![]() ![]() "If all vehicles are coordinated, they will never have to come to a full stop or a red light because all vehicles are coordinated. "Based on this instruction, you will never get in a traffic jam," said Andreas Malikopoulos, deputy director of the Urban Dynamics Institute at ORNL. Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are developing new mathematical algorithms that will allow more vehicles and types of infrastructure to seamlessly exchange information and coordinate their actions to eliminate congestion. ![]() "That could have a tremendous environment and mobility benefits, because not everyone goes through the domino effect of slamming on the brakes," Bai said. This would give other drivers the information they need to avoid harsh braking or even crashing. In one of the scenarios Honda is testing, the first car traveling in a group of three slams on the brakes to avoid hitting an animal, which sends an immediate warning to the following vehicles and sends a picture of the situation to their dashboards. This suite of technologies fits along a spectrum from more passive, see-and-react types of systems to interoperable systems where vehicles can communicate across brands and from farther away, said Sue Bai, senior engineer at Honda R&D. showcased its next generation of ITS technologies, including short-range communication between vehicles and pedestrians' or bicycle riders' cellphones, fully automatic highway driving and V2V "virtual tow"-a blend of connected and automatic car technology that enables a driver to request assistance and then virtually link up with and trail another vehicle. On-board vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication technology has also shown to increase efficiency and reduce emissions.Īt ITS America's 2014 World Congress last week in Detroit, Honda Motor Co. ![]() Los Angeles County, Calif., introduced a traffic signal synchronization program to improve the throughput of vehicles that resulted in saving 31.3 million hours of travel time, 38 million gallons of fuel and 337,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. In Ellicott City, Md., a smart parking system that uses sensors to detect when parking spaces are open and sends the information to drivers in real time reduced the time they spent looking for parking spots by 21 percent, leading to associated emissions and fuel savings. The Smithsonian Institution, for instance, reduced the fuel consumption on its fleet of 1,500 vehicles by 53 percent by using GPS tracking and wireless communication to better manage its vehicles. Some of these technologies are already producing significant sustainability benefits. "What the smart transportation technologies allow is to bend the carbon curve down in the intermediate time frame." "At the end of the day, what's going to truly decarbonize the transportation system is when we move to low-carbon fuel or completely battery-powered vehicles," which will take decades to see widespread adoption, said Stepp. It also calculated the expected fuel savings from several alternative fuel technologies, which benefit from tools for tracking fuel use and state of electric charge. The study examined fuel savings from 16 emerging transportation technologies, such as adaptive cruise control, eco-navigation, wireless communications to improve the efficiency of existing transportation infrastructure, such as traffic light synchronization. "For the last few years, the auto industry and environmental advocates have said these smart transportation technologies will have first- and second-order benefits that will reduce carbon and make cars more efficient, but no one put pen to paper to calculate the benefits," he said. "I think what's special about this report is it's the first time anybody sat down to try to put real sustainability benefit numbers to these technologies," said Matthew Stepp, executive director of the Center for Clean Energy Innovation at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, which hosted an event last month to launch the ITS America report. ![]() It's presumed that these technologies will also have energy efficiency and emissions reductions benefits, but only recently have experts been able to quantify them.Ī recent report by the Intelligent Transportation Society of America projects that so-called intelligent transportation systems (ITS) could achieve a 2 to 4 percent reduction in oil consumption and related greenhouse gas emissions each year over the next 10 years as these technologies percolate into the market. Excitement around connected and autonomous vehicles has been building for years with consumers interested in the convenience of never having to touch the steering wheel and governments anticipating significant improvements in road safety. ![]()
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