NHTSA Issues New Proposed Policy on V2V Technology, Connected Vehicles
Jennifer van der Kleut
The National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA) on Tuesday proposed a new national policy that, among other things, would mandate that connected vehicle technology (V2V) be included in all new light-weight vehicles that are manufactured, establish standards for vehicle-to-vehicle messages and transmissions, and mandate that data be made available to the federal government.
The agency released an announcement in the form of a Notice of Proposed Rule-Making (NPRM) that detailed the ins and outs of the new policy, should be it officially adopted by the U.S. government.
Highlights of the proposed policy include:
- The requiring of all automakers to include connected-vehicle technology (V2V) in all new light-weight vehicles;
- A mandate that all V2V devices would use dedicated short range communications (DSRC) to transmit data, such as location, direction and speed, to nearby vehicles;
- The mandating of across-the-board standards for vehicle-to-vehicle communications, to ensure all vehicles “speak the same language;” and
- Rules that ensure that V2V data being transmitted is protected by strong cybersecurity measures, and not “linkable to any individual.”
NHTSA officials said the Federal Highway Institute plans to issue more formal guidance on V2V communications soon.
Federal officials said in the NPRM announcement that they felt this policy was necessary to help speed up the adoption of connected-vehicle technology to help save lives, and also to help guide auto manufacturers in how to best and most quickly begin implementing the technology into their vehicles.
“This will create an information environment in which vehicle and device manufacturers can create and implement applications to improve safety, mobility, and the environment. Without a mandate to require and standardize V2V communications, the agency believes that manufacturers will not be able to move forward in an efficient way, and that a critical mass of equipped vehicles would take many years to develop, if ever,” the NPRM stated.
“Implementation of the new standard will enable vehicle manufacturers to develop safety applications that employ V2V communications as an input, two of which are estimated to prevent hundreds of thousands of crashes and prevent over one thousand fatalities annually,” the announcement continued.
Read the full announcement online.
Read the proposed policy in its entirety online.