|
Floating
Car Data refers to the data being collected continuously by a highly
distributed sensor population: the global population of technology-laden
vehicles already roaming the road network.
Many transportation managers have
wanted to tap this network using a process (referred to in short as "FCD")
that follows a basic model: collecting data automatically from individual
vehicles (e.g., speed, weather, road hazards), aggregating the data at a central
processing center, extracting useful information (such as the location and
status of traffic jams and weather hazards), and redistributing the information
to drivers on the road.
FCD is seen as a central element in
extending the “information horizon” for improved vehicle safety systems.
IVsource is tracking the FCD
field and monitoring applications related to intelligent vehicles. This
article provides a sketch of ongoing activity in this area in Europe, Japan, and
the US.
The
information below is divided into two sections:
ongoing projects and related standards activity.
JSK
-
1999
– 2002
-
Determine
feasibility of probe data collection
-
GPS
and cellular signals used
-
Location:
Yokohama
-
Fleet:
30 units (taxi, bus, garbage trucks)
-
Current
issues:
-
Cost
reduction
-
Privacy
Internet
ITS Consortium
Mannesman
-
Initial
pilot
-
1000
vehicles
-
Estimated
that 80,000 – 100,000 vehicles are needed with each at minimum 1500
km/year
to
get 90% traffic condition detection
-
Conclusion:
FCD alone is difficult. Therefore,
total system should be composed of FCD and road-based sensing
instrumentation
DDG
-
Initially
deployed 4,000 road-based traffic sensors
-
25,000
equipped cars (BMW & VW)
-
Separate
services for each OEM
-
Designed
for three messages per car per day
-
Currently
processing 30M records per day
German
Aerospace Center, Institute of Transport, Berlin
-
Taxi-FCD
System
-
2300
taxis involved
-
Berlin:
300 taxis (5%)
-
Nuremburg:
500 taxis (95%)
-
Vienna:
600 taxis (12%)
-
Munich:
220 taxis (6%)
-
Stuttgart:
700 taxis (95%)
-
Using
fleet management data, therefore:
-
No
communication expenses
-
No
on-board expenses for data collection
-
Approx
120 million GPS records since April 2001
-
Data
structure:
-
Vehicle
ID
-
Timestamp
-
GPS
position
-
Taxi
status
-
Data
sent at intervals of between 15-120 seconds
-
Excellent
information on rain, traffic
Gedas
Wayflow Project (Germany)
-
Gedas
is connected to the Volkswagen Group
-
Project
focus
is on travel time and the traffic in city centres
-
Simple
computer used for data collection in the vehicles, digital map built in, and
the calculation of travel time is processed in the computer
-
Large
field trial -"Wayflow"- is in progress using this method in the
Rhine-Main area. Wayflow is testing a variety of ITS solutions.
UK
– Road Traffic Advisor
-
Objectives:
-
Evaluate
New Two-Way Communication System
-
Provide
a National Test Site
-
Develop
In-Vehicle Electronics
-
Develop
an Open Architecture
-
Product
Development
-
350
km of M4 from airports to Swansea
-
80
beacons
at 5.8Ghz
-
Not
currently active?
UK
-- Trafficmaster
-
Project
established
in 1988
-
Private
company
collects and processes traffic data and offer a series of traffic
information services.
-
The
major part of their data comes from stationary sensors; data is
supplemented with FCD.
-
Trafficmaster's
subscribers mount technical device in their cars that both transmit and
receive traffic information.
-
Trafficmaster
is now also established in the continent of Europe, and has become a major
actor in Germany and Italy, for example.
Sweden
OPTIS
(Information is presented here
in greater length, as derived from the report “OPTIS:
Optimized Traffic in Sweden Final Report,”
version 1.6, published by the Swedish National Road Administration.)
OPTIS stands for Optimized
Traffic In Sweden.
The project was initiated to
develop a successful and cost effective method of collecting data on traffic
in order to create good traveler information.
The OPTIS project is part of
the so called ”Green Car”, which is a joint venture project between the
state and the car manufacturers, concerning the development of vehicles with
improved environmental qualities (including reductions in emissions resulting
from improved traffic information and reduced travel times).
The parties signing the
agreement were SAAB
Automobiles, Scania Commercial Vehicles, Volvo Truck Corporation and
Volvo Cars. During a period of six years starting in 2000, a total
of 1.8 billion SEK (~$228M) has been spent in this program, of which the state
contribution is 0.5 billion (~$63M).
OPTIS
is a joint venture between SAAB Automobiles, Scania Commercial Vehicles,
Volvo Cars, Volvo Truck Corporation, and The Swedish National Road
Administration. Peek Traffic and Telia participated in
some of the subprojects.
