Fleet Owner -- The trucking industry is expected to undergo significant and continued “transformation” due to ongoing incorporation of more active safety technologies, such as collision mitigation, and factory-installed telematics systems, according to a panel discussion at the 2015 Commercial Vehicle Outlook Conference last week in Dallas, Texas.

Stephen Hampson, president and GM of Meritor WABCO, and Chris Hines, executive VP for Zonar Systems, both argued that various technologies will not only continue to make the industry safer – reducing crashes and helping identify bad driving habits – but also help boost fleet profitability as well, particularly via increased vehicle uptime.

“We’re witnessing an evolution of safety systems that integrate multiple technologies such as lane departure warning (LDW), electronic stability control (ESC), telematics and data/video capture devices,” Hampson said.

“We’re also now starting to share data through vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) technology as well,” he added. “All of that will help improve vehicle and driver performance, not only to reduce crashes but to pave the way for semi-autonomous and fully autonomous vehicles as well.”

Reducing the severity of crashes – if not eliminating them altogether – is what will help fleets achieve payback from their safety system investments, Hampson stressed.

For example, he pointed to the projected benefits from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) impending ESC mandate for tractor-trailers.

Assuming that all existing 5-axle tractor-trailers operating on U.S. roads get fitted with ESC, the expected annual safety benefit is 4,659 fewer crashes, 126 fewer fatalities, and 5,909 fewer injuries, all while saving $1.5 billion a year in crash-related expenses.

Hampson also noted that the rapid changes occurring to newer safety technologies, such as Meritor WABCO’s OnGuard collision mitigation system, should further reduce accidents.

March 9, 2016, Governing.com -- The storm that rolled through Ann Arbor, Mich., in late November brought nine inches of snow and an experimental opportunity too good to pass up. A team of Ford engineers working to develop self-driving vehicles decided it would be a good time to put their modified Ford Fusion sedans to the test.

Snow, like rain, can be especially tricky for automated vehicles. Precipitation makes it harder for driverless cars to know where they are. Their cameras can’t see lines on snow-covered pavement or in the reflections of puddles. Falling precipitation interferes with radar. Piles of snow make finding the curbs and road edges harder, even for the cars’ laser-powered mapping devices. On top of that, snow is something of a novelty for self-driving cars. Most of them have been confined to sunny locales in states like California, Nevada and Texas, where rain and snow are rarer.

So the Ford team jumped at the chance to test their vehicles in the Michigan winter. Rather than heading to Ford’s proving grounds in Dearborn, they went to Mcity, a 32-acre test track in north Ann Arbor. It’s a shared track that’s operated by the University of Michigan and used by automakers and the state transportation department to try out autonomous and connected cars. Mcity includes elements you wouldn’t expect to find on most test tracks, things like stoplights that broadcast information to vehicles, a railroad crossing, a bus stop, highway on-ramps and gantries, a small hill, gravel roads, sidewalk crossings, stop signs, a simulated tree canopy and overpass, roundabouts, vandalized traffic signs, and a mockup of downtown city blocks.

11-8-2017, Information-Age.com -- It’s hard to believe that Ford introduced the Model T more than a century ago. Switching to an assembly line manufacturing technique completely transformed the automotive industry and made car ownership a possibility for the mass population. Since then, there has been little in the way of truly disruptive automotive technology.

As some of the biggest innovators of our generation – Google and Apple – set their sight on the connected car, it’s clear that the wind may be about to change. Modern-day innovators are joining forces with established automotive manufacturers, and their vision – powered by the potential of the Internet of Things (IoT) – could revolutionise travel beyond recognition.

The transformation

The majority of the time, a personal vehicle is parked. In the sharing economy, a connected car could broadcast itself as being available for use at various times of day.

IoT connectivity is key to enable that vehicle to be remotely opened by the person reserving the car, to track where the car is and provide reminders about return time, etc. Now that car becomes a source of potential revenue for its owner, just like Airbnb for dwellings.

Automakers – such as Volvo, Daimler and GM – as well as the likes of Uber, Google and Apple, are already looking at what it takes to get to autonomous vehicles. And small fleets are already being deployed in controlled environments.

That said, truly autonomous cars becoming a mass market reality will take years according to most experts. But once they are mainstream, and the technology is blended with ride sharing, it will deliver unprecedented levels of disruption to the car industry.

Accelerating the need for 5G

High-speed/high-bandwidth mobile networks will play an absolutely critical role in the car of the future. Cellular networks already underpin the ride sharing revolution, and without IoT there can be no truly connected car. At present, smaller fleet of autonomous cars can easily be handled by an LTE network. And the advent of 5G networks and technology will help make sure that when connected vehicle numbers hit critical mass, the networks will still be able to handle the load.

Cisco Jasper provides a platform that enables the control of that connectivity, working in partnership with the world’s mobile operators to enable automakers to not only manage their vehicles’ connectivity, but to deliver myriad connected services. One of the advantages of connected vehicles is that automakers can constantly introduce new connected services that help evolve the driving experience over time. And as more of these connected services are introduced, the greater the need for 5G networks that can support the increased network demands.

Navigating connectivity in the here and now

In Europe, the basic services that will come to market first – due to eCall – will be safety and security in the form of automatic crash notification. This is not new in other markets like North America, but a majority of the OEMs in Europe are yet to launch eCall.

Beyond consumer applications, there are also safety implications for fleet drivers, with new services that help prevent them from falling asleep while driving. Electronic log books will keep track of the number of hours a fleet driver has been awake and driving, providing alerts when it is time to rest to help prevent potential accidents due to drowsy driving.

Over-the-air software/firmware updates are going to play a crucial role in a world where cars are digitally controlled. A connected car designed with upgradeable electronic component units will bring forth a revolution on what is considered a new car versus a new-feature car.

Read the rest of the article HERE.

10-24-2016 -- It's a jungle out there on US roads. There's a near-constant jockeying for position as everyone attempts to get where they're going as fast as they can via overcrowded highways and streets.

In reality, drivers all exist somewhere along a spectrum, with the unnecessarily aggressive on one end, the overly cautious on the other, and the rest falling somewhere in between. Drivers are constantly processing information and anticipating what their fellow motorists may do based on a variety of factors, often without consciously thinking about it.

Most experienced drivers innately assess such situations, but they will soon have to contend with autonomous vehicles (AVs) being thrown into the mix. Like humans, AVs will have to react to the actions of other drivers, but also other drivers' reaction to them. More aggressive drivers could take advantage of AVs' hesitancy, while others may not know how to socially relate to robo-cars. Things could become really complicated, according to a recent study.

Bullying Robo-Cars
Perhaps not surprisingly, a study from The London School of Economics and Goodyear found that AVs could be easily bullied by more assertive drivers. But the survey also found that so-called "cooperative" drivers—those who "see driving more as a social activity and enjoy the interaction with other drivers on the road"—are actually more apprehensive about self-driving cars.

The survey's "driving sociability" index used the common scenario of letting another driver cut in front of you—or cutting in front of another driver—as cars merge into a single lane as a gauge of whether someone would be considered more a "cooperative" road user. Ninety percent of those who landed in the top half of the driving sociability scale said they would never or only occasionally cut the line.

But of the more "combative" half, 42 percent, said that they would "sometimes, usually, or always" cut in on another driver. And aggressive drivers would feel even less remorse about cutting off an autonomous vehicle, while more social drivers may not know how to deal with a robo-car.

"If you view the road as a social space, you will consciously negotiate your journey with other drivers," the survey said. "People who like that negotiation process appear to feel less comfortable engaging with AVs than with human drivers.

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Forbes, 4-17-2017 -- Imagine driving through toll booths, drive thru restaurants and gas stations without having to fiddle around with cash and coins. The future is calling for a world in which payments are seamless and with the experimentation and the introduction of self-driving cars, your car being in sync with your bank account is where technology is heading. Imagine if your car was your wallet.

Elon Musk’s Tesla has recently overtaken General Motors to become the most valuable car company in the US. According to Reuters, Tesla ended yesterday with a stock market value of nearly $51 billion which was $1 million more than GM. At the end of 2015, Juniper Research predicted that self-driving cars will take off by the year 2021 and there will be approximately 20 million vehicles on the road by 2025. With the emergence and rapid success of Tesla, these predictions could become a reality.

However, Juniper ranked Tesla as the third most promising player in the driverless car market, below Google and Volvo, after being in development for the longest and having logged the most autonomous miles. I spoke to representatives from FIS and SAP to find out what technology they are working on to ensure society has in-car payments in the future.

This technology, as Brown explained, is all voice-activated and as many predict the rise of biometric technology in payments, this could be how the boom cements itself in society. Brown said that a ‘voice-print’ would enable you to authenticate yourself or a payment account and pay for a transaction ‘hands-free’. ‘This is essential to the safety of in car payments,’ Brown said. A recent New York Times article discussed how soon a car will be able to read a human’s expression because of biometrics.

Read the rest of the story HERE.