iTECH: Automated Trucks Ahead?

This story appears in the February/March 2013 issue of iTECH, published in the Feb. 18 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

Taking the steering wheel out of a driver’s hand may sound crazy in an era when traffic congestion and driver distractions are growing by leaps and bounds, but that’s exactly what Internet search giant Google and Volvo Trucks are working on, while the U.S. Department of Transportation is testing communications technology that could potentially link several vehicles in a series.

While Google’s focus in an extended California test is on perfecting “driverless” passenger cars, the active role in more limited projects of Volvo and Con-way Inc. — respectively the world’s third-largest truck manufacturer and the less-than-truckload carrier that ranks No. 3 on the Transport Topics Top 100 For-Hire list — is a sign that experiments with vehicles linked electronically will yield products and changes for trucking.

In fact, both Con-way and Volvo see connected vehicles as a way to deal with some of trucking’s greatest safety challenges: inattentive drivers, cars following too closely or hovering in blind spots, and sudden, unpredictable actions by passenger-car drivers.

“This connected-vehicle initiative has the potential to shape a societal safety culture, much as seat belts and air bags did,” said Robert Petrancosta, Con-way Freight’s vice president of safety.

Exactly when today’s research will yield tomorrow’s products is anyone’s guess, but DOT is taking the technology seriously enough that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration plans to decide this year whether to proceed with what it calls “connected-vehicle technology” research for passenger cars and by 2014 for heavy-duty trucks.

The DOT isn’t looking at making road trains a reality in the near future, but Mario Mairena, government relations manager for the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, Arlington, Va., said: “Right now, we have the technology to have cars and trucks in a caravan, coming seamlessly in and out of line, kind of like a [bicycle-race] peloton.”

To which Kirk Steudle, director of the Michigan Department of Transportation, added: “I don’t think anything is out of the realm of possibility because the technology is evolving so fast.”

Con-way Freight, Ann Arbor, Mich., is participating in a yearlong DOT project on connected-vehicle technology, run by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, in which cars and trucks are linked with each other and sensors along the roadway, sharing information on road conditions and actions by other vehicles.

Con-way’s Petrancosta said the most prevalent safety issue with city driving is the lack of attention by other motorists because people are using cellphones when they are driving to make calls and even send and read text messages, which prevents them from paying attention to the vehicles, including trucks, around them.

He also said an increasing problem is cars riding too closely to trucks and violating the “safety zone” that truck drivers try to keep between themselves and other vehicles.

“Many times we see automobile drivers who are acting aggressively, and they either follow too close, or use the ‘safe zone’ that the truck driver is trying to maintain in front, as a ‘merge’ zone. That puts both the truck driver and the automobile driver at risk. When you have the combined behaviors of more aggressive drivers who are less attentive, it’s a no-win situation that increases the safety risk for all motorists,” Petrancosta said.

He said that over the next year, his fleet’s trucks in the UMTRI test will make their routine pickups and deliveries in the Ann Arbor test area, and the information they send and receive will contribute to the real-world data that UMTRI and DOT will eventually study and evaluate.

Con-way is the only heavy-duty truck fleet involved in UMTRI’s connected-vehicle test. The carrier is using eight trucks fitted with devices to handle the systems’ data messages and alerts.

While Google has been testing “autonomous” cars that can drive themselves without active driver involvement, UMTRI’s project is more limited. Launched last year and involving 2,800 vehicles, UMTRI’s test uses alerts through a dedicated wireless communications band to boost the “situational awareness” of proximate dangers for drivers in connected vehicles.

The Michigan project uses dedicated short-range communications, or DSRC, as the backbone of the communications between the connected vehicles themselves and with the infrastructure in Michigan.

With DSRC, vehicles gather data on road conditions, traffic at intersections, other vehicles’ speed and location and sudden actions such as hard braking, and transmit similar information about themselves 10 times a second.

DSRC can see ahead through vehicles and around corners. Any situation that appears hazardous to the system prompts a driver alert, such as a possible collision at an intersection, or when a vehicle changing lanes enters another vehicle’s blind spot, or if a vehicle is stopped farther ahead in traffic.

A recently concluded three-year European project, in which Volvo was involved, is called Safe Road Trains for the Environment, or SARTRE. It tested semi-autonomous highway travel with narrow gaps between connected vehicles, in a road-train mix of passenger cars and trucks interconnected through wireless technology. The wireless links ensured that the trailing cars followed exactly in the track of the lead vehicle — a truck driven by commercial driver — as though the train consisted of a single vehicle, allowing drivers in trailing vehicles to relax, perhaps read a book, watch TV or fill out freight-related paperwork.

