US IntelliDrive cooperative infrastructure programme

The 'rebranding' of the US's Vehicle-Infrastructure Integration programme as IntelliDrive marks an effort to make the whole undertaking more accessible both in terms of nomenclature and technology. Shelley Row, director of the ITS Joint Program Office within USDOT's Research and Innovative Technology Administration, talks about the changes

Observers of the US's cooperative highway infrastructure effort could be forgiven for wondering just what the programme is called this week, as what was once Vehicle-Infrastructure Integration (VII) became SafeTrip-21 which became IntelliDrive. Well, not quite. SafeTrip-21, which has grabbed so much of the limelight over the past year or so, was in fact only ever a sub-project of VII set up to explore alternative mediums to Dedicated Short-Range Communication (DSRC) as a means with which to deliver safety and mobility applications in the Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) environments.

It is a common misconception but in fact, says Shelley Row, director of the ITS Joint Program Office within the 324 US Department of Transportation's (USDOT) 321 Research and Innovative Technology Administration, VII simply became IntelliDrive. Period.

"The transportation community was never really happy with 'VII'. It was felt to be too ambiguous - people didn't know whether it was 'VII', 'seven' in Roman numerals or '511' - and so didn't communicate well what the programme was all about.

"The rebranding as IntelliDrive also made sense because VII itself was at an important juncture. It started with a specific premise: that all safety and mobility applications would be supported by DSRC, and DSRC only. That drove the effort which went into setting up the Proof Of Concept [POC] work which we've been carrying out. It was fine for the first round of research and we've learned a lot. But technology has evolved over the life of the programme and it's only wise to look at what the new environment has to offer.

"The whole rebranding exercise was carried out in conjunction with stakeholders. As well as looking to reflect a broadening and an increased receptivity to what's been learned, 'IntelliDrive' is regarded as a brand that's more likely to stand the test of time from research all the way through to final deployment."

'DSRC-plus'

SafeTrip-21 marked the start of the departure from a DSRC-only course but the technology remains very much a front-runner, according to Row.

"Is DSRC, operating at 5.9GHz, still in the loop? Definitely. We have dedicated spectrum and intend to use it, and there is strong internal buy-in within USDOT. It remains the technology of choice for active safety applications but developments in the consumer electronics sector mean that many mobility applications, those with much lower latencies, can be delivered effectively via different means." There is, though, a need for standardised interfaces around the vehicle, she says and harmonisation is a topic which needs to be addressed at the international level.

"We have to be careful how we go about this, as not all applications need access to the vehicle CANbus. Safety applications, which require very low latencies, absolutely do. Mobility applications probably don't as they can work well with much lower quantities of data.

"We've been working with NHTSA [the 834 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration] on this and have also formalised cooperation with the 1690 European Commission.

"The DSRC standard itself is already being modified as a result of the POC work and we've embarked on work which will take VII's original DSRC-only architecture and look at what can be kept and what needs to be modified. There's also an explicit undertaking to review standards work done internationally. There's the potential to piggybank onto those efforts, to take on standards and harmonise." Row says that she hopes to have better visibility by the time of this year's 6456 ITS World Congress which takes place in Stockholm, 21-25 September.

"Annual Meetings are always convenient deadlines. We couldn't hope to harmonise by then but we should have a better view of which standards we want to take forward. The same applies to the architecture, in that we're working towards something which spans the international community."

The retrofit/aftermarket sector

One of the criticisms of VII in its original form was that it failed to take into account the lifespan of the typical vehicle and the obstacles this raises in terms of achieving system ubiquity. SmartTrip-21 acknowledged this and looked to find whether some of the 'softer' (that is, non safety-critical) VII-type applications could be delivered via other technologies. IntelliDrive will continue to explore this space. It would, Row continues, be "irresponsible" to ignore recent developments in the consumer electronics marketplace: "There is absolutely interest in consumer electronics but there needs to be greater clarity over the terminology involved.

"In the cooperative infrastructure sense, 'retrofit' refers to a piece of equipment integral to the vehicle which is fitted by a main dealer or a dealer's representative. It will possibly have CANbus access. 'Aftermarket' describes carry-in devices such as PDAs, cellular phones, BlackBerries and the like. Many of the vehicle manufacturers are looking at datalinks with carry-ins but it's likely that they won't have CANbus access.

"There are difficulties with both types of solutions when it comes to liability and so on. We need more research in both areas but retrofit devices might be a path to the faster implementation of active safety. Aftermarket carry-ins could be the faster path for mobility applications."

OEM difficulties - and opportunities

Mention of the automotive OEMs takes the whole conversation into uncharted waters. No-one in the transportation sector can have failed to be aware of the huge difficulties facing the vehicle manufacturing sector worldwide. Sales have plummeted in the current economic climate. Shorter working weeks on production lines and even line closures are common currency. US manufacturers are also hugely burdened with pension fund commitments. The combination has driven them to seek governmental support.

One might have expected the OEMs to have stood back from the developmental effort and concentrated on the old core competency: pushing tin. Nevertheless, Row says that she is heartened by the independent research which continues to go on, particularly that relating to active safety.

"We engage with the automotive companies at the pre-competitive research stage. It's up to them how they take that forward. But we're also working to stabilise the Michigan testbed to allow its use by OEMs as part of their developmental efforts.

"We've seen some changes take place within the VII Coalition but we're still working together to define post-POC work. We're also working with NHTSA and the 2094 Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers on policy issue relating to the OEMs.

"The current financial situation is affecting progress. We're just waiting to be able to engage more fully but the word from the individual manufacturers is that the interest level is still there - they remain committed to the potential of IntelliDrive and see it as a part of their futures."

The long, steady path to deployment

Conversations about the OEMs' current plight are perhaps academic in that IntelliDrive remains very much a research project at present, according to Row.

"There are still fundamental technical issues which remain unresolved, such as positioning, scaleability and data security for active safety applications. We still need more research on deployment scenarios as there remain some sticky policy issues there, such as: liability; data ownership - for example, whether the public sector have access to private-sector data for transportation management and performance measurement tasks; who owns and maintains the infrastructure; and who is responsible for certification of the active safety environment.

"I wish we'd made more progress on some of these issues last year. Recently though we've redoubled our efforts and this will continue in coming months. It is a priority - we hear that from the stakeholder community. In large part we, the Federal Government, are the conveners and facilitators of discussion but at the end of the day it will be up to others to take much of this work forward.

"But even if we don't have a firm date, deployment is edging closer. We now have operational testbeds in Michigan, California, New York and elsewhere. At any of those sites, any DSRC-equipped vehicle can interact with the systems in place. That's a big step forward." She finishes on a more general point about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, with which the Obama Administration intends to provide a financial stimulus to help the US economy out of its current situation: "ITS is and has been deployed all over the place. We've been trying to raise ITS's visibility and make it known that ITS projects are eligible for funding under the Act. Indeed, many State DOTs have projects earmarked.

"A particular area of interest is the use of ITS in work zones. There are going to be a lot of these if many of the bridge and road projects put forward under the Act come to fruition. There's a lot of benefit that can be derived from ITS in the work zone setting. There's also a great opportunity to put in place 'leave-behind' technologies which can continue to be of benefit once projects are completed. That's worth bearing in mind in this context."