First-Ever IVI Week Seen as a Success -- Highlights of IVI Week 2000
IVsource.net
28 July 2000

The first segment of the meeting consisted of vehicle demonstrations at the Federal Highway Administration’s Turner-Fairbanks Highway Research Facility in McLean, just outside of Washington, DC.  The demos were followed by speeches and technical seminars held at the new Ronald Reagan building in downtown Washington.  USDOT Secretary Rodney Slater addressed the group, and Deputy Secretary Mort Downey played a key role in the conference.  The day before this meeting -- on July 18 -- USDOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) sponsored a public meeting on driver distraction.

Read on for highlights of the IVI meeting and exhibition !

Driver Distraction a Hot Topic

By now, enough Americans have seen fellow drivers doing enough strange things while trying to drive and chat on a mobile phone, that public concern is high about the dangers of not only phones, but navigation systems, in-car email, and the like.

NHTSA’s simple one-day event on the subject of Driver Distraction drew major media coverage, with seven camera crews crowding the room and reports on national news that evening.  Government officials were described by one report as “unusually blunt” in acknowledging the hazards of driving while using communications / telematics devices.

Some notes on the event:

• NHTSA’s Acting Director Rosslyn Millman made the point that “the genie is out of the bottle,” meaning that we aren’t going to stop the proliferation of these devices; we can only try to manage their use.
• Millman asserted the government’s position that hands-free devices, while safer, are not risk-free, as cognitive distraction is the key reason for crashes.
• Millman challenged the manufacturers with understanding and mitigating safety issues associated with their devices.
• Woefully inadequate crash-reporting data is a problem in tracing the causes of accidents to use of in-vehicle devices.
• NHTSA official Riley Garrot said that their analyses make it clear that cell phones do increase the risk of crashes and that the number of crashes will  increase.  What is not known is the severity of the problem.
• Ian Noy of Transport Canada noted that “understanding eye movement is key to understanding distraction.”  Studies they have conducted show that the driver’s eye fixations tend to be closer-in to the front of the vehicle when on the phone, compared to more long-range and broader views in normal driving.
• Vann Wilber of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers asserted that the auto OEMs can actually increase the safety of in-vehicle devices, by integrating them into the overall driver-vehicle interface.  In this way, their operation is optimized to the driving task, in contrast to hand-held devices designed without driving in mind.
• Terry Connelly, Safety Director for General Motors, echoed AAM’s comment and spoke of the possibility of “dialogue management,” i.e., the vehicle systems being sufficiently intelligent to know when the current driving situation requires the driver’s attention, and thus temporarily suppressing in-vehicle telematics devices.  For example, GM’s current Saab vehicles will suppress the “low fuel” warning if the driver is in the middle of a turn.
• Many speakers stressed the need for driver education to promote more responsible behavior by motorists.
• NHTSA’s report “An Investigation of the Safety Implications of Wireless Communications in Vehicles” is available from the agency as report number DOT HS 808-635, dated November 1997 (www.nhtsa.dot.gov) .
• A number of related papers and ongoing discussions are available at NHTSA’s dedicated web site on the subject: www.driverdistraction.org.   (See in particular www.driverdistraction.org/Papers.asp.)

An impressive array of vehicles was gathered at the Turner-Fairbanks Highway Research Center to offer short rides to VIPs and government officials, in an effort to showcase the progress made on IVI.  All the vehicles were part of ongoing IVI operational tests.

Vehicles demonstrated :

• Freightliner demonstrated its Roll Stability Advisor / Controller system, careening around the FHWA campus to illustrate automatic engine braking when rollover thresholds were exceeded.  Freightliner also brought an experimental vehicle which powers driver-comfort vehicle systems during idling, using fuel cell technology.
• General Motors had a static display of one of their Buick LeSabres that is being configured for their collision avoidance project with NHTSA.
• General Motors / Raytheon also had a production Cadillac with its night vision system operating.
• Mack Trucks / McKenzie’s bright yellow sleeper cab was there, equipped with Infrastructure-Assisted Hazard Warning and Lane Departure Warning.
• Minnesota DOT brought their Advanced Snowplow, equipped with lane awareness systems, radar warning, and advanced driver vehicle interfaces
• PAT, Pittsburgh’s transit agency, showed a full size bus equipped with 360 degrees of collision warning sensors manufactured by Collision Avoidance Systems, Inc.
• Veridian Corporation demonstrated their intersection collision warning system, a product of NHTSA research funding. 
• Volvo, which did not have its IVI truck available, brought a show vehicle which included lane departure warning, adaptive cruise control, and disc brakes.