“All the vehicles in the road train have a roof-mounted antenna so they can receive information from the lead vehicle’s computer system. For instance, if the lead truck starts braking, all the other vehicles in the train brake at exactly the same time,” said Andreas Ekfjorden, project manager for Volvo Trucks’ portion of the SARTRE project.

However, “There are several issues to solve before road trains become a reality on European roads,” Erik Coelingh, technical specialist at Volvo Car Corp., also a participant, said in a statement. “Volvo Car Corp. is particularly focused on emergency situations such as obstacle avoidance or sudden braking. However, we are convinced that road trains have great potential.”

DOT believes nationwide use of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure DSRC communications such as those in UMTRI’s pilot project could prevent tens of thousands of crashes every year and produce real-world benefits faster than the possible deployment of self-driving cars and trucks.

“We are looking at the whole thing that Google is doing, and others, regarding driverless vehicles . . . at what the implications of such driverless systems would entail . . . monitoring what is going on and looking at how to jump into that in terms of ensuring their safe operation,” said Mike Schagrin, manager of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s intelligent transportation systems program.

Looking forward to potential deployment of connected-vehicle technology, Alan Korn, director of advanced brake systems integration at Meritor WABCO Vehicle Control Systems, Troy, Mich., cautioned that every technical advance comes with what he called a cost-and-complexity counterpoint. Meritor WABCO makes collision-avoidance systems for Class 8 trucks.

“I see the vehicle-to-vehicle communication to have significant potential. But what has to happen now is we have to validate [the technology and the data], and that’s the goal of this safety pilot. I think it is imperative that the benefit, as far as crash reductions, is quantified. I believe that’s very much in the cards. U.S. DOT is looking at this very, very realistically and wants to come up with an objective assessment,” he said.

Korn speculated that if the Ann Arbor model deployment is a great success, then DOT would probably have to look at requiring older vehicles to be retrofitted with the DSRC-based technology. “Otherwise, the safety benefit won’t be there unless the majority of the motoring public has the V2V technology. I think that’s why they are testing the aftermarket devices. What we don’t want is a burdensome regulation on the trucking industry that’s not going to pay back for the carriers. ”

Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems LLC, Elyria, Ohio, makes the Wingman collision-avoidance systems with adaptive cruise control and active braking based on radar technology, with a camera feature coming soon. Fred Andersky, Bendix director of government affairs, said the company sees a synergy between their systems and intelligent transportation systems such as the UMTRI project.

“We don’t see it as one or another,” Andersky said, adding that testing connected vehicles on the roads, “would be a plus for the performance of [our] system. More information enables us to do more things, react to more situations.”

But Andersky was skeptical that there would be autonomous Class 8 trucks, no matter what automakers — which are working on autonomous systems that could, for example, take over driving in slow-moving, congested traffic — produce in their vehicles because trucks are just too large and the liability too great. “I would not compare a 5,000-pound vehicle with an 80,000- or 90,000- or, up in Canada, a 125,000-pound vehicle.”

Florida State Rep. Jeffrey Brandes, who sponsored that state’s recent law allowing autonomous vehicle testing, was enthusiastic about the potential for trucking.

“The sky’s the limit for residential vehicles,” Brandes said. “And, simultaneously, some of the major trucking fleets will recognize that this as a game-changing technology in the field of trucking and logistics movement.”

Con-way’s Petrancosta declined to say whether he believed heavy-duty trucks ever could become autonomous.

“It’s really too early to tell, and I wouldn’t want to speculate. But the current safety pilot in Ann Arbor is a promising step. It will provide valuable data and experience with connected systems between trucks, cars, other vehicles and highway infrastructure,” he said.

Bob McQueen, chief executive officer of The 0Cash Co., a Florida intelligent transportation system consulting firm, said incremental progress would be the order of the day, especially for autonomous trucks.

“Perhaps the best example of this is the European Union mandate that calls for the installation of lane departure warning systems and automatic emergency braking systems for new heavy-duty vehicle models sold in Europe starting in late 2013 and for all new trucks in Europe from late 2015. Perhaps these are the first steps toward trucks that never crash and spend more time on the road.”

McQueen added: “I wonder how truck drivers will react to this new technology and to the emerging thought that their role may go the way of the Dodo or the film camera.”