2015-07-31

July 31, 2015Newsletter archive →

31, 2015

July 28 "...These vulnerabilities pose great risks and the federal government must do more to help protect Americans from these risks."

Late last year, the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act, originally introduced by Congressmen Lipinski, was signed into law. The Act increases the security of federal networks and information systems, improves the transfer of cybersecurity technologies to the marketplace, trains a cybersecurity workforce, and coordinates and prioritizes federal cybersecurity research and development efforts. "Read more

J. Yoshida July 27 "So, where, exactly, did hackers find a crack in the firewall of a 2014 Jeep Cherokee? How did they infiltrate it and who's at fault for failing to foresee the breach?

The failure apparently occurred in not one, but multiple places in the connected car's system architecture. Blame, according to multiple automotive industry analysts, could also extend to parties beyond Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA). They include Sprint — a system integrator — with whom Chrysler contracted for secure vehicle network access via the telematics control unit, and Harman Kardon, who designed an in-vehicle infotainment system... "Read more

July 2015 ".The nightmare scenario of being stationary in a traffic jam as a lorry bears down at speed could become a thing of the past, as thousands of larger vehicles on UK roads move a significant step further towards safety with new rulings coming in this autumn. From 1 November this year, EU legislation will mandate the fitment of Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) systems on most newly registered Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) over 7.5 tonnes. These vehicles are involved in one in five deaths and serious injuries on UK roads.

Standard-fit AEB systems are currently available on nearly 11 per cent of new cars, and offered as an option on a further 18.5 per cent. According to Euro NCAP and ANCAP, the independent safety bodies for Europe and Australasia, AEB is already leading to a 38 per cent reduction in real-world rear-end crashes and proving to be the key to gaining the coveted NCAP 5 star safety rating.

"The proportion of truck fleets with AEB, however, is negligible," says Peter Shaw, Chief Executive of Thatcham Research, which has led the way in the UK for testing AEB on cars. "The Commission's ruling to make it mandatory has spurred the industry to catch up, but it will be many years before the UK's fleet of 500,000 HGVs are all equipped with this level of safety..." Read more

July 7 "The Government is being urged to incentivise the uptake of autonomous emergency braking (AEB) systems, which have the potential to significantly reduce rear-end crashes and, ultimately, save lives.

Gerry Keaney, chief executive of the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA), said: "2014 was the first time in 18 years that the number of casualties on the roads in the UK increased." "That should be a signal to everybody that these things do not take care of themselves automatically.... "Read more

K. Descouzza, et. al. May 2015" ...It is extremely difficult for regular people to predict the rate, scale, or impact of technological innovation. Henry Ford, who understood this principle, is famously quoted as saying, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." The ever-increasing rate of technological innovation begs the question: how will government manage or adapt to the explosion of new technologies?

In the future, autonomous vehicles will be the prevailing mode of transportation. As a result, there will be widespread unemployment within the taxi and trucking industries, legal issues regarding accidents and liability, regulatory issues relating to GPS and telemetric data generated by vehicles, and a fundamental shift in the concept of "public transit." Additionally, the explosion of the consumer-to-consumer economy—e.g., Uber, TaskRabbit, and Airbnb—will continue to create legal and ethical challenges. In order to be a relevant and critical player in the future, local governments will need to rethink their design, strategy, operations, and processes in fundamental ways. We assert that changes on the not-too-distant horizon will require local governments to be agile, nimble, and dynamic.... "Read more

Fred Fishkin July 17 "What will push you into a car that drives itself? It may be your insurance company. I'm Fred Fishkin with technology BootCamp, a report on gadgets and gear. Cars that can drive themselves…or autonomous vehicles…are already here…being tested by Google and others…and car makers are promising to have them available in the not too distant future. The sensors and cameras needed are already being put to use to make cars safer. At Princeton University, Dr. Alain Kornhauser is faculty chair of Autonomous Vehicle Engineering. And he says economics will be the driving force behind adoption of the technology..." Read more

J. Hirsch LA Times July 11" For at least 22 hours a day most cars sit parked, sucking up their owners' money while waiting to be driven. For most people, it's one of their most underutilized — but most expensive — assets.

Now, some companies are devising ways to help people profit from their vehicles. Startups like RelayRides and Getaround help people rent out their cars during down time. Uber, Lyft and Sidecar connect car owners with people willing to pay for a ride. The rapid growth of these startups is transforming transportation — making it easier than ever before to get around without owning a car — and forcing automakers to devise new strategies to lure prospective buyers.

In June, Ford launched a car-sharing program that offers buyers a new way to offset the pains of ownership by tapping into what is essentially an Airbnb on wheels..." Read more

S. Henn July 31 "These days, the idea of a driverless car makes a lot of people nervous. Our Planet Money team goes back in time when automatic elevators made people just as worried." Listen

June 30 "Seventeen years after Singapore installed its electronic road pricing system, twelve years after the London Congestion Charge was implemented, ten years after Germany began tolling trucks on its highways, eight years after Stockholm installed its congestion charging system, and even after several other countries and cities have installed successful, effective, wide-area congestion pricing systems for cars or trucks or both, America still has none.... Read more

July 20 Two interesting set of slides from a private discussion with forward-thinking policymakers and technology leaders as we explore pressing questions and emerging challenges in the autonomous vehicle space. "Larry Burns & Brian Johnson Alain

