2015-05-22

May 22, 2015Newsletter archive →

Chris Urmson
May 11, 2015
"After 1.7 million miles we've learned a lot — not just about our system but how humans drive, too. The most common accidents our cars are likely to experience in typical day to day street driving — light damage, no injuries — aren't well understood because they're not reported to police. Yet according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data, these incidents account for 55% of all crashes. It's hard to know what's really going on out on the streets unless you're doing miles and miles of driving every day. And that's exactly what we've been doing with our fleet of 20+ self-driving vehicles and team of safety drivers, who've driven 1.7 million miles (manually and autonomously combined). The cars have self-driven nearly a million of those miles, and we're now averaging around 10,000 self-driven miles a week (a bit less than a typical American driver logs in a year), mostly on city streets. In the spirit of helping all of us be safer drivers, we wanted to share a few patterns we've seen. A lot of this won't be a surprise, especially if you already know that driver error causes 94% of crashes.

If you spend enough time on the road, accidents will happen whether you're in a car or a self-driving car. Over the 6 years since we started the project, we've been involved in 11 minor accidents (light damage, no injuries) during those 1.7 million miles of autonomous and manual driving with our safety drivers behind the wheel, and not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident. ... We'll continue to drive thousands of miles so we can all better understand the all too common incidents that cause many of us to dislike day to day driving — and we'll continue to work hard on developing a self-driving car that can shoulder this burden for us." Read more

May 15, 2015
"When we started designing the world's first fully self-driving vehicle, our goal was a vehicle that could shoulder the entire burden of driving. Vehicles that can take anyone from A to B at the push of a button could transform mobility for millions of people, whether by reducing the 94 percent of accidents caused by human error (PDF), reclaiming the billions of hours wasted in traffic, or bringing everyday destinations and new opportunities within reach of those who might otherwise be excluded by their inability to drive a car. Read more

May 2015
"La Rochelle started its large-scale demonstration on Wednesday, December 17, 2014. The official launch by Brigitte Desveaux, Vice-President of the Urban Community of La Rochelle in charge of Mobility, was held the day prior to the start of service to introduce the initiative to the public.

This launch has been made possible thanks to the preparatory work initiated immediately after the selection of La Rochelle as a demo site. Indeed, road adaptations have been needed to ensure enough safety, traffic lights have been installed in order to give priority to the ARTS vehicles at crossings and on-street parking has been removed to provide enough space for the vehicle. ... Read more and look at the video. It is getting very real! Alain

Brussels, Belgium, 13 May 2015 - Euro NCAP and ANCAP, the independent safety bodies for Europe and Australasia, today announce the advanced publication of EFFECTIVENESS OF LOW SPEED AUTONOMOUS EMERGENCY BRAKING IN REAL-WORLD REAR-END CRASHES in the online edition of the journal 'Accident Analysis & Prevention'.

The publication reported:

that Low Speed AEB technology leads to a 38% reduction in real-world rear-end crashes;
that there is no significant difference between urban and rural crash benefits;
that Meta-analysis is an effective method for combining data from various countries.

The publication concluded that Low Speed AEB technology needs widespread fitment for maximum benefits. Read more

May 2015
"Many cars sold today are already capable of some level of automated operation, and prototype cars capable of driving autonomously have been - and continue to be - tested on public roads in Europe, Japan and the United States. These technologies have arrived rapidly on the market and their future deployment is expected to accelerate. Autonomous driving promises many benefits: improved safety, reduced congestion and lower stress for car occupants, among others. Authorities will have to adapt existing rules and create new ones in order to ensure the full compatibility of these vehicles with the public's expectations regarding safety, legal responsibility and privacy. This report explores the strategic issues that will have to be considered by authorities as more fully automated and ultimately autonomous vehicles arrive on our streets and roads. It was drafted on the basis of expert input and discussions amongst project partners in addition to a review of relevant published research and position papers ..." Read more Excellent! Alain

May 15 Bruce Gain "Peugeot will debut self-driving features on its next-generation 508 midsize car as the brand seeks to go upscale in Europe. PSA/Peugeot-Citroen CEO Carlos Tavares told the company's annual meeting on April 29 that the driver assistance features planned for the 508 will be a step toward fully autonomous driving. A PSA spokesman said the 508 will offer hands-free steering and braking control in traffic congestion, along highways and for parking, without being more specific..." Read more

Sophie Curtis, May 17, 2015, "The car of the future will be the most powerful computer you will ever own, packing the processing power of a supercomputer into a box the size of a car stereo, according to American chip maker Nvidia.

