Skip to main content

Transportation guru sceptical about V2V technology

Robert Poole, co-founder of the Reason Foundation, has worked on transportation policy for more than three decades and is an influential voice on tolling, congestion pricing and infrastructure finance. Writing in his monthly newsletter (link http://reason.org/news/show/surface-transportation-news-131) he voices his scepticism of vehicle to vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) technology which may one day allow cars to communicate with each other and with traffic infrastructure to avoid colli
September 12, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
Robert Poole, co-founder of the Reason Foundation, has worked on transportation policy for more than three decades and is an influential voice on tolling, congestion pricing and infrastructure finance.

Writing in his monthly newsletter (link http://reason.org/news/show/surface-transportation-news-131) he voices his scepticism of vehicle to vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) technology which may one day allow cars to communicate with each other and with traffic infrastructure to avoid collisions.

Poole says: “…..if we focus just on fatal crashes, we can estimate that more than half are due to driver problems that V2V would not address.”

“Full benefits would be realised only once the entire fleet is equipped, but we know that it takes about 20 years for the whole automobile fleet to be replaced as old vehicles are scrapped and replaced by new ones.”

He is also sceptical about the 20-year stream of costs. The NHTSA crash-reduction estimates are based on both V2V and V2I being implemented. He says “…..achieving the full benefits of V2I would require equipping millions of intersections with communications technology during those same 20 years, estimated in a recent GAO report to cost US$25-30,000 per installation just in capital costs. For a million installations, at US$25K each, that’s US$25 billion. That cost must be added to the estimated cost of equipping all new cars, estimated by DOT as US$350 per car. There are about 254 million registered vehicles, so the cost of equipping them all, over 20 years, would be about $89 billion. So the total capital cost would be US$114 billion.”

“As a lifelong fan of technology, with two engineering degrees from MIT, I’m not saying V2V is a bad idea. I’m simply pointing out that the benefit/cost case for it has not yet been made, and a that a great many other questions have not yet been seriously addressed.”

Related Content

  • Is DSRC progressive enough for future connected mobility?
    February 3, 2012
    Dedicated Short Range Communications technology, says Cisco's Paul Brubaker, is not by itself progressive enough to sustain long-term innovation in the connected mobility environment - and yet IPv6 and other developments remain largely ignored by policy-makers
  • Call for a new vision for ITS in America
    February 1, 2012
    An ITIF report published at the beginning of this year stated that America is falling behind other developed nations in terms of ITS technologies and their deployment to address safety, congestion and environmental challenges. The report asked for a stronger commitment from the US federal government (see 'Just crawling along', interview with senior ITIF analyst Stephen Ezell, ITS International March-April 2010, pp.NA1-NA2) in order to address what it sees as increasing disparities with other countries. The
  • Call for a new vision for ITS in America
    February 6, 2012
    Pete Goldin talks to Dr. Joseph Sussman, Chairman of the ITS Program Advisory Committee, about the state of intelligent transport systems in America
  • Autonomous driving – what can we really expect?
    June 6, 2016
    Dave Marples of Technolution BV looks beyond the hype to the practical implementation of autonomous vehicles. Having looked at the development of this sector for some time, I am concerned about the current state of autonomous driving development as engineering (and marketing) have run way ahead of the wider systemic, and legislative, requirements to support an autonomous future.