Report Available on Global Status of Cooperative Intelligent Vehicle-Highway Systems
IVsource.net
13 January 2001

This article is the Executive Summary excerpted from a new report on Cooperative Intelligent Vehicle Highway Systems (CIVHS).  The report is the result of a six-month study by RBC to examine all extant examples of CIVHS, which can – by leveraging roadside based ‘intelligence’ -- enhance the effectiveness of active vehicle safety systems already on the market for cars and trucks.  The 46 page report, believed to be the first of its kind, takes a global look at R&D activities, deployment issues, standards development, and government policies to gain a sense for the future of such systems.

Cooperative vehicle-highway systems offer the potential to enhance the effectiveness of active vehicle safety systems that have entered the marketplace for light vehicles and heavy commercial vehicles.  Currently on the market are adaptive cruise control (ACC), forward collision warning, side collision warning, and lane departure warning systems -- all of which rely on vehicle-based sensors to perceive the surrounding environment and to detect dangerous situations.

Introduction

These autonomous vehicle-based safety systems, while generally effective, have limitations based on the laws of physics -- they can't see around blind curves, for instance.  At the same time, autonomous infrastructure systems can and have been deployed that detect hazards in real-time and advise drivers via (typically) changeable message signs.  Such infrastructure systems suffer from the limitation that they can only influence drivers who choose to pay attention to them, and even then a safe outcome depends completely on the driver making appropriate and timely decisions.

Cooperative intelligent vehicle-highway systems (CIVHS) offer an improved level of overall functionality by bridging this gap.  These systems are cooperative in that the vehicles can receive information from the roadway and respond appropriately, and vehicles can detect and report hazards to the roadway for dissemination to other travelers.  The systems are intelligent in that the ultimate response is determined by algorithms that weigh multiple parameters, rather than by a pre-programmed response.

The purpose of study -- the first of its kind as far as is known -- is to collect information on the various forms of cooperative IVHS worldwide, and assess R&D activities, deployment issues, standards development, and government policies to gain a sense for the future of such systems.  The material provided in this interim report is the result of information gathering and contacts with experts and policy-makers in government, the private sector, and academia.

Early Conclusions

Early conclusions indicate that a fairly robust international consensus is forming; namely, that it is generally useful to communicate external factors to vehicle systems.  There is wide opposition to mandatory enforcement of speed, even while speed advisories are seen as potentially useful.  And, while many agree as to the usefulness of CIVHS in concept, there is wide variation as to levels of investment and sense of deployment timing.

Looking globally, the Japanese are leading in testing and deployment of CIVHS for crash countermeasures, while the Europeans have the strongest focus on Intelligent Speed Adaptation.  Work on intersection collision countermeasures dominates CIVHS work in the U.S.

In many cases, discussion of CIVHS becomes "sidetracked" by concerns about Intelligent Speed Adaptation, which is only a subset of CIVHS.  While the political and user issues rage, it is important to note that there is significant technical overlap between these systems that can be productively exploited.

Similarly, CIVHS discussions become sidetracked with an assumption that extensive deployment of infrastructure sensing is a necessary component of such systems.  The many complexities of infrastructure sensing and communications represent a huge challenge for many (but not all) countries.  Because the alternative exists of data provided by floating car approaches, consideration of CIVHS can productively proceed without "solving" the infrastructure deployment issue, leaving this to individual agencies to decide.

For CIVHS to proceed from concept to reality, infrastructure agencies must become more active, particularly in ongoing standards discussions.

Possible Next Steps

A key next step is to proceed one level deeper in discussions with those already involved in this research as well as new voices.  It would be useful, as a ‘strawman,’ to begin to define key parameters, accuracy levels, and other details key to the information content that would be collected and shared among vehicles and the roadside.

And, noting the amount of activity in CIVHS in general, the time may be approaching to organize an international conference on the potential for vehicle-infrastructure cooperative systems, the status of current research, and areas for cooperation.  The interest is clearly there, and such an initiative may enable those on the sidelines to get into the game, while allowing consensus to strengthen among the leaders.

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