The
field trial took place in April through September of the year 2002 – a total
of six
months.
This proved the feasibility of the technical solution. The relatively
small
number of vehicles participating still provided valuable information on the
conditions of the Gothenburg road network, where other data sources were
lacking.
Objectives
of the OPTIS project:
-
Build
a server solution for FCD – Floating Car Data and verify it by
simulations
-
Perform
a field trial and a reference implementation in Gothenburg to verify the
simulations
-
Establish
an action program for further application
Based
on the project report, the OPTIS project hypothesis can be condensed into the
following four statements:
Within
a few years a large number of vehicles will be potential probes. Newly
manufactured cars will have the required IT platform already assembled from the
factory.
This platform also has other fields for application than traffic reporting,
such
as vehicle service, navigation, e-mail and internet/intranet.
OPTIS
should show that it is possible to obtain a quality picture of the traffic
status in a metropolis with wide geographical coverage, given a reasonable
number of free floating probe vehicles.
OPTIS
should show that FCD is a cost effective alternative to stationary sensors,
and
that FCD make it economically possible to collect data in more situations and
locations than with other methods. An assumption was that
GPRS could be used for communication.
The
project report notes that simplicity is a fundamental concept of the OPTIS
project that applies to probe and server. The probe is to collect and
wirelessly transmit positions to the server. Architectural features
include:
-
No
advanced calculations to be executed in the probe
-
No
digital map in the vehicle
-
Geographically
independent probe
-
No
need
to update map information
-
No
advanced algorithms
-
The
OPTIS software should be small enough to fit in existing systems, which
facilitate the use of available infrastructure of the vehicle and reduce
costs
-
Simplicity
in the probe at the expense of more intense communication between probe and
server (compared to a more advanced probe calculating travel times directly)
The
server receives position reports from all vehicles and processes them
accordingly.
Travel times are calculated at link level for each
probe by determining a position in the road network and identifying when a
vehicle passes the beginning and end of a link. The difference in the
two times is the measured travel time for the link.
The
probe concept within OPTIS is independent of positioning and wireless
transmission
of
data. In the field trial GPS was chosen to determine position and GSM/SMS was
used
for transmission to the server. This
choice was made as:
-
GPS
is very precise (with an accuracy of approximately 10 metres) with worldwide
coverage
-
GSM/SMS
is a system with good coverage of the studied area. It is simple and
well-tried, although the cost for transmission is relatively high
-
Volvo
Cars market a product – Volvo OnCall – which contains these two
components in a hardware designed for vehicle use.
The
OPTIS probe concept was realized by modifying the OnCall unit to collect and
transmit
positions to the server. The probe already performed the functions of
GPS-positioning
and
communication via SMS. The OnCall hardware was not modified.
The
OPTIS field trial comprised 223 probe equipped vehicles in the city
of
Gothenburg. Criteria for selecting these probes were to receive the
largest possible number
of vehicle kilometres per day and probe in a geographically limited area. In
addition,
the OPTIS map was restricted to include arterials and secondary road network,
and
hence only vehicles frequently using this road were qualified.
OPTIS
evaluations indicate that:
-
High
quality travel information can be produced using the OPTIS concept.
-
Alternative
routes at major incidents can save as much as 25 minutes for those involved.
-
Major
investments in OPTIS can reduce emissions if reliable information on
alternative travel routes can be spread to the road users. However,
more developed environmental strategies are required to achieve desired
effects.
-
The
illustrated actual travel time and travel speed produced by OPTIS facilitate
more accurate traffic messages from the traffic radio and provide TIC with a
better overall picture of the current traffic situation.
Cost
Analysis
The
installation cost of the FCD solution is estimated to be half that of a fixed
detector
system.
Conclusions
While
eventually FCD systems will be based on systems integrated into production
vehicles, the OPTIS concept during a transitional period has to be based on
aftermarket installation of ITS platforms in vehicles. Another conclusion
is that the OPTIS concept initially mainly generates a socioeconomic
benefit. The benefit and the road user’s willingness to pay are limited
as long as the supply of data to produce interesting traffic information
services is rather small and irregular. This advocates that society
finance the implementation of the concept during the transitional period until
there are enough serially produced vehicles with the required equipment on the
market. During this period it is important to further promote and develop
the concept. This calls for a large scale demonstration project and
further investments in research and development.
