Happy December Celebrations and a Fantastic 2018

[Image from https://www.camelbackresort.com]

Whatever holiday(s) you celebrate, with whomever you celebrate, and whatever rituals you observe, I wish you very happy, healthy, and fun times. Relax, spend time with loved ones, and make those transportation resolutions for 2018.

My transportation-oriented resolutions are - insert drumroll here - to live those AV dreams so that we get ever closer to a more equitable, accessible, reliable, and - big drumroll - actually safe transportation reality for everyone. And by everyone I mean parents schlepping with young children, people who use wheelchairs, grocery shoppers who are not using a car, people with sensory and developmental disabilities, people lugging luggage, and - another, but bigger, drumroll - people of color and others who have been marginalized due to race, gender or sexuality, or ethnicity. Because (not proper grammar, I admit) what does skin color or those other personal characteristics have to do with the civil right to transportation?

I have some personal transportation resolutions as well, which are mainly avoiding driving to particular locations within a half hour walk. That will be tested today; really cold and has the feel of the start of a super cold snap (though not really cold for those of you in the upper Midwest).

My present: A perfect New Year's Eve movie scene from a romantic comedy because there's walkable streets  parks, taxis, and transit - and because I am not a big fan of movies or shows about sports, science fiction, or violence.

Maine AV Transit Bill: Don't Get Too Excited - Yet

Yes, it is all over the news that Maine has autonomous vehicle (AV) legislation pending that solely covers transit AV pilot programs. (Okay, that's the nerdy transportation news feed bubble I am in, probably alongside with the nerds who are reading this.) Hold your horses, here are the details and the current reality.

Tiptoeing into the AV ocean; sandcastle work in progress

[Image from storemeister.com]

The legislation, LR 26ll, would only be in effect until end of March 2022. It would permit municipalities to collaborate with the Maine "Secretary of State, the department and the Department of Professional and Financial Regulation, Bureau of Insurance" to "develop, test and operate a pilot program for the use of autonomous vehicles for public transportation in the municipality."

If a municipality chooses to enter into an MOA (memorandum of agreement) with the named state agencies by December 1, 2021 to host an AV shuttle pilot, then those municipalities must each "submit a report regarding the pilot program to the joint standing committee of the Legislature having jurisdiction over transportation matters."

In a situation similar, though not identical, to the California Contra Costa AV shuttle pilot, Maine's bill seems written to allow for an already hatching shuttle idea, in this case the Portland AV shuttle that the mayor is pushing for (my read of the Maine Press Herald article). In contrast to the California law, which was specifically designed for one particular location's AV pilot, the Maine bill has generic language, which would allow for AV shuttles elsewhere in the state. I'm thinking tourism in the summer or service in those cute beach and college towns. Maine is a pretty place.

Reality

The bill was introduced a few months ago and there are no hearings set, no votes taken, and no other signs of progress. If anyone is familiar with Maine politics, let me know what are the chances of passage and the likelihood that any municipality other than Portland will take advantage of the bill.

Be a STAR

Strategic planning

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has released a five year strategic plan - not to be confused at all with former Soviet five year plans - called STAR, which stands for Strategic Transit Automation Research. I guess the nature of plans is to assume linear development that progresses in a rational and even manner and this is certainly the case with the FTA's STAR plan. To give FTA credit, the agency is earnestly trying to help transit systems and communities to adjust to a world with both new technology and travel modes that blur what were once very clear lines.

The STAR plan will be carried out from FY 2018 through FY 22, with low-speed autonomous vehicle (AV) demonstration projects to commence in the second year of the plan. The plan includes traditional transit, old on-demand modes, and newer on-demand and other shared-use services, including, but not limited to (one needs a legal degree to use that phrase), paratransit, ridehailing, and bus rapid transit. STAR loosely defines a bus “to consider a range of sizes and passenger capacities, and could include both traditional and novel vehicle designs (e.g. full-size city buses, articulated buses, and small shuttles).” Paying close attention to the parentheses in that definition, it is clear that FTA is acknowledging the blurriness of distinctions evolving, even being erased, within transit and between transit and legacy on-demand modes of paratransit, community transportation services, and taxis/ridehailing.

FTA is also including in STAR labor questions relating to transit’s workforce and automated operations related to maintenance, yard, and parking.

In the meadow, we can build a snowman ... 

As we speak, it seems, advances are happening. One big concern for AVs is snow and its close cousin, ice. But snow is not scary for Finland's prototype autonomous car.  It bears the cute name of Marti and its city slicker companion is named Marilyn. Marti is already driving than most people on icy roads in a winter wonderland, albeit at a slow pace. I would not want it otherwise. Why would anyone expect any vehicle to speed along in those conditions?