Nvidia is best known for supplying powerful graphics processors for video game consoles and laptop computers, but ten years ago the company started adapting its chips for use in cars. The third generation Audi A8, which launched in 2009, was the first car to use an Nvidia graphics processor to power its 3D navigation system display. Read more

Accident Analysis & Prevention. Volume 81. Page 24 - 29
"Abstract This study set out to evaluate the effectiveness of low speed autonomous emergency braking (AEB) technology in current model passenger vehicles, based on real-world crash experience. The validating vehicle safety through meta-analysis (VVSMA) group comprising a collaboration of government, industry consumer organisations and researchers, pooled data from a number of countries using a standard analysis format and the established MUND approach. Induced exposure methods were adopted to control for any extraneous effects. The findings showed a 38 percent overall reduction in rear-end crashes for vehicles fitted with AEB compared to a comparison sample of similar vehicles. There was no statistical evidence of any difference in effect between urban (≤60 km/h) and rural (>60 km/h) speed zones. Areas requiring further research were identified and widespread fitment through the vehicle fleet is recommended." Read more

M Ballaban May 13 "...I understand where Kanter's coming from then, at least if his other main assumption, which is that with driverless vehicles we'll all switch over to Uber and ride-sharing services like Zipcar, actually made any sense. Because if it did make sense, then we'd all be buying fewer cars, because we'd all be sharing from an existing pool. Fewer cars on the roads means fewer jobs making said cars, and thus many of them could be eliminated...." Read more

Alex Davies May 11 "..The Freightliner Inspiration is a limited take on autonomy. The system will kick in only once the truck's on the highway and up to speed, and then it will maintain a safe distance from other vehicles and stay in its lane. It won't change lanes to pass slower vehicles on its own. If it truck encounters a situation it can't confidently handle, like heavy snow or faded lane lines, it will alert the human that it's time for him to take over..." Read more

J. O'Callaghan May 11 "Several of the 48 self-driving cars on Californian roads have crashed. Some were operated by Google, with another car being an Audi. But both companies said their cars had not been at fault in the accidents. Most of the crashes were caused by human drivers in the car..." Read more

Sheryl Stolberg, et al, May 13 "An engineer jammed on the emergency brakes just seconds before Tuesday's fatal Amtrak derailment, but the train — traveling at 106 miles an hour, more than twice the speed limit — slowed only slightly, federal authorities said, before hurtling off its tracks, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 200. Read more

Mark Harris, May 20 "... The company is called Zoox, and it's the brainchild of the Australian designer Tim Kentley-Klay and Jesse Levinson, an engineer who worked at Stanford University with Sebastian Thrun, the first director of Google's self-driving car program. Their vision is for a sleek, modernistic, deluxe electric taxi with gullwing doors, in which four passengers face one another. The car is code-named L4, a play on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's classification of full automation as Level 4. Unlike rival designs, it has no front or rear end but can drive equally well in either direction. It has no windshields facing either way, nor does it have a steering wheel or brake pedal..." Read more

May 21 "Let's dispel any potential misconception right up front that Baltimore suffers from an abundance of motorists who are excessively skilled at parallel parking. One can drive a lifetime in the suburbs without parking one's car alongside a curb, but in the city, that's an ability that comes in pretty handy. Who among us has not been stuck in traffic because some clown on Charles Street can't fit a 15-foot-long vehicle in a 17-foot space?

Yet the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration announced this week that henceforth parallel parking is no longer part of the driving portion of the driver's license test. A 16-year-old can now acquire a license without those endless hours maneuvering Dad's Camry between a set of buckets and tomato stakes in the local high school parking lot...and thus reduce the lines at MVA testing centers as fewer people will need to retake the test — probably played in a role in the decision as well..." Read more

May 15, "The US Department of Transportation (US DOT) is accelerating its timetable on a proposed V2V rule that would require vehicle-to-vehicle equipment --technology that allows cars to 'talk' to one another-- in all new vehicles. V2V technology is a critical element of the connected automation that makes driverless cars as safe as possible.

Writing in the USDOT Fastlane blog, Transportation Secretary Antony Foxx announced that he has directed the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) to accelerate the timetable for its proposal to require vehicle-to-vehicle communications technology in new vehicles..." Read more

A. Goodwin, May 13 "At a briefing today at Delphi Labs in Silicon Valley, Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx discussed the DOT's plans to expedite rulemaking that would make eventually make vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication a requirement in future cars, autonomous or otherwise... Read more Hmmm Again... I guess he hasn't gotten the memo, but 5.9 GHz. is NOIT "a requirement" for autonomous cars. Nor is the Fed's V2V. 5G and consumer-oriented wireless communications will make most if not all of US DoT's investment obsolete even before the expected mandate comes into play. Sorry to be so politically incorrect, but C'Mon Man! Alain

Sean O'Kane on May 6, 2015 "Last night, atop the Hoover Dam, Freightliner unveiled the Inspiration Truck — a partially autonomous big rig that could save lives, mitigate driver fatigue and stress, and reduce CO2 emissions up to 5 percent. Daimler, which owns Freightliner, says it has done more than 10,000 miles of testing on the truck. And now it's street-legal, having been officially granted one of Nevada's "Autonomous Vehicle" license plates (the first for a commercial truck) by Nevada governor Brian Sandoval at a media event before the unveiling.