OPTIS
Recommendations
The
OPTIS project report recommends the following within the field of
FCD:
-
A
large scale demonstration project should be executed using FCD in Gothenburg
and Stockholm. The Swedish National Road Administration defined as
final user (i.e., owner and administrator of the road network) is proposed
to be in charge as project manager and financing. The project should
be performed in close cooperation with the car manufacturers, telecom
industry and the municipalities concerned.
-
The
main task of the Swedish National Road Administration is to specify the need
of traffic data in terms of contents, geographical coverage, interface to
existing technical platforms in Traffic Management Centres and to develop
required server unit and algorithms
-
The
main task of the car industry is to specify the market need (SW/HW platforms
for FCD in the vehicle) and to influence the development of a European
standard for FCD via the organizations of ACEA and EUCAR.
-
The
task of the telecom industry should be to facilitate suitable infrastructure
for communication between vehicle and server unit and provide for an
interface in the vehicles and VTC/TIC.
-
Vehicles
equipped with FCD should be able to operate with no interference in both
Gothenburg and Stockholm. In other words, full compatibility is required.
-
The
server unit that is developed (client in Gothenburg and Stockholm) should be
open to other contracted users for further developing and demonstrating of
ITS applications. European actors should be invited and allowed to
test their own applications in need of traffic data (i.e., FCD)
-
With
the aim of influencing European standards, the large scale field trial with
FCD in Sweden (two test sites in Gothenburg and Stockholm) ought to be
marketed in Europe at full strength.
-
A
total of 3% of all vehicles in Gothenburg and Stockholm should be equipped
with FCD technique; the cost is estimated to about 30 - 35 million SEK
(equipment in vehicle, server unit and project management included)
Based
on discussions with SNRA, a major FCD deployment project, in line with the
above recommendation, is now in the planning stages within Sweden.
Netherlands
Prelude Project
Mediamobile
(France)
Mediamobile
provides data primarily from the French road administration in the Paris area,
which is supplemented with FCD from taxis.
Minnesota
-
Currently
involved with Ford Research in FCD pilots
-
Benefits
to the public sector seen as:
-
Decreased
time needed to respond to conditions for:
-
Emergency
responders
-
Traffic
management
-
Maintenance
-
Improved
identification and location of incidents
-
Decreased
cost to collect data currently collected by significant deployment of
roadside infrastructure
-
Expanded
data collection coverage to all roads traveled by vehicles equipped with the
system
-
Enhanced
data quantity and quality due to fusion of data from multiple sources
(loops,
Road/Weather Information Systems, vehicles, cameras, etc.)
-
Improved
ability to specifically target the warnings and advisory messages to drivers
in vehicles equipped with the system that are approaching the conditions
identified
-
Safety
and Maintenance Use Cases (warn drivers and dispatch maintenance crews):
-
ABS
activation (low surface friction condition if other environmental sensors
indicate rain, snow, ice, etc.)
-
Traction
Control or Stability Control activation (low surface friction condition)
-
Windshield
wiper operation status (precipitation)
-
Status
of headlight usage (darkness or general visibility conditions)
-
Pavement
temperature (potential for frost or icing conditions)
-
Ambient
air temperature (potential for frost or icing conditions)
-
Humidity
(potential for frost or icing conditions or for foggy conditions)
-
Travel
times between major junctions (surrogate for road conditions or visibility
conditions in low congestion/rural areas)
-
Frequency,
amplitude and rate data from suspension components (pavement condition -
frost heaves, pot holes, blow ups, etc.)
-
Traffic
Management Use Cases:
-
Travel
times between major junctions (for reporting travel times)
-
Abnormally
slow travel on freeways (indicating stop and go conditions)
-
Alternating
acceleration and deceleration on freeways (indicating stop and go
conditions)
-
Numerous
indications of significant acceleration and deceleration g-forces on
freeways in a general vicinity (indicating congestion shock wave condition)
-
Abnormally
slow travel on non-freeways (indicating congested conditions)
-
Abnormally
long stopped condition in one vicinity on non-freeways (indicating
congestion at signal, signal malfunction or incident)
-
Incident
or Emergency Response Use Cases:
-
Significant
deceleration g-forces (indications of hard braking or impact)
-
Significant
duration of actuation of ABS (indication of hard braking)
-
Air
bag deployment (indication of crash)
-
Abrupt
steering input (indication of crash avoidance)
-
Numerous
indications of significant deceleration g-forces (indication of shock wave
or queue due to construction, incident, etc.)