E Baig July 17 "AT&T is counting on virtual reality to help reduce the number of potentially fatal automobile accidents. The wireless carrier is letting you take the wheel of a car virtually to simulate what can happen the instant you turn your attention away from the road to respond to a beeping cell phone or to text...." Read more

Evaluating Technologies Relevant to the Enhancement of Driver Safe 2014 "...A total of seven technologies have been reviewed – two reference technologies (Electronic Stability Control and Adaptive Cruise Control) and five emergent safety technologies (Adaptive Headlights, Back-Up Cameras, Forward Collision Warning, Forward Collision Mitigation, and Lane Departure Warning). A major finding of the project has been that only relatively limited data is available upon which to objectively rate the real-world performance of most of these safety systems. A number of experts and industry representatives expressed some surprise at both the divergence between theoretical and observed benefit and the relative scarcity of data upon which to make objective assessments, while others were quite aware of these issues and the need for the development of objective data on real-world performance. This undertaking appears to have already succeeded in one of its goals by stimulating substantive constructive discussion and engagement within the research and industry based safety communities.... Read more

J Chan July 26 "... However, they also tap into a car's electronics, allowing a passenger to assist the driver by programming a destination into the car's onboard navigation system. BMW's tablet lets a sleepy passenger close all the window shades by pressing one button..." Read more

November 4-9, 2015

http://www.automatedfl.com/our-efforts/florida-automated-vehicles-summit/

July 27, 2015

Monday, July 20, 2015 – "After more than three (3) years of planning and several major meetings the substantive launch the Center for Automated Road Transportation Safety @ Fort Monmouth (CARTS@FM) occurred this week with the establishment of the not-for-profit. (501(c) (6)), New Jersey Corporation. The mission of this Center is to substantially improve safety on our existing conventional roadway infrastructure through the use of inexpensive automated collision avoidance systems installed on individual vehicles operating harmoniously with conventional vehicles throughout most, if not all, existing roadways. The scope of CARTS's mission is across all modes that utilize the nation's conventional road system: trucks, buses and cars. .." Read more

July 13, 2015

D. Norman 6/4/15 "Imperfect automation, continually getting better? Or distracted drivers, continually getting worse? Choose.

I am fearful of the rapid rush toward full automation and have published numerous articles about the difficulties we will face because of the mismatch of the automation and human behavior. However, I am even more fearful of the rapid rise of distracting devices installed in automobiles, mounted on dashboards, worn on the wrist or body, or carried on seats, pockets, and laps of drivers...Each day seems to bring a new distraction. Heads-up displays (HUDs) that once were aids to minimizing distraction by making it easier for the driver to see navigation aids and speed, are now catching featuritis, that deadly disease which corrupts products...." Read more

The most dangerous part of automated vehicles is when they are partially automated: the better the automation, the less able a person is able to take corrective action. This is a point I have argued for since my early work on aviation safety some 20 years ago but has been part of the human factors literature since long before that (Bainbridge

July 3, 2015

I. Sancken 03/29/15, "Congressman Dan Lipinski (IL-3) has introduced H.R. 2886, the Future Transportation Research and Innovation for Prosperity (TRIP) Act, to support innovative technologies that have the potential to fundamentally alter mobility in America and beyond.

"Surface transportation used to be rather staid and unimaginative, but today the very concept of 'mobility' is being reinvented through research, innovation, and entrepreneurship," said Rep. Lipinski. "Rapidly advancing automation, connectivity, and information technologies are creating incredible opportunities for transportation innovation. We need to develop innovative ways to improve safety, ease congestion, improve personal mobility, and cut energy use..." Read more

June 29, 2015

D. Dangerfield, 6/12/15 " Imagine a vehicle that can drive on its own. On Saturday, the public will be invited to take a ride in one. The new driverless Meridian Shuttle is part of an exhibit that opens at MOSI on Saturday. The vehicle allows up to eight people to ride around the first floor of the museum. Read more

June 10, 2015

6/8/15 " WASHINGTON – In a report released today, the National Transportation Safety Board outlined the life-saving benefits of currently available collision avoidance systems, and recommended that the technology become standard on all new passenger and commercial vehicles.

"You don't pay extra for your seatbelt," said Chairman Christopher A. Hart. "And you shouldn't have to pay extra for technology that can help prevent a collision altogether."... Read more Hmmm Yea!!! Finally some semblance of sanity in Washington. Alain

May 29, 2015

E. Goodmay, May 24 "...Dr. Nash and his wife, Alicia, 82, were in a taxi on the New Jersey Turnpike in Monroe Township around 4:30 p.m. when the driver lost control while veering from the left lane to the right and hit a guardrail and another car, Sgt. Gregory Williams of the New Jersey State Police said.

The couple were ejected from the cab and pronounced dead at the scene. The State Police said it appeared that they had not been wearing seatbelts.... Read more

May 21, 2015

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 10, 2015

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

event on urban road transport automation in La Rochelle

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

April 17, 2015

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

2015-07-31

Lipinski Continues Efforts to Keep Cars and Other Transportation Safe from Cyber Attacks in Wake of Fiat Chrysler Recall

Some other thoughts that deserve your

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:

A Beautiful Mind Mathematician John Nash and His Wife Killed in N.J. Car Crash;

first road-legal big rig that can drive itself