The Inspiration Truck and Daimler's underlying "Highway Pilot" technology isn't meant to replace truck drivers completely. Instead, it's meant to solve the problem of fatigued driving, something that plagues truck drivers who have to pull long shifts. According to Daimler, 90 percent of truck crashes result from driver error, and in one out of every eight of those cases driver fatigue plays a role..." Read more See also Driving into the future: CCJ test drives Freightliner's SuperTruck, self-driving Inspiration By Jack Robert and Autonomous Freightliner Inspiration truck makes a splash at the Hoover Dam Alain

Aaron M. Kessler 5/3/15 "Several automakers plan to release vehicles that enable some hands-free driving, but few states have laws to regulate them... Car manufacturers see hands-free technology as the natural next step in driving — an evolution that has gone from cruise control to anti-lock brakes to electronic stability control. None of those innovations required permission from regulators.

And legal experts say the automakers' positions are most likely correct — that in the absence of specific laws against it, hands-free driving is legal. "Most states don't expressly prohibit automated vehicles," said Bryant Walker Smith, a professor of law and engineering at the University of South Carolina..." Read more Especially some of the comments. Alain

Press Release April 2015 "...The week started with a meeting of urban transport stakeholders, notably city authorities and public transport representatives, to debate the role and expectations of cities regarding road transport automation. A number of key issues emerged from this meeting, including urban planning and design and business model: How can cities plan for road automation? How will road automation change the shape of our cities? What type of business model can be developed to deliver road passenger transport automation? ... Read more Must see the video describing the La Rochelle CityMobil2 Demo. Alain

March 26, 2015 "SAE International has created the first-ever safety guidelines for on-road testing of prototype models of fully automated vehicles.

J3018 Safety Guidelines for the On-Road testing of Prototype Models of Fully Automated Vehicles is an important document as more fully automated vehicles with Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) will be tested on public roads. Read more

Nissan Motor Co. will launch a car with self-driving technologies in Japan in 2016, the automaker's CEO, Carlos Ghosn, announced in New York.

"There will be a Nissan product in Japan, which will carry autonomous drive," Ghosn said at a news conference Thursday on the sidelines of the second day of the New York International Auto Show. "Obviously when you have this kind of technology, you want also the Japanese market to enjoy it as soon as possible." Read more

04/04/15 "Delphi Automotive PLC (NYSE: DLPH) has completed the longest automated drive in North America, traveling from San Francisco to New York in the first coast-to-coast trip ever taken by an automated vehicle. Nearly 3,400 miles were covered with 99 percent of the drive in fully automated mode. Read more See also CBSNews

By Matt Richtel, March 25, 2015 "Memo to parents: Distracted driving by teenagers is riskier than previously thought, particularly when it comes to multitasking with a cellphone. This is one finding of research being published on Wednesday that provides sobering video evidence of the extent and nature of the problem.

The study entailed putting video cameras in the cars of drivers ages 16 to 19, allowing researchers to watch the excruciating moments before nearly 1,700 crashes. Time and time again, teenagers in the videos — which will be made available to the public — lose themselves in their devices and then are jarred back to reality when they slam into another car or careen off the road.

The study, published by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, found that distraction was the cause of roughly 60 percent of moderate and severe crashes. The study says this is four times as many as some previous government estimates..." Read more and watch video!!

This is why AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Comcast, Samsung and Apple should all be investing in SmartDrivingCars. They are the root-cause of the problem. If their services to be available while the car is moving, they are going to have to invest to make the car drive itself! Else, they should withdraw from that business segment! Alain

Aaron Kessle, March 19, 2015 "For many drivers who commute long distances, the prospect of owning a self-driving car — where a driver takes his hands off the wheel and feet off the gas — has been an elusive dream. But on Thursday, Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla, took a big step in that direction when he announced that the maker of high-end electric cars would introduce autonomous technology by this summer. The technology would allow drivers to have their cars take control on what he called "major roads" like highways.