-
Sudden
loss of tire pressure (indication of blowout and disabled vehicle)
-
Major
engine malfunction or shutdown (indication of stalled vehicle)
-
Engine
shutdown coupled with low fuel warning (indication of stalled vehicle that
has run out of fuel)
-
Engine
shutdown coupled with high coolant temperature waniing (indication of
stalled vehicle with major mechanical malfunction)
-
Engine
shutdown preceded by low oil pressure warning (indication of stalled vehicle
with major mechanical malfunction)
-
Stopped
vehicle with other drive-train failure warning (indication of stalled
vehicle with major mechanical malfunction)
Florida
-
IFlorida
project – Infostructure Model Deployment funded by FHWA and FDOT
-
The
Program will:
-
Expand
the existing data collection, transportation management and information
delivery infrastructure;
-
Integrate
data collection, monitoring and management systems both in normal operation
and during times of crisis;
-
Collect
and share data;
-
Use
data operationally to improve transportation system management;
-
Distribute
decision-quality data to the traveling public;
-
Establish
a model for others and share the lessons and experiences learned along the
way;
-
Define
performance measures, collect performance data and evaluate results;
-
Illustrate
how transportation, hurricane evacuation, weather information and security
management can be integrated from both technical and organizational
perspectives.
-
A
Probe Vehicle Test Bed was added to the project at the request of
FHWA. The Project will serve as a test bed for the application of
innovative private sector probe vehicle technologies. This
project is on hold until further direction from FHWA.
-
Estimated
Contract Budget: $200K
Vehicle
Infrastructure Initiative (VII) Consortium
Project
planning is underway within this new consortium to implement FCD techniques for
traffic, weather, and safety. This
activity, which involves state and federal DOTs and the auto industry,
is still in very early stages.
| II. STANDARDS
ACTIVITY RELATED TO FCD TECHNIQUES |
|
| A.
CEN TC278 Standards |
Based
on the UK Road Traffic Advisor project, European standards body CEN TC278 is
developing a standard entitled “Traffic and Travel Information Messages via
DSRC – Part 1 General
Specification.” Following are
excerpts from Section 3.18: Extended floating car data.
Objective:
Collect technical car data from vehicle and send it to the motorway
information network.
Short
description
This
service aims at using the vehicle as a mobile environmental and traffic sensor,
to improve the road traffic control. In this way it is a service for the
road operator. If the OBE is connected to the electronic car architecture
this service can also be dedicated to the driver: technical car data is
collected in the vehicle via the car data-bus, and sent to a central server to
perform diagnostics tasks, remote maintenance, etc.
The
message structure combines a vehicle status block and a speed profile block.
The vehicle status block defines state changes of lights and wipers and
gives the offset from the beacon as to where the state was enabled and a
distance travelled to where that state was reset.
The speed block provides a profile of the vehicle's speed in 2.5km
segments over the last 25km.
Data
Flow
Constraints
The
first important constraint for the implementation of this service is to respect
individual freedom: the OBE should not be transformed in a black box that
controls the driver. The second one
is to link the on board unit to the electronics of the car.
Structure
The
on board equipment could be connected to the windscreen wipers, ABS,
anti-skating system or the lights.
| B.
ISO TC204 Working Group 16 |
ISO
TC204 Working Group 16 addresses ITS Communications. Sub-working-group 16.3 is developing a standard for Probe
Data Communications.
As
probe vehicle systems have to collect probe data from various vehicles of
different vehicle manufacturers, the standardization of probe data is essential.
In order to standardize probe data, in the situation stated above, TC204 sees it
as necessary to share a common framework for probe data definition.
The
purpose of this project is to give the reference architecture for probe vehicle
systems and probe data, the basic data framework for defining probe data
elements and probe data messages, and concrete definition of core data elements,
additional data elements, and
messages of probe data.
The
project aims to standardize the following:
-
the reference architecture for probe vehicle systems and probe data
-
the basic data framework for defining probe data elements and probe data
messages
-
the definition of core data elements
-
the definition of an initial set of additional data elements
-
the definition of an initial set of probe data messages
The
work allows developers and operators of probe vehicle systems to specify probe
data, develop probe vehicle systems and collect probe data.
Probe
data may be collected from various vehicles of different vehicle manufactures.
The standard gives the common framework of handling probe data elements
/messages and concrete definition of major probe data elements that help
collecting probe data.
The
standard is intended to be used as follows:
-
The
standard provides a common framework for defining probe data elements and
messages to facilitate description of the specification and the design of
probe vehicle systems.
-
The
standard provides concrete definition of major probe data elements including
core data elements.
-
It
is not intended to be an exhaustive listing of probe data elements.
This means each probe vehicle system may require other probe data elements
than core data elements and basic data elements.
Privacy
issues
WG16.3
is now working on a committee draft of the standard. The final standard is expected to be published in
approximately 2006.
[Top]
|