I can't resist including the song. It's better audio than the Marti video.

Happy last day of Hanukkah and an early fabulous winter soltsice, which is tomorrow. I'm pretty sure there will be something to write about by Christmas, but just in case, have a fun and very merry Christmas as well. Now I can't stop humming the winter wonderland song.

Active State Transportation Departments

Florida: Downtown Gainesville will be starting fare-free AV shuttle service in April 2018. The AV shuttle will operate as part of the transit system and it is scheduled to provide servicefor three years. The AV shuttle is a result of a  partnership with the University of Florida and state’s Department of Traffic. (Yes, it's called a Department of Traffic, not transportation, mobility or any other positive term.)

The Sunshine State's latest announced AV shuttle will have a great name: Gainesville Autonomous Transit Shuttle  or GAToRS. I didn't say original; I said great.

Minnesota: EasyMile AV shuttle ttests are beginning on snowy roads and in anticipation of the big Super Bowl rollout for the general public. The tests are being performed at the Minnesota Department of Transportation's MnROAD cold-weather pavement testing facility in Monticello, MN.

Wisconsin: In the Racine County portion of a highway project in the Milwaukee area, a technology firm is advising the state and its partners to include AV lanes. "The state Department of Transportation is now working to include the request in its planning, but doing so doesn’t come without costs." At least $134 million, which would be for "[s]pending for local road improvements, including dedicated all-weather autonomous vehicle lanes." Plus there is the cost of altering the project designs. That's in the tens of millions.

Aloha State Open for AV Business - Executive Order

[Image from getaway.com]

You cannot be any plainer than Governor Ige of Hawaii in his executive order: "[T]the Aloha State is open for business for testing and deploying the new driverless vehicle technology." Hello!

Lots of the usual "whereas" language one finds in legislative preambles and executive orders, but a little more vacation-y.

Hawaii is a great place to test, it claims, due to the beautiful weather (wouldn't snow, wind, and rain be better?), lots of car dealers (no joke, it's in there), a college of engineering (none of those in the continental US), and a car rental facility at the airport (again, no joke). Okay, other states do not have this benefit: "ample transpacific fiber optic capacity linking Hawaii to the US mainland, Asia, Australia/New Zealand and the Pacific."

Time to update resume

The governor is establishing this job: "Hawaii CAV contact in the Office of the Governor which shall be the Administrative Director, so as to provide the highest level of attention and support to companies seeking to test self-driving vehicle technology in Hawaii."

Sign me up. I'll buy some summer dresses and bathing suits tomorrow. Apartment with water view?

Wait, if I don't get a job with Gov. Ige, there are possibilities at the "Hawaii Department of Transportation, the Hawaii Department of Public Safety, and the Hawaii Department of Business and Economic Development and Tourism." Those agencies are all directed to be AV friendly.

Aloha, buying that plane ticket now! Maybe I should not have been so snarky about all that whereas language.

Rand's AV Study: Not Feeling Its Calculation of Unknown Unkowns

Agreed - Perfect is not all it's cracked up to be

I love how polling and models and other predictive tools are put together and often manage to get results so wrong. There are just too many variables, including the idiosyncrasies and preferences of many different humans, and the personalities of thought leaders - whether elected, in business, or in the media - that are popular or ignored at any given point in time.

That is my skeptical frame of mind when reading the Rand study, entitled The Enemy of Good: Estimating the Cost of Waiting for Nearly Perfect Automated Vehicles, which is nicely summarized in this video on the report's summary page.


The study and the video remind me of the classic Donald Rumsfeld quote, uttered sometime around the start of the Iraq War.

Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.

Huge disclaimer

I have not now, nor have I ever been, an expert in statistics or modeling. The language used to summarize conclusions based on scenario modeling is such that I end up re-reading it several times without the benefit of increased comprehension. Therefore, the following could be completely wrong. 

AVs present a whole bunch of unknowns

Giving the author's credit, they do articular a whole bunch of known unknowns, including:

• The safety/crash equation between human driver risks and new, as yet unknown, highly autonomous vehicle (HAV) risks, such as cyberattacks.
• Percent of HAV market penetration when we begin to see safety improvements in terms of lives saved and injuries avoided.

My big BUT

The study makes some possibly dubious assumptions:

• Someone out there who is credible AND will be heeded will be able to calculate and recognize at what point in time it is when we have reached the break-even safety point for HAVs, that is when they become exactly as safe and then surpass the safety of conventional, human-operated vehicles. 
• We are several decades from the full diffusion of HAVs. What? Talk about an unexplored assumption.
• The pace of HAV learning and operational capability will NOT be fast or accelerate in the future. Same What? as above.