Mr. Musk said that a software update — not a repair performed by a mechanic — would give Tesla's Model S sedans the ability to start driving themselves, at least part of the time, in a hands-free mode that the company refers to as autopilot..." Read more

Mar 3, 2015 Kimberly Gill, Police say bus driver told officers he fell asleep right before collision Video shows a SMART bus slam into several vehicles Oct. 21, 2014 on Maple Road between Middlebelt and Inkster roads in West Bloomfield. Read more

Feb 19, 2015 "Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, the Truck Safety Coalition, the Center for Auto Safety and Road Safe America, filed a petition today with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requesting that the agency initiate rulemaking to require forward collision avoidance and mitigation braking (F-CAM) systems on all new large trucks and buses with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 10,000 pounds or more. F-CAM technology uses radar and sensors to first alert the driver and then to apply the brakes when a crash is imminent.... Petition for Rule Making (PDF); Petition Crash List (PDF); Press Release (PDF) Read more

to lead development of driverless car technology

The above review identifies issues that need to be addressed to enable automated vehicle technology testing on UK roads whilst maintaining high levels of road safety. It covers the best and safest ways to trial vehicles where a qualified individual is present who is capable of taking control of the car. It also looks further ahead, to the implications of potential use of fully autonomous vehicles. Read more Plus read speech

Tony Borroz, Jan. 27, 2015 "Germany's Minister of Transport has announced a project that will see a section of the A9 autobahn that connects Berlin and Munich set it up for autonomous vehicle testing.

Hanging digital bells and whistles on the A9 will include infrastructure provisions for vehicle-to-vehicle communication, as well as liberating a chunk of the 700 MHz radio spectrum so the test cars can talk back and forth. The project is expected to get underway later this year...." Read more This is interesting. Alain January 29, 2015

Jan 25 "...US Department Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has announced the addition of two automatic emergency braking systems to the recommended list of safety features under the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP)...

Emergency braking systems are slowly becoming the norm in safety evaluations. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety now requires it for a model to earn a Top Safety Pick + rating, and the tech is a must to score five stars in the Euro NCAP crash test.

"PRESS RELEASE January 22, 2015, WASHINGTON – Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx today announced that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration plans to add two cutting-edge automatic emergency braking systems to the recommended advanced safety features included under its New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) – the latest step in a half-century of safety innovations that have saved more than 600,000 lives, according to new research NHTSA released today...." Read more

Serving New Jersey's Personal Mobility Needs with the Casual Sharing of autonomousTaxis (aTaxis): Land Use, Personal Travel Demand, Casual Ride-sharing Potential, Fleet Size Requirements and Empty aTaxi Management. Orf 467F14 Student Reports for each of New Jersey's counties.

Even though these are unedited student reports they contain substantial information and perspectives on the opportunities and challenges for aTaxis to adequately serve the majority of New Jersey's mobility needs. While there are significant causal ride sharing opportunities during peak hours in peak directions, sufficient to eliminate congestion, and aTaxis can substantially increase the utilization (by a multiple of 5) of NJ Transit's rail system by providing efficient and high quality "last mile" mobility to/from rail stations, it is unlikely that average vehicle occupancy (AVO = personTripMiles/aTaxiMiles) for all trips, all day could reach a level of 2.0. Moreover, that is before one accounts for empty aTaxi repositioning that enables the sharing of aTaxis. These reports are the first that begin to address the empty aTaxis problem. It is non-trivial especially if one wishes to have multiple sized aTaxis so as to have the size of the serving aTaxi more closely match the number of shared rides that are being served. The spatial-temporal imbalances of the shared-ride demand seem to impose a great deal of empty repositioning.

It may well turn out that having only four passenger aTaxis may be better than having a fleet consisting of 2 and 6 passenger aTaxis. The reduction in empty repositioning of a uniform fleet of aTaxis may well compensate for the extra energy consumed by a larger aTaxi when a smaller two passenger aTaxi could have done the job and the foregoing of some shared riding when two four passenger aTaxis need to be used because a single 6 passenger aTaxis was not available to serve the six travelers. Alain January 4, 2015

MARC SANTORA DEC. 24, 2014 "A Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus driver was arrested on Wednesday after his bus struck and killed a 78-year-old man on Tuesday night in Brooklyn. The driver, Reginald Prescott, was charged with failing to yield to a pedestrian and violation of highway law, the police said.

Mr. Prescott, 57, was driving a B44 bus eastbound on Farragut Road in East Flatbush when he made a turn onto New York Avenue around 6 p.m., according to the police. As he was making the turn, Jean Bonne-Annee was crossing the street and was struck by the bus, the police said..." Read more

2015-05-22

Some other thoughts that deserve your time:

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

C'mon Man! (These folks didn't get/read the memo)

Calendar of Upcoming Events:

Recent Versions of:

This is the first road-legal big rig that can drive itself

event on urban road transport automation in La Rochelle

The pathway to driverless cars: a detailed review of regulations for automated vehicle technologies

Be sure to read the included Foxx's Press Release: