On March 12, 2014 the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) published a Request for Information (RFI) (Vol. 79, Number 48; FR Docket No. 2014-05414) asking for feedback and comments from all interested public, private and academic entities on any aspect of the RFI. The success of the connected vehicle research program and the recent decision by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to pursue Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) safety technology for light vehicles, lead to the plan to use connected vehicle pilots conducted in real world settings to demonstrate the near term safety, mobility and environmental benefits.
Referenced relevant research with provided links include: Dynamic Mobility Applications Program, Real-Time Data Capture and Management Program, Applications for the Environment: Real-Time Information (AERIS) Program, Road-Weather Management Program, Safety Pilot Model Deployment, Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) Safety Program and Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) Safety Program. The objective of these programs is to identify, develop and deploy applications that leverage trusted communications among connected vehicles, travellers and infrastructure to better inform travellers, enhance operational practices and transform surface transportation system management. It is expected that pilot deployment sites will focus on applications that will result in improved and measurable system performance in one or more of the these areas: system productivity, mobility (including freight), livability/accessibility, environment/fuel use and travel/system safety.
The vision for the Connected Vehicle Pilot Deployment Program is to have multiple pilot deployments with the initial wave occurring in 2015. The plan is to spur innovation, use the best available and emerging technologies, utilize data captured from multiple sources across all elements of surface transportation, encourage partnerships of multiple stakeholders and support an impact assessment and evaluation effort for a cost-benefit assessment.
The RFI discusses questions that the FHWA believes should be addressed by the pilot deployments, as well as the vehicle pilot program requirements under consideration. Some of these requirements include: multiple connected applications, multisource data via Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC), operational transportation network environments, well defined quantitative performance measures, diverse practical deployment environments, no driver distraction effects, data sharing with protected privacy, independent evaluations, appropriate use of the latest ITS standards for trusted information exchange and ability to transmit SAE J2735 Basic Safety Messages (BSMs).
Although the DOT welcomes all comments, some of their areas of specific interest are
- Is the proposed timing schedule – too cautious, too ambitious or about right?
- Can goals be met with multiple sites? What is rough order of magnitude of resources needed?
- Data ownership, IP rights, privacy – Value in data sharing? Inhibit participation? Frequency of data?
- Value of open source? Inhibit participation? Certain applications be open source? Other avenues?
- What is the role of Connected Vehicle Reference Implementation Architecture (CVRIA)?
- How should pilot support early implementation of technologies for V2V?
- What role should the affiliated connected vehicle test beds play in conducting pilot deployments?
- How can American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials footprint analysis be used?
- How can potential value of connected vehicle applications be measured and estimated with the pilots?
- What forms of commitment by participants are reasonable and appropriate?
Responses to this RFI must be received by April 11, 2014.