Volume 3 Number 4 Driverless future -...

The UK’s only ITS and Advanced Traffic Management magazine

Volume 3 Number 4

Driverless futureUPDATING THE PROGRESS OF THE UK’S THREE TRIALS

THE ATKINS INVESTIGATIONSome views from across the Driverless industry

EMISSIONSTimely thoughts on how they can be reduced

WEATHERAs winter hits, how can we keep the roads open and safe?

BIG INTERVIEWMiller Crockart on multinational working, modelling and rugby

http://www.m-vis.co.uk

smartHIGHWAYS Vol 3 No 4 3

FROM THE EDITOR

+ Smart thinking

Ian Patey is Head of Profession, Intelligent Transport at Mouchel Infrastructure [email protected] www.mouchel.com

nce in a while when editing a magazine, a complete fluke happens. And this quarter it’s my turn. It was about a year ago I thought through the subjects to include in this year’s four issues and I thought emissions might be an interesting one to investigate. And just as I began drawing

up my ideas for this issue, the VW scandal hit in the US and the subject became extremely timely, and luckily I had a number of articles on the subject already on their way.

It does bother me some, though, that, although we could only loosely describe the scandal as an example of ITS, it’s another time when technology gets into the headlines for negative reasons, rather than all the positive things the ITS industry delivers. That’s why I was so keen to get some updates on the driverless car development being done here in the UK. They were all launched in a blaze of publicity (and no little “missing the point”) in the mainstream media at the beginning of the year, and now we can find out how they’re coming along, something also looked at by Lee Woodcock in the latest of our excellent Atkins investigations.

I write this on the first day since last winter that I’ve had to scrape ice off the car before heading out this morning. The warm days of summer are a distant memory, so I thought it’s worth us looking at some interesting ways we keep transport moving in challenging weather.

I had a couple of great nights in the German town of Karlsruhe, home of PTV, to talk to Miller Crockart, the subject of our Big Interview. It’s fascinating to hear how Miller firstly became a rugby professional in Japan and then an expert in transport modelling.

I did chat to a number of people at the World Congress in Bordeaux as we launched our new audio service from conferences, which meant that we could spend more time getting to the heart of the issue with speakers, exhibits and delegates of the event. Do take time to read the summary here and also go to our website and have a listen. We’re aiming to do more of these next year, so drop me a line if you want to get involved. The more notice on these, the better – I don’t want to be relying on “flukes” too often!

O

The editor writes about accidental timeliness, catching up on a high-profi le project and our new audio news service

Paul Hutton

“ Why can’t we use Travel Demand Management to

support the easing of congestion throughout the year leading to a gradual but permanent change

in travel behaviour? ”

Editorial AdvisorPaul Hutton ([email protected])

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smartHIGHWAYSVol 3 No 4

Supported by ITS UK

smartHIGHWAYS EDITORIAL BOARD

Nabil Abou-Rahme Director, Transport Technology, Mott MacDonald

Denis Naberezhnykh, Head of Low Carbon Vehicles and ITS Technology at TRL

Sharon Kindleysides, Managing Director, Kapsch UK and former Chairman, ITS (UK)

Lee Woodcock, Technology Director, Atkins Highways and Transportation

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CONTENTS

+ Volume 3 Number 4


06 TOP ITS STORIES• Cubic secures Scotland contract• Telematics prove driver’s innocence• Paragon launches bespoke lorry software

NEWS REVIEW

“ Why can’t we use Travel Demand Management to

support the easing of congestion throughout the year leading to a gradual but permanent change

in travel behaviour? ”