And the winner is ...

In a nutshell, the Rand study authors' conclusion is stated very succinctly:

From a utilitarian standpoint, it seems sensible that HAVs should be allowed on U.S. roads once they are judged safer than the average human driver so that the number of lives lost to road fatalities can begin to be reduced as soon as possible. Yet, under such a policy, HAVs would still cause many crashes, injuries, and fatalities—albeit fewer than their human counterparts. This may not be acceptable to society, and some argue that the technology should be significantly safer or even nearly perfect before HAVs are allowed on the road. Yet waiting for HAVs that are many times safer than human drivers misses opportunities to save lives. It is the very definition of allowing perfect to be the enemy of good. [Emphasis added.]

The conclusion makes perfect sense, as do the numbers calculated to support the opinion, but the assumptions are so massive that the numbers could be wildly off. Of course, only time will tell.

My guesses 

I guess - predict - that HAVs will be (a) safer and (b) be adopted quickly.

(a) Increased safety: HAVs will mean fewer and then zero jerks who will drive when sleepy, in a rush, distracted by children, radio, podcasts, or pretty trees, or in any way under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or indigestion or pain. Jerks who over-estimate their driving skills will not be speeding or weaving in and out of traffic or erring in their predictions of being able to make a lane change or a turn before another vehicle comes barreling along. Even if HAVs are only as safe as human drivers in terms of their optimal driving skill, they will all learn from each other and they will mostly be driving at that optimal point, instead of doing so only at noon when one is alone in the car.

(b) Fast adoption: For the most part, in terms of early HAV adoption, we are talking about humans in Western and modern Asian countries. These are people who went underground before any large-scale testing to embrace subways when they were first built; who readily relinquished control and got on planes even though crashes that result in many lost lives happen occasionally; who quickly bought expensive smartphones even though this meant giving up privacy and being, at times, unreachable; and who, despite the safety risks, while driving, use those smartphones, unwrap and eat food, scramble with other devices, and deal with other people - sometimes demanding tiny people. Plus, there is no one who would prefer to pay attention to rush hour traffic than nap, play games, read, text friends, read entertainment news, or even work. Maybe there's an exception for a few people who get to drive each day on pretty two-lane roads with little traffic.

Those are guesses resulting from zero modeling, scenario planning, or any calculations. Many assumptions have been made and they are mine.

Popping Up Like Weeds from the Sidewalk

[Image from Cision PR Newswire.]

Gov. Hickenlooper of Colorado declared Monday, Dec. 4th to be Connected and Autonomous Vehicle (AV) Day. No word on store sales for that holiday. Part of Hickenlooper's C-and-AV Day photo op was to showcase Colorado's upcoming AV pilot project.

The declaration of the special day was a way for the pro-AV governor - whose administration paved the way for the driverless truck beer delivery PR stunt - to continue to highlight AV partners and Colorado's enthusiasm.

According to the press release, in very press-release-y language:

"Panasonic, a global leader in smart cities and smart automotive technology solutions, welcomed Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, Denver offices, where he proclaimed December 4 as "Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Day" to reinforce initiatives like Panasonic's connected vehicle partnership with CDOT's RoadX Program, as well as acknowledge EasyMile, a leader in autonomous technology, for their North American headquarters grand opening co-located within the Panasonic building."

Best of luck to Lauren Isaac of EasyMile as she awaits the birth of her baby. By the time that baby is a teenager, he or she will never need a driver's license. My own kids told me about six years ago that their generation would be the last for that.

Other EasyMile news is that the company is graduating, or rather expanding, from cute AV shuttles to real buses, AVs, of course. EasyMile is partnering with the French government and "IVECO, Sector, Transpolis, ISAE-SUPAERO, Ifsttar, Inria, and Michelin" to produce the AV buses. The buses will be large enough to transport 100+ passengers. (A warning to all of you traveling with more than one small child: Whether or not a bus has a driver, get on at a stop where you can sit together and where you do not have to stand holding a child of 30 pounds or one wearing a snow suit. AVs will not solve every transportation conundrum.)

Watch this nice video of the EasyMile AV shuttle at Bishop Ranch office park in California, being piloted in a partnership with the Contra Costa Transportation Authority.

In the state where everyone believes every visitor wants to move there

Look at the cute Colorado license plate for the EasyMile AV shuttle. It will be spring 2018 before regular passengers can get on board to ride the first-mile/last-mile route near Denver's 61st and Peña Station. Political and business partners came out to shine anyway for the early dog and pony show on Monday.

