Improving driver information, making in-vehicle systems a reality

Scott J. McCormick, president of the Connected Vehicle Trade Association, considers what we have to do next to make the more widespread deployment of automotive telematics a reality

Year after year, the 6456 ITS World Congress showcases the in-vehicle and road infrastructure systems which will improve the journey experiences of travellers in the not-toodistant future. Some time on from such events we tend to see a small number of top-end vehicles start to incorporate some of the technologies and features displayed, and then an element of trickle-down as those systems become more mature and cost-efficient to produce.

What we haven’t yet seen is anything like the proliferation of connected vehicles predicted in years past by industry pundits and market analysts. Put aside the fact that on original timescales cooperative infrastructures would by now have been rolled out in some countries, and that many of the applications which they would support do not yet therefore exist; it is clear that consumers have yet to embrace the potential of telematics with anything approaching alacrity.

Uptake is certainly on the increase, and smart and nomadic devices have introduced dynamics into the market which even those close to ITS were unable to foresee just a few years ago. However, there remain some significant non-technical obstacles to overcome, according to the 1739 Connected Vehicle Trade Association’s (CVTA’s) president, Scott McCormick.

“As I see it, there are four major obstacles to widespread deployment of telematics: a value proposition, privacy and data policies, and standards. We have failed to give a well-articulated value proposition at all levels; we need a privacy policy and, closely allied to the development of this, a data policy; and then we need to progress to the next level in terms of standards.” The CVTA, he adds, has decided to develop a White Paper on a strategic roadmap that addresses these four items.

Value propositions

Niche and focused markets do a pretty good job of putting together value propositions, says McCormick.

“Anyone in the insurance telematics industry can list the myriad benefits of their apps and systems with regard to reducing cost and risk. Similarly, commercial fleet telematics systems are well understood in terms of the benefits of geo-fencing, trailer integrity monitoring, closer driver monitoring and fleet efficiency management and so on. But on the consumer side, there is less clarity as to whether a $200 Personal Navigation Device (PND) provides the same value, quality of service and overall advantages as a $2,000
embedded system. We also struggle to really understand consumer perception and desires in this area. Are entertainment systems that communicate externally considered telematics? Is there really widespread demand for OnStar with Facebook updates? Are the collected features of any one embedded, aftermarket or nomadic system worth the money? How can you compare them?

“In some cases, such as mobility and weather applications, the primary interests of state and local government, we have a sort of good feeling that they’re useful and valuable, but we can't articulate a viable business model. So articulating the value proposition is of critical importance. This is a real problem. Consumers have to 'get it'; they have to see a feature set and intuitively grasp the use case in order to place a dollar value on it. At that point the consumer can make a buying decision. It’s for the consumer-facing producer to make the case, whether they are a carrier offering bandwidth, the manufacturer of a PND or smartphone, or the creator of an app.

“What we do know is that consumers want knowledge. They don’t need to know all the diagnostic information that their car’s data bus can provide but they do need to know when it’s time to take that car in for a service.

Developing value propositions for cooperative apps such as ‘Approaching Emergency Vehicle’ is often even more complex. These applications have value for the emergency service providers but rather less for the individual, unless they happen to be the one in the ambulance at the time. The value proposition lies in the fact that better emergency response times might allow us to reduce the number and cost of ER staff. Congestion reductions, on the other hand – “I can reduce by ‘x’ hours how long you sit in traffic” – are cooperative solutions with a quantifiable and tangible benefit to the consumer.

“On the safety side, the OEMs see value in adding ABS to a car. But is lane-keeping really worth $2,000? On the mobility side, transportation agencies really have difficulty articulating value. For instance, they’ll shrug off apps which will tell people where the largest or fastest-degrading potholes are because they have other budget priorities. Again, it is a question of whether they truly understand and communicate the real benefits.”

Privacy and data

Privacy and data are inextricably linked and policies for both should be developed in concert, he continues: “Your purchase of a car doesn't give you the rights to all of the data therein. The intellectual property the automakers and their suppliers provide that allow vehicles to transmit commands, data, and energy over the 40-plus networks in a car doesn’t belong to the consumer any more than the infrared pulses coming out of your TV remote control is yours to file away. However, your location, path, speed and other data
about your use of the vehicle is yours, that much is obvious. And that is where the privacy issue connects in.

“Obviously, unless required by law, any knowledge about your personal vehicle use should only be available to a third party if you opt into it. But beyond that, there are a number of issues regarding what the privacy policy should be. And discussion on this topic can only be started in an open forum before it must be exposed to everyone for feedback. However, having only legal and consumer privacy experts involved in that forum is not going to work. All of the major stakeholders need to be involved: the automakers; the carriers; the insurers; and others. The same is true, to a lesser extent, for the data policy. The privacy policy is an important framework for structuring the ecosystem, and the data policy is a tool to advance it.

The who, what and why of standards

“Standards are great things to have. They reduce costs, though you have to remember that a lot of the standards work done by manufacturers isn’t altruistic – it’s about being first to market and making money.

“But we have to tell people where we’re going. What, for instance, are we doing with embedded and other devices? Cellular phones don’t work so well in the automotive environment as they don’t have the necessary vibration tolerance, so we can’t make them the sole basis of our future strategy. DSRC is really only useful for vehicle safety applications but there are already standards for WiFi, cellular and so on.

“We also have to consider whether the car companies want to or even should get involved in the two-way communications field. Even without nefarious activity, it potentially only takes a small coding error to, for example, lead to the accidental deployment of an airbag by an offboard system.

“There are solutions which address such concerns. Nokia’s Terminal Mode technology specification is an example. This has been developed in cooperation with some of the German automotive manufacturers and effectively encapsulates traffic management capabilities in a mobile phone. Data is packaged onboard and then sent offboard using Bluetooth or some other protocol with a nondiscriminatory specification, alleviating the need for the car companies to stay up-to-date with the latest developments.

“This isn’t about replacing in-vehicle systems with mobile phones, there are horrendous HMI issues for instance, but it also demonstrates that the mobile device manufacturers are not and cannot do nothing in this space.”“Data can be masked but true privacy doesn’t exist. No-one really wants to get to grips with this but, again, it’s about the value proposition – am I prepared to put up with location-based spam in order to gain access to useful information? At some level, probably yes. It is a question of what value I ascribe to the information or its utility, and what level of use or distraction the advertising is.

“A lot of perceptions are in fact knee-jerk reactions to being ‘tracked’. The reality is that not many utilities are going to get much out of knowing where I am. In terms of onboard data, perhaps the only really useful information is regarding speeding and aggressive driving behaviour, say for insurance companies which offer policies which reward more careful driving.

“There are also potential societal benefits to consider. I’m thinking now about amber alerts and missing children, for instance. You still have to convince people that the cost of fitting a system of some sort is worth it, however.”

To give some sort of perspective on that value, he notes that OEMs reckon on the average driver experiencing a flat tyre once every 10 years. Statistically a crash is an improbable occurrence, although clearly they do happen.

Standards

When it comes to standards, McCormick is very precise when he says that we need to move to the next step.

“I didn't say we needed to work on standards, because that would be premature for the most part. You have to know where you are going, and what you are doing in order to start identifying the elements that are non-differentiating to the consumer. Intellectual property has value so long as it is reasonable and nondiscriminatory with regard to price and licensing.

“Once we know in general where we are going, whether that is with regard to communication protocol(s), or architectural issues such as OEM embedded devices versus aftermarket versus nomadic, then we can identify the interfaces which make the most sense to standardise and move to the next step. Because we are dealing with multiple industry domains – automotive, telecommunications, IT and so on – our second step must be a gap analysis. We, speaking from the automotive side, don't really know what standards may exist in the other sectors that could be adapted or adopted for vehicle communications [see Sidebar]. We don’t want to duplicate existing efforts and it’s unlikely that we could do as well as experts already have in their own domains in any case.

The standardisation process would need to be open for participation, meet all the usual and customary requirements for declaring any included intellectual property, voting and so on, but I think there are many excellent minds in the standards arena that can develop that framework, so I won't belabour the point.”