Future of US cooperative infrastructure networks

Peter H. Appel, the new Administrator of the USDOT's Research and Innovative Technology Administration, on his vision of the US's future cooperative infrastructure networks.

Peter H. Appel comes to the post of Administrator of the 324 US Department of Transportation's 321 Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) from a background in transportation-related work which stretches back over 20 years. Most recently with management consultancy A. T. Kearney, Inc., where he focused on business strategies for the transportation and infrastructure sector, he has also worked for the Federal Aviation Administration on policy and was Assistant Director for Pricing and Yield Management for 2008 Amtrak.

He inherits an organisation and a cooperative infrastructure programme which has gone through a fair few gyrations in recent years. During his tenure, Paul Brubaker, the previous Administrator, took what was originally Vehicle-Infrastructure Integration (VII) off-piste by looking to pursue other standards in addition to 5.9GHz for some of the less safety-critical applications which cooperative infrastructures are intended to deliver. Brubaker's rationale was that the business case for 5.9GHz deployment was not proven and that there exists a variety of commercial standards which could reasonably support some low-latency, principally mobility and comfort, applications.

5.9GHz, though, never quite went away and Appel is keen to reinforce that it forms the heart of IntelliDrive, the current incarnation of the US's cooperative safety programme, and of the future safety applications from which he expects other applications to sprout and grow.

To his mind, his 'inheritance' is an organisation (RITA and the ITS Joint Program Office (JPO)) which in the last few years has engaged in a very credible body of research. It is now time, he says, to move to realise the benefits of that work in the wider world.

"We're at a critical point. We need to listen to and work with stakeholders and reach a consensus. We've got a good foundation of work which shows that 5.9GHz provides us with a solid safety foundation; if we play our cards right it can also provide us with other applications as well but safety is at the core."

That endorsement of a standard which has done its fair share of time in the wilderness is based on a need to give the future research and deployment effort something of a keystone, he says.

"Anyone with solid experience of standards definition will tell you that the most important thing is to establish a standard. Technologists in particular realise that there are quite often a lot of solid solutions out there, any one of which could be adopted, but the art is to find a solution and build on it. You don't wait for the perfect solution because it may not exist and in any case technology continually evolves.

"Then, you take steps to establish that standard. That entails a lot of stakeholder outreach, in our case to the various transportation and safety administrations, state DOTs, the automotive OEMs and other related organisations, together with demonstrations of effectiveness and the types of applications we're pursuing."

Proving value

"I came to RITA six months ago with the challenge of establishing just what it is that RITA does. As an organisation, we're about proving value rather than dictating what people do," he continues.

"Another important aspect is international harmonisation, and where we as an international community want to be, because we're under no illusions that what we're trying to do is a sole preserve of the US.

"In terms of where we are right now, we're at the point of having demonstrated in particular vehicle-to-vehicle safety applications, of having proven that the latency issues have been addressed. Transportation safety has gone through many stages in the last 50 years. Most safety developments have concentrated on protecting passengers, so in the 1960s we saw moves toward the installation of seatbelts in all vehicles and in the 1970s we saw moves to increase seatbelt use and to begin to introduce airbags; in the 1980s we saw the expansion of airbag use, and that was accompanied by significant improvements in impact protection.

"All of those technologies assumed that there'd be a crash. However much of the work in the next 50 years will be about avoiding the crash altogether and for that IntelliDrive has dramatic potential. NHTSA [the 834 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration], one of our stakeholders, has conducted studies which show that a huge proportion of vehicular accidents could be avoided with the application of IntelliDrive and we're now working with NHTSA and the automotive OEMs to make that happen."

Concentration of effort

To Appel, the biggest challenge is exactly what to do in terms of infrastructure and in-vehicle systems.

"I want IntelliDrive out there working and demonstrating its worth in as many vehicles as soon as possible. But what's the minimum level of infrastructure we need? That's something we still don't know. Each additional vehicle on the road which is IntelliDrive equipped means more added value but our biggest challenge is the initial ramp-up. Over time we'll achieve a comprehensive network, and over time each addition to that network will have a positive, downward effect on individual systems' marginal costs. I'm confident that the research we're doing now positions us to make that happen."

As the research effort develops, so new applications for IntelliDrive will continue to emerge. Although safety will remain the number one priority, weather monitoring is attracting particular interest according to Appel.

"There are some very interesting possibilities here. If for instance you've got a whole series of vehicles with the wipers on, you've got dramatically better data on local road conditions than the US's 2066 National Weather Service could ever hope to generate. Better information on flash storms, on spray and visibility will have knock-on safety effects. There's a lot of work going on which is very much focused on crash prevention but there's also a lot of effort going into getting vehicles electronically aware of their relative positions."

Converging issues

The change of administration in the US has led, in many people's eyes, to a more enlightened approach to environmental matters. In Europe, ITS policy has put the need to address transport's environmental impact on an equal footing with safety. Although Appel sees safety as the main goal, he also says that he sees no conflict between the two.

"I love the fact that we've got multiple goals and can address them simultaneously. My boss, the Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, defines four key goals for transportation whenever he presents: safety, liveability, environmental sustainability and economic recovery.

"I don't for one second see safety and the environment as competing. Take the example of a railway grade crossing. An approaching vehicle which is appropriately equipped can be informed by the crossing as to its status and the relative position of any approaching train. That addresses the safety issue. In protecting the vehicle's and train's passengers, we also address the liveability issue. If the grade crossing is closed road users might choose to re-route, which reduces the time spent waiting to go on. That addresses the environmental issue because fuel isn't wasted idling. It also addresses the economic issue, in that both time and money is saved."

Timescales for deployment

Global recession has hit both the public and private sectors hard. The current US Administration's response was the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which was intended to stimulate the domestic economy and generate employment by providing additional funding for, amongst other things, infrastructural improvements. Although many were hopeful that a significant proportion of the money allocated would go into ITS projects, with their significant potential to add value, the reality is that most of the funds have quite literally gone into holes in the road and have been used to address states' significant maintenance backlogs. On the private-sector side of the cooperative infrastructure equation - because one can't have cooperative infrastructure without cooperative vehicles - it is impossible to ignore the huge difficulties which the major automotive manufacturers have found themselves faced with.

In an ideal world, we would have already seen significant deployments of the types of technologies being discussed here. The reality is that deployment is still some years away. But how many?

Although vehicle sales of all types have been hit hard over the last year or so, Appel says that this has done little to hinder ongoing research.

"Research scientists tend not to stop working in a recession. We're not yet at the point of large-scale deployment but research and development has continued at a steady pace and will continue.

"There are a lot of moving parts here. With NHTSA, for example, we've been working towards some decisions on regulatory matters and there are some key targets there due to be reached by 2013."

There are, however, no firm targets for actual system roll-out: "I'm not putting limits on when," says Appel. "If we find good technological solutions, then we'll get them out sooner. If we need to wait for the right technologies to mature, then that's what'll happen. But I have told the JPO that I want to see things happen sooner, not later. It's important that we see these things in use and providing feedback."