ITS California Buzzes on DOT Grants, Autonomous Levels Concept

John Estrada

The annual meeting of ITS California was held last week in Southern California. The major buzz at the show was the previous week’s announcement by the US DOT that initial winners in grants for next-generation V2V and V2I technology were proposals from New York, Florida and Wyoming. Many of the participants at the show felt very strongly that an award should have gone to California. It will be interesting to see what if any of those winning projects get off the ground.

There were quite a few interesting speakers at the show. A couple of highlights included:

Greg Larson from CalTrans who led a panel that considered whether bus and truck automation should come before auto automation. Greg presented a chart from Richard Bishop of Bishop Consulting that showed the various levels of automation leading to autonomous cars as described by the SAE. Rather than a detailed description of what makes a vehicle fit into various levels, Richard describes it as follows:

Level 0: hands and feet ON;
Level 1: hands or feet OFF;
Level 2: hands and feet OFF, eyes ON;
Level 3: hands, feet, eyes OFF, brain on;
Level 4: hands, feet, eyes, brain OFF - Constrained environments;
Level 5: hands, feet, eyes, brain OFF – Unconstrained.

This seems like a great way to both remember and understand them.

Other interesting presentations included Aravind Kailas of Volvo who discussed truck automation and the future of mobility. He made a strong case as to why we are headed toward a world of shared mobility.

There was also an interesting panel on cybersecurity that gave the audience a true sense of the diversity and depth of the issue. Ed Fok from US DOT showed how easy it is easy to block off Internet access while Dominic Nessi of the LA Airport discussed cybersecurity challenges at a large, international airport. Gary Miskell from the Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority discussed the issues facing transit authorities and the challenges of securing a mobile fleet of public buses.

There were also a series of demonstrations of connected vehicle technologies from eTrans Systems, Econolite, Bosch and Arada Systems.

This was our second year at the show and in that short time it was clear how quickly technology is advancing in the work of Intelligent Transportation.