10 BIG INTERVIEWPTV’s Miller Crockart talks rugby and transport modelling

22 THE ATKINS INVESTIGATIONThe future of driverless cars through the eyes of our panel

26 MK DONS A COLLABORATIVE APPROACHThe UK Autodrive project in Milton Keynes and Coventry

28 MEANTIME IN GREENWICHAll about Greenwich’s GATEway project

32 THE ROAD MAP TO DRIVERLESS CARSVENTURER’s Dr John McCarthy on the steps to autonomy

36 DISSENTING VOICEA taxi driver’s view on why we’re too confident about driverless cars

40 WE’RE GONNA DRIVE ON TO ELECTRIC AVENUEHow Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer could revolutionise motoring

43 TESTING TIMES FOR DIESELSharon Kindleysides considers the current emissions scandal

44 TUNNEL VISIONMonitoring and managing emissions in enclosed spaces

46 GIVING EMISSION REDUCTION THE GREEN LIGHTHow Transit Signal Priority can significantly reduce pollution in cities

49 CLEANING THE AIRGreenZone – a way of cutting emissions in city centres

51 EMBED TIME FORECASTThe Met Office on assisting Highways England in coping with bad weather

54 WEATHER WARNINGSUsing temporary ITS to deal with seasonal weather situations

56 WEATHER RIGHTTechnology to accurately monitor conditions on the road

58 THE KEY: GRIPReporting a road’s safety situation in one easy-to-understand number

64 ITS UK NEWS & THE LAST WORDSome thoughts from Bordeaux and ITS in Germany

FEATURES

60 ITS World Congress review62 Highways Magazine Excellence Awards

EVENTS

26 UK AUTODRIVE

10 BIG INTERVIEW

36 CABBIE’S VIEW

51 COPING WITH THE WORST WEATHER

15 JENNIE MARTIN16 STEPHEN LADYMAN 17 DAVID BONN18 MARK PLEYDELL 20 CHRIS MOORE

COLUMNISTS


46 REDUCING POLLUTION IN CITIES

http://www.smarthighways.net

smartHIGHWAYS Vol 3 No 4

NEWS REVIEW

ubic Transportation Systems has been awarded the Traffi c

Scotland Systems Contract by Transport Scotland.

The company says the contract will support the delivery of the Traffi c Scotland functionality on all of the major road construction schemes, delivering a single integrated service of critical Intelligent Transportation Systems infrastructure across Scotland’s trunk road network. The company will partner with IBI Group.

“In my view it’s one of the world’s leading traffi c systems – it covers the whole of road network,” said Cubic ITMS Managing Director Chris Bax. “It’s a very live 24/7 service and we’re working with IBI this

time, previously we worked in partnership with IBI in two separate contracts but going forward it’s a partnership and there’s a whole host of enhancements that Transport Scotland have asked us to do. We’ll work on a vision of Transport Scotland for the next fi ve, ten, 20 years.”

“Traffi c Scotland is a high profi le service delivered by Transport Scotland on behalf of Scottish Ministers. It aims to provide a high quality public service and deliver a safe and reliable trunk road network,” said Hugh Gillies,

Head of Network Operations at Transport Scotland. “The Cubic Transportation Systems bid showed a clear focus on delivery while presenting the best value for the public purse. We look forward to working together to enhance the services that the Traffi c Scotland Service delivers,” he added.

Cubic delivered the core traffi c management system for Transport Scotland in the mid-90s, and has maintained and developed it consistent with technology advances. IBI Group created the infrastructure, including the website, which

delivers traffi c information and a journey time service. The collaboration between Cubic and IBI Group delivers effi ciency and reliability by creating a single integrated system of incident management, traffi c information services, journey time alerts, CCTV systems and data warehousing.

“Our partnership with Cubic is a result of many years of collaboration, and we look forward to continuing to deliver innovative services and solutions to Transport Scotland in the coming years,” said Graeme Scott, Director of IBI Group.