Perfect would be taking that shuttle from the commuter bus stop near Louisville, CO (near Boulder) to the Moxie Bread Company hipster bakery and coffee place. It's a Denver transit bus, so why not?

[Off topic: Moxie bialys are nowhere near the real thing, but their whole grain, naturally-leavened bread is excellent. In the bialy/bagel realm, I remain true to my pre-hipster Brooklyn roots.]

Pilots popping up everywhere

Nissan will be starting a pilot in Japan for app-based AV ridehailing. Will start with only two Nissan Leaf electric vehicles. The pilot will begin in March 2018.

Lyft riders in Boston's Seaport neighborhood may be experiencing AV ridehailing trips due to a pilot program and a partnership between Lyft and nuTonomy.  Delphi owns nuTonomy, which has experience in Singapore with AV pilots.

Previous posts about nuTonomy activity in Singapore: AV ridehailing in 2018; Singapore is a driverless sandbox; plus more posts about AV activity in Singapore.

Will vans be cool again?

The company first known for its cool vans is trying to climb back to regain that reputation. Volkswagon has developed an AV van called MOIA that will be launched as the vehicle for a ridehailing service. "The van-pooling MOIA service will launch in Hamburg in 2018 with 200 vans, letting passengers enter a departure point and destination in an app. "We've set ourselves the goal of taking more than a million cars off the roads in Europe and the USA by 2025," said MOIA CEO Ole Harms."

[Image from Endgadet.]

FYI: No flower power on these sleek, corporate-looking VW vans.

Fiskers has also developed an AV shuttle called Orbit and its shape varies from the cute boxy design of other companies. No word on when this van-like shuttle vehicle will appear on roads or where it will launch.

School bus without driver

[Image from Teague.]

So, I hope parents are aware that school bus drivers do not actually supervise children who ride the bus. I mostly walked my kids to school up to high school, but I overheard plenty of kid conversations about school bus rides.

The AV school bus design, named Hannah,  crafted by the Teague design firm is cute. The affluent-and-white world portrayed in the photographs suggests a crime-free, suburban paradise. In the real world, perhaps parent volunteers would be needed up to high school, especially in the prime cliquey years of fourth grade through middle school.

Small Cities, Suburbs Race Toward Next Transportation Age

Sorry, sorry for posting delay. Work is a bear; my Metro station is closed for two weeks, meaning my usual simple commute is transformed into the nightmare of most normal people. Uch. At least I can include a nice walk instead of the shuttle bus to hell. [Image source: Daily Mail.]

Bold announcement

GM-owned Cruise Automation will be avoiding pilot projects and going straight for full-scale deployment. The exact date is yet to be determined, but 2019 will be the year. "The goal of the service, ultimately, is to maximize its impact, ... and create something that truly affects people’s lives in a big, significant way. To do that, you need to launch first in big cities where ride hailing and electric vehicles available on-demand in significant numbers will make a serious dent not only in reducing traffic fatalities, but also in ecological footprint thanks to reduced emissions."

Autonomous neighborhoods to come

Silicon Prairie, otherwise known as Lincoln, NE, is doing more than union-entrenched cities to plan for autonomous vehicles. Not that the city is doing much; it has merely hired a consultant, but it perceives the need to get going. A city like New York, on the other hand, is so avoiding offending its unions that it is lagging behind. It's New York, so it will be fine. [Image source: Honda.]

As I have said before, if you are a professional driver, it is time to put together plan B.

Outside of Boston, like in Florida at the town of Babcock Ranch, a new neighborhood is being developed for driverless transportation from the start. This is a "1,550-acre urban development located 12 miles south of Boston." The development is a partnership between:

Optimus Ride, a MIT spinoff company developing self-driving vehicle technology ... [and] renowned real estate developer LStar Ventures to provide Union Point's residents with access to self-driving vehicles. This agreement represents the world's first revenue generating autonomous vehicle pilot program.

Revenue generating = NOT fare free.

Connected and wealthy

Bellevue, WA, is putting its money where its mouth is and investing heavily to speed toward AVs and a network of ACES (actually called the ACES network), which stands for autonomous, connected, electric, and shared. There are government and industry players actively involved. Whether this turns out to be an expensive venture that will later become off-the-shelf and cheaper remains to be seen. There's always someone or some community that is willing to pay big bucks just to be first or near the top, whether or not the additional investment makes financial sense in the long term. [Image source: vox.com.]

Don't ruin my nap time

Please, please, please do not force me to watch sponsored content when I ride in an AV. Okay, yes, I will if that movie, TV show, or article is only available for free with the commercial. But leave me alone if all I want to do is nap. Creeps me out to constantly read headlines - basically all the same article - about the Intel-Time Warner deal to provide entertainment inside AVs.