GM ACAS Program Manager Dr. Ron Colgin describes the program plan to demo participants under the display tent

Other influential riders included Jeff Paniati, Deputy Director of the ITS Joint Program Office within USDOT, Congressional staff, and members of the Transportation Research Board’s IVI Review Committee.

“Vehicles That Never Crash”

Once all were settled in the Reagan Buiding after the vehicle demos, and after an introductory address by US Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater, senior DOT officials described their vision for the IVI program.  On the following day, technical project managers described their IVI activities. 

Highlights:

• DOT is stepping up to the plate by setting several “stretch goals” for IVI.  These were announced as:
• National Goal:  reduce crash fatalities by 20% over the next ten years.
• 10% of new light vehicles sold by 2010 should be equipped with one or more IVI systems
• 25% of new commercial vehicles sold by 2010 should be equipped with one or more IVI systems

25 metropolitan areas by 2010 should have deployed the infrastructure portion of a cooperative intersection collision warning system

• GM’s Richard Deering described some of their envisioned plans for working with the government in Enabling Technology research, putting forth GM’s vision for “vehicles that never crash.”  He criticized theprotracted negotiation process with NHTSA and challenged the government to find better ways to work with industry. 
• Within the projects proposed by the GM/ Ford/ Nissan/ Toyota/ DaimlerChrysler consortium, one area of research will look at the requirements for digital map accuracy — a section of California will be mapped to 1 meter accuracy, and experiments will be run with digital maps with accuracies of 1 m, 5 m, 10 m, etc. to determine what accuracy is needed to support various functions.  They will also work with Navigation Technologies to determine the cost of creating and maintaining high accuracy maps nationwide, to assess the overall business case.
• Raytheon’s presentation on the development process for their night vision system vividly illustrated the long process needed to bring a working technology into product readiness for the automotive market.  Observers pointed out that USDOT’s choice to not invest in long-term systems could cripple the rollout of new technologies in later years.
• A survey of drivers presented by Dr. Dean Pomerleau of AssistWare Technologies showed that 23% of passenger car drivers had experienced sleepiness at the wheel; for professional heavy truck drivers, 66% had been sleepy while driving in the last month, and 28% had fallen asleep at the wheel in the last month.
• Caltrans project manager Monica Kress announced that the IVI Infrastructure Consortium, led by Caltrans, has funded a task to compare the different approaches to snowplow guidance between California- and Minnesota-based systems.  A first step will be in developing common measures of effectiveness.
• Taking by far the most aggressive stance on IVI deployment of any of the four platform areas, Edward Thomas (Federal Transit Administration’s Associate Administrator for Research, Demonstration, and Innovation) showed  the assembly a transit IVI timeline during his speech, which envisions automated controls for buses by 2004 (see figure).

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USDOT Deputy Secretary Mort Downey climbs into the Mack/McKenzie IVI truck to experience lane departure warning and road-assisted hazard warning

Freightliner’s Praxair IVI vehicle, equipped with Roll Stability Advisor and Roll Stability Control

Overall, the meeting can be said to have been well attended by core industry players within the US performing IV work.  Many people valued simply the gathering of these individuals in one place for a two-day event, to allow for networking and a big-picture understanding of the IVI program.

USDOT showed its best face, in demonstrating that its program is up and running, doing real engineering, and promising real results, within a cohesive organizational framework.  While not discussed during the meeting, IVsource looks forward to such an event annually!

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Mort Downey, Jeff Paniati (Dep. Director, USDOT ITS Joint Program Office), and Ray Resendes (USDOT IVI Program Manager) survey the array of vehicles demo’d at the FHWA’s Turner-Fairbanks Highway Research Center.  The PAT bus from Pittsburgh provides the backdrop

Note 1: Totals do not include AHS
Note 2: FOT amounts were included in appropriate problem areas
Note 3: All cross cutting funds were equally divided and added to non-zero Light Vehicle Platform problem areas.
Note 4: “Safety Impacting Systems” include CAN, ACC, cell phones, AutoPC, and other such devices that are likely to impact safety.

20 June 2000

Veridian’s Intersection Collision Avoidance car waits along with the Volvo
show truck, the Mack McKenzie IVI truck, and the Minnesota Advanced
Snowplow at the demo site passenger loading area

... See copies of many of the IVI presentations (as many as we could get our hands on!) at the IVsource.net online Reading Room.

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