C

06

Cubic renews Traffi c Scotland contract


Remember to keep an eye on the Smart Highways website and Twitter feed for all the big stories affecting ITS in the UK. You can read about product launches, personnel changes and policy announcements, plus research and international matters of importance. And make sure you’re signed up for our weekly email 7 Days in ITS where we summarise the main stories into one place for you. It arrives every Monday morning giving you a professional briefi ng to start your working week. Here are some of the most-clicked stories over the past few weeks:

It says it’s developed advanced algorithms to detect divergent speeds and report traffic conditions on a multiple lane level before a junction. The company adds that, by measuring, detecting, and publishing divergent speeds at junctions on a multiple lane basis, “Split Lane Traffic” (SLT) will contribute significantly to the accuracy of HERE routing and real time traffic services.

HERE believes SLT will transform the industry standard practice of reporting average speeds across lanes. It says SLT will transform the industry because it reports different speeds for different lanes,

which often have pronounced differences in speeds, particularly at major junctions and road splits.

In a white paper, HERE says that with this latest innovation included in real time traffic feeds, SLT will improve the accuracy of estimated arrival times by detecting congestion free routes, for example an off-ramp could be experiencing heavy congestion while the traffic on the same road remains free-flowing.

Once available, SLT will automatically feed into the HERE Real Time Traffic product and can be displayed to drivers.

HERE launches split lane traffi c information

■ There have been two KEY APPOINTMENTS to UK transport bodies. Roy Brannen (far left) has been appointed as the new

Chief Executive of Transport Scotland while Mike Brown MVO

(left) becomes London’s new Transport Commissioner.

NEWS in brief



NEWS REVIEW

A technology entrepreneur has escaped a charge of speeding by using telematics data. The case is the first of its kind and it’s thought it may mean thousands of other motorists could show they were not speeding.

Neil Herron (pictured) was accused of driving his vehicle at 40mph in a 30mph limit on 13th January 2014 at 12.15pm. However, he was trialling a driver safety telematics device at the time, and the data produced indicated that the vehicle speed was way below the 30mph speed limit.

Mr Herron therefore decided to challenge the police evidence in court. He used his legal

expenses policy to support his claim and 19 months later, the Sunderland Magistrates Court found in his favour after the Crown Prosecution Service offered no evidence.

He believes that, as accurate, affordable GPS technology is now being used

by more and more motorists, it is only a matter of time before more and more cases of this type come before the courts.

Mr Herron said “I would not have had any grounds on which to challenge the allegation if I had not had the data from

the device provided by Omnia. Many drivers have faced similar allegations and believed that they were not speeding but had no way of proving it. Now we have created and developed the affordable technology which motorists can use to create driving peace of mind.”


Driver uses telematics device to prove speeding ticket was wrong

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NEWS REVIEW

K software company Paragon says it’s helping

retailers get their products into stores faster by guiding lorry drivers around predicted traffic hot spots and HGV-restricted zones.

Its new system uses pre-set rules to automatically route HGVs clear of major public events and to ensure roads with lorry bans are avoided, lowering the risk of incurring penalty fines.

Paragon Software Systems, the vehicle routing and scheduling software used by retailers such as Sainsbury’s, ASDA and Fullers, is calling the software “a game changer for the transport industry”.

The company says that, when approaching traffic hot spots or a congestion charge zone, most drivers can simply check their Sat Nav and look for the fastest alternative route to their destination, but that lorry drivers are not able to do this because their pre-planned routes are monitored to avoid HGV-restricted zones and physical limitations like low bridges.

Paragon’s Route Control automatically provides drivers with a different set of routes

to avoid congestion caused by large crowds attending events like the Rugby World Cup, Notting Hill Carnival or a Royal Wedding. The company says that even local hot spots are catered for, like schools at child drop-off times, to ensure that deliveries can always be made safely and in the fastest time possible.

“Traffic congestion is a major issue for those delivering goods to our shops and homes,” said William Salter, Paragon’s Managing Director. “Computer software plays a big part in planning the best possible route for each vehicle. However, transport planners spend considerable time amending plans to accommodate conditions that can delay or

even prevent a journey. If a driver doesn’t follow the planned route, then further time needs to be spent working out whether those deviations were legitimate or not.”

