they would enable NJT to redevelop its parking facilities to more profitable "Transit Village" uses. Read more

2014-05-13

Half-baked stuff that probably doesn't deserve your time:

Calendar of Upcoming Events:

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

Recent Versions of:

Newly Available Drafts of Recent Student Theses