Paragon’s Route Control software is set up with details of events using a simple calendar, which can be stored and re-used. Algorithms within the software then calculate the best driver schedules every time. In

addition to major public events, the software can also be used to manage time-related local authority restrictions on HGVs in cities around the world.

“Transport operations that ensure goods are delivered on time are complex,” added Mr Salter. “Creating rules that allow for legitimate deviations from the normal fastest route at specific times by vehicle type reduces the level of manual intervention required by the transport planner, and ensures that the schedule reflects what is actually happening on the roads. After talking to transport and logistics industry players about the challenges they face, our team of software developers has now built the functionality to help them ‘close the gap’.”

08

Paragon launches lorry software

Nine out of ten cars could be removed from cities in the future if Intelligent Transport Systems are properly implemented, according to a report from the International Transport Forum.

It says that, while the share of private cars in urban mobility remains stubbornly high despite heavy investment into public transport systems over the past decades, ITS could be the “game changer” by making public transport responsive to the mobility demands of citizens in real time.

“Our modelling shows that it is possible to take 9 out of 10 cars off city streets if private cars are replaced by shared vehicles. ITS technologies empower us to provide shared mobility with similar levels of fl exibility and travel times as private cars”, said ITF Secretary-General José Viegas.

“If we can organise mobility more effi ciently, that will greatly reduce emissions, air pollution, congestion, accidents and noise.”


U

ITS could mean 9 out of 10 cars taken out of cities

The organisers of October’s World Congress in Melbourne have issued their call for papers.

People and companies who wish to present have until 13th January to submit their ideas.

They say scientifi c papers should concentrate on research and scholarships as they will be independently refereed in accordance with academic journal standards, while technical papers may address the institutional,

business, societal and economic aspects of ITS, as well as technical subjects.

Commercial papers should describe near-market work, be specifi c rather than general and describe an activity aimed

at generating or improving a specifi c product, device or idea for the commercial market. A limited number of Special Interest Sessions will be included in the programme. They’re being organised at the request of organisations or experts developing and deploying ITS, and should be interactive, tailor-made sessions to “delve into topics and offer fresh perspectives and insight”.

Call for papers open for next World Congress■ Smart Highways editorial board member LEE WOODCOCK has launched

a new LinkedIn group about Intelligent

Mobility. He wants to hear from

anyone with an opinion on how we

can apply a combination of systems

thinking, technology and data.

■ Transport data collection specialist SKY HIGH TECHNOLOGY has adopted the

name of its parent group Tracsis plc.

The company, which delivers data

collection projects to a wide range of

sectors in the UK, Australian and

now mainland Europe, says all

other elements of the business

remain unchanged.

NEWS in brief


mailto:[email protected]


BIG INTERVIEW

+ Miller Crockart

QYou’re the fi rst professional rugby player – former or current – that I’ve interviewed since Rory

Underwood signed for Bedford in the 90s, but you plied a lot of your trade in Japan – how on earth did that happen?It’s a bit of a protracted story but my father was the Managing Director of Automobile Peugeot in Japan – sent there to set up Peugeot’s subsidiary based in Tokyo and I’d just finished my A-levels and was playing rugby for Northampton, and I went over to Japan on holiday. Unbeknownst to me my parents presented my exam results and scholastic aptitude tests to a university there, and my parents being quite consummate sales people sold me a vision of what life could be like in Japan. Rugby is now the third biggest sport there, but at that time was the second biggest participatory sport. Scotland’s team was out there on a tour and I got hooked up with them and I met the head of the Japanese Rugby Union, who introduced me to the people there, the heritage, put me into some training with a couple of clubs and I fell in love with it. They’re very honourable people, they love their rugby and my parents had stitched me up with a very good university in Japan and I got accepted to go there.

Having lived in a number of countries before, I just thought this was too unique an opportunity to miss. I got to play rugby which was my passion that I loved, I got to eat my mum’s good food and I got to learn a new culture and a new language at the same time.

Q I was going to ask whether you learnt the new language while you were there… so it wasn’t as though you were a Japanese speaker when you arrived? Not a word. My useage of chopsticks was pretty limited too! Nobody spoke English and we were at the beginning of when expats started going there and we were called Gaijin, which means alien.

My mother was a five-foot-three blond Scottish lady and was treated like a doll and always had people coming up and touching her and looking at her hair. And for me the

Miller Crockart has been Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing of Traffi c Software at PTV Group for three years. However he’s had a varied, and international life, including a period as a professional rugby player in Japan. Paul Hutton travelled to PTV Group’s HQ in Karlsruhe, Germany, to fi nd

out more about this Zimbabwe-born Brit

10 t @SmartHighwaysM | www.smarthighways.net

INTERVIEW BY PAUL HUTTON

Miller right


language was the biggest barrier so for the first year it was really frustrating because you didn’t understand the culture and the reason they did things, without being able to communicate with them properly. I was assigned a “manageress” through the rugby team and her job was to chaperone me. She’d lived in America and helped me understand a bit better, but until about 18 months in when I could start to speak, I found it quite frustrating. But once you get the language, it’s a great language to speak and I still enjoy it.

Q You mentioned living in other countries, so where were you before England and Japan?I was born in Zimbabwe of Scottish parents who did the old ten pound ticket thing after the war, so I grew up there until I was seven when I went to South Africa and lived in Johannesburg, so there was a culture of outdoor sports, cricket and rugby being the main ones, plus Coca Cola and Biltong which was pretty much the way it was. Then Paris before landing up in the UK for my formative years at school.

Q We’re sitting in Karlsruhe in Germany – so having your offi ce in another country is water off a duck’s back to you?I enjoy it. The world is a much smaller place and the world is a richer place for amortising different cultures into how you conduct your life and your business life. So there are parts of me that are African, parts of me that are Japanese and now there are parts of me that are very German as well as being British.

And there’s such a misperception among cultures of other cultures – for example the British have a certain perception of the Germans and vice-versa that is so far from the truth. Yes there’s the stereotype that you may see once in a while but on the whole the British and German cultures have much more in common than they do with the French for example. I enjoy it here. People are very open-minded and very international. They’re maybe not as vocal as other nationalities for example Americans – we’re very timid about our marketing here - but for me there’s so much to shout about, so

many good things happening that it’s nice to be involved in it here.

Q We’ll come onto that in a minute but I just want to fi ll in the blanks between how you got from being a professional rugby player in Japan to being an executive with PTV in Germany.I did very well at University in Japan. I got my degree with honours and the President’s cup for academic and sporting excellence. I really loved it – I was able to study and do my passion and that gave me so many opportunities. I was offered a contract to play rugby for the NEC Corporation and I said I’d play for them but I would also like to serve an apprenticeship with their intelligent switching telecoms division, because I was thinking at that time what would be my life after rugby. I had to wear the uniform and the slippers and the jacket with my name on it and the NEC logo and had to do the exercises at ten o’clock and four o’clock to the music like everyone else. So whilst playing rugby I also translated for NEC R&D engineers talking to BT, New Zealand Telecom, AT&T in America. I had to translate the technical requirements from our customers to our engineers in Japanese and then translate back what our engineers could deliver.

That got me into the technical side of life and I started to enjoy it and thought this is something I could get into.

I got badly injured in a practice match and spent two months in hospital. I had shattered my face – my nose, my top jaw, my lower jaw – I had them all wired and my parents said “listen son, it’s probably time to get a real job now” and I thought they were probably right, so I got a job as the sales manager for what was Westinghouse Signals based in Chippenham in Wiltshire, which involved dealing with train control signalling systems. Very quickly I was asked to open their Hong Kong office at the age of 27 and managing and supporting their operations throughout the region. That got me into the transport and again served a technical apprenticeship in the rail industry. Through that I was sent to Australia

11

BIG INTERVIEW

+ Miller Crockart

Spot the blond European in this Japanese rugby team

smartHIGHWAYS Vol 3 No 4 t @SmartHighwaysM | www.smarthighways.net

“ I got to play rugby which was my passion that I loved, I got to eat my mum’s good food and I got to learn a new culture and a new language at the same time ”



BIG INTERVIEW

+ Miller Crockart

12

to merge with a company called Foxborough and to learn electrification systems for railways. I set up a new division for what ended up being Invensys Rail but soon got poached into transport planning. I was dealing with city and national governments all around the world on railways, and the starting point is always the plan – where do we want the railways, why do we want them there? So I started to get involved in that and it was actually Heidrick and Struggles who approached me for an interesting job which was “we’ve got a guy who’s got a mathematical equation that can show how people will move in a virtual world, and I thought “that’s quite interesting” so I went along and got introduced to the company that became Legion software.

It was very much at the beginning of that company where they had some seed money, they had an idea and a thought that the rail industry was probably the most fertile ground for this product because it had already been done. I talked to my friends in the rail industry around the world and they said if you can get this right then this is exactly what we need.

So that got me into transport planning, that got me into simulation software and I served eight years there as their Head of Business Development where we won a number of marquee contracts, the biggest being with London Underground and that was the beginnings of the microsimulation of pedestrians as a specialism and now it’s increased in size and shape all over the world.

So that got me into this simulation virtual reality world – the biggest player in that of course is PTV Group who’s been doing it for 30 years with a very strong pedigree and of course it’s multi-modal and this is the way things are going in the world and I could see that. It’s not pedestrians alone that construes mobility, it’s pedestrians with bikes, with cars, with trains, with planes – all of them mix and if you want to be looking at that line of business in the future you have to be looking at all those modes of transport and that’s what we can do here at PTV – we’ve got that facility and that software program and programs where we can

look at everything, walking, cycling, cars, autonomous vehicles, and for me that’s where you have to be, so from a scientific transport perspective PTV was the place to come and to ply my trade here.

It’s a great company, it’s got an ethos rather like a rugby team – you’re part of a fraternity and it’s a bit unusual in that regard. We’re not a hire and fire approach to business, we’re a bit more paternalistic – maybe it’s because of the academic background coming out of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) – we’ve continued that, we want a good working environment for our people where it’s innovation rather than worrying “will I be fired tomorrow?”, so it’s quite different from an Anglo-Saxon environment and I enjoy it and maybe that’s the rugby link, it’s about a team of people playing a game together and it’s much more fun that way.

Q You talked about how the Americans shout more than the Germans and the Europeans do, but we’re kind of sitting in the European equivalent of Silicon Valley, the difference is that people here are quietly getting on with things rather than loudly getting on with things…(laughs) It’s a good way of describing it. What I’ve found here is there are companies – there’s one just across the road, I’m looking at the building now, FZI - which is a research institute which is doing some incredible things with

autonomous vehicles. They’re even building some of the moon landing equipment, but you would never know that. I’ve sat here for four years and you slowly learn that there are these little nuggets of gold just sitting around my building alone. There’s Init doing all the stuff for commuter technology, you’ve got Bosch here, and you’ve got a lot of small start-ups that have all created hugely popular technologies but there is this culture in Europe where it’s almost frowned upon to eulogise yourself, sometimes in Europe it’s construed as arrogant where in other countries it’s construed as good marketing and that’s a frustration for me.

I hear a lot of noises coming out of Silicon Valley that they have the latest and greatest solution for everything and we’ve been doing it for the last 30 years! People talk about smart cities or data analytics, well we’ve been doing data analytics for the last 30 years and we have a hugely strong pedigree in that topic – we know what data can be used, what quality there should be, how to fuse different sources, how to clean it and extrapolate it with simulation and prediction. But people are seduced by marketeers who think they’ve come up with the latest whizzy word to use and unfortunately that rather blurs the lines between what’s fact and what’s fiction so customers are being given a bum steer in certain directions when actually, fundamentally, the concept of data analytics is correct but don’t go down a channel that is driven


Miller (right) with new Vice President Traffi c for PTV Group North America, Shaleen Srivastava


BIG INTERVIEW

+ Miller Crockart


by marketeers, go down one driven by a scientist or an academic that’s created something smart and has been commercialised properly to deliver a solution that can actually bring benefit on the ground. That for us the challenge from a marketing perspective is to stand up now for the silicon valley of Europe which is here. We’ll be more vocal but we’ll do it on fact rather than the latest buzzwords.

Q For those that don’t know, just give a brief history of PTV and the fact that, as far as I understand it, a research project by a couple of students here that has grown into a multinational worldwide company with its own campus here with 400 staff running around beautiful, modern buildings…It’s a sense of pride for us. It’s like what I love about the sense of heritage and pride when you play rugby – when you play for the All Blacks there’s the heritage of the All Blacks and with PTV when you join it’s a badge of honour because one of my Managing Directors in the Middle East, Tom Schwertwigger is one of the original fathers of this company in 1979. You’re right, they were students at KIT and the Operational Research mathematics guys and girls they had the vision to create algorithms that will replicate the behaviour of vehicles on the roads, look at everything from demand modelling right through to microsimulation. Those groups of guys and girls got their heads down, developed those algorithms, commercialised them.

One of the things we have here is that we believe strongly that we want to create an environment where it’s innovation and trust in the sense that there are managers but everybody has an influence on the business so that developers should be able to feel comfortable sitting in the campus area. It’s really about giving people a sense of opportunity and innovation, and they can walk in the gym and be standing next to the CEO and he’s on the treadmill and they’re on the bike and they can have a proper conversation and it breaks down the barriers. We want all of our employees to come in in the morning and go “I’m going to do something great today”.

We’re in the situation where we’re fortunate to want and need more people and we’re looking for people from around the world to join us, not just in Karlsruhe but we’re opening subsidiaries all around the world.

Q Looking at the people you’ve got, it makes me smile that it doesn’t matter where software developers are in the world, they all appear to look the same, as in having strange haircuts and death metal t-shirts.(laughs again) We all come in different shapes and sizes – you’ve got a British bulldog who’s Vice President of Sales and then you’ve got a guy who likes SimCity, he probably likes Assassins’ Creed. We’ve got some of the guys who are actually developing immersive technology so they have 3D goggles with our microsimulation technology so they can dive into the models and that comes from their playing of video games, so they’ve imported the passion of their home lives and they’ve brought that to their business environment and we’ve thought “fantastic – more of this, do more”.

Q What must have changed since PTV started is the availability of the data. Now everybody rabbits on about “big data” yet PTV have been doing that since before big data was even imagined let alone ever delivered. What has changed with the wider availability of data?The profusion of sources of data is the big thing and people have cottoned on to the fact that what was previously construed as data with no value can now be commercialised. The mobile phone companies sold their services to people, now they realise they can track the movement. The granularity might not be perfect but it is improving and they’re doing a good job of that. So we can work well with their data to work on origin and destination but also optimisation of route choices and we can see the wider implications of that. We see the profusion of these sources of data and we can fuse these multiple sources, we can extrapolate that and look at scenarios and clean up the data to give high quality. We’re not seeking to use one source but use multiple

ones. And we’ve always used what we call open source protocols, we want to be available to and to work with as many people as possible and that’s what makes us attractive, we’re not a one trick pony. We’re happy to talk to the mobile phone provider, the wifi provider, the GPS providers of course, detector loops – it’s all available to us to work with and we’ve got people who’ve been doing this for a very long number of years. And we work well with the data providers because we also give them good feedback so we’ve had a number who work with us very closely and we talk to them on a daily basis – can you improve this – and to give them all credit, they’re doing it.

Q When you’re talking about prediction are you talking about “I’m a controller in a town, there are four main roads in and out, an accident happens on one road and so predict what’s going to happen in the next half hour and how do I mitigate the worst of it, or is it I’m in a town council and I’m planning a new supermarket, what’s the effect in fi ve years’ time?It’s both of these things. To give you an example I sit on the Corporate Partner Board of the OECD, and to put it into context the CPB is made up


Miller Crockart in mid-fl ow during a presentation

“ Every city in the world should have to look at its demand plans and its investment plans, things are going to radically alter with these disruptive technologies ”



BIG INTERVIEW

+ Miller Crockart

14

of some of the biggest companies in the world – Ford, Google, Uber, Volvo, Nissan, Exxon Mobile, Michelin, and our job is to help educate Ministers of Transport about what’s going to happen in the future.

We looked at the demand on cities if we introduced autonomous vehicles. We looked at a medium-sized town and asked what would happen if we replaced all the trips that were taken with shared autonomous vehicles and high-capacity public transport and the numbers that we were coming out with were incredible – if we looked at a 24-hour period we could undertake all the trips with only ten per cent of the vehicles and even in the peak hours we would only need 35 per cent of the vehicles currently on the road to facilitate all those trips so that sets a macroscopic perspective on what the future can hold.

Of course there’s a transitionary period to get to that and that’s where everyone has to start planning for that so every city in the world should have to look at its demand plans and its investment plans, things are going to radically alter with these disruptive technologies coming through. We’ve built 30 year models based on the combustion engine and Mr and Mrs Smith driving their vehicle, well that’s not going to be the way it is in 30 years’ time – it’s not.

Uber, the Lyfts, they’re already here, autonomous vehicles, they’re here – I sat in one the other day and the manufacturers are full steam ahead, that won’t change. The transitionary period might take a lot longer because there’s regulation, that needs to be put in place, there’s the liability issue but we’re talking about that at the OECD level so when you’re talking about it, it’s not that far away from saying “plug it in, here it goes”.

If we look at what’s happening in real time right now and I’m a traffic management control centre in London or Birmingham and I see there’s an accident and I can do real time prediction and impact assessment and I can send that information to optimise people’s route choice based on avoiding the accident and I can keep the network operative as a result of that, that’s also feasible today and

we’ve got eleven systems like that working or in development around the world now.

If you can extrapolate that on, just imagine you have a traffic control centre and they’re optimising signal controls to keep the network flowing but also sending the information to in-car navigation systems and to fleet, bus, taxi operators plus the DHLs and TNTs of this world – it’s the data that’s fusing all that together. What stands in the way is that everyone has their vested interest - do DHL or TNT want to share their data?

Actually if they want to get their vehicles through the traffic quicker through an optimised route where we can help them save petrol, save CO2 emissions and all these other things, it’s a social good and they should do that.

Q Is what we’ve talked about – autonomous vehicles, shared mobility –is that the next big thing?I think it’s all connected. Don’t underestimate the potential of the shared economy. It will change the traffic patterns on the road, shared vehicles, but there’s shared wifi space, we’re even looking at how we as a company enter into the shared economy by how we licence our software. And the autonomous vehicles is another topic that’s coming along and it’ll become the standard methodology of public transport that

I don’t own a vehicle but have access to one. So people can’t any longer be naysayers the only thing is, and where PTV plays a very strong part, we have to model the transitory process to how to we get to this state and how do we migrate to that? We’re working with city governments but also with manufacturers where we have their autonomous vehicle algorithms for the behavioural patterns and we’re modelling and simulating that to look at what we have to balance out for vehicle versus pedestrian and how that works.

If you ask the next big topic, it’s streaming data directly into PTV, movement of everything, goods, people and us pumping out real time data.

Q And my fi nal question regarding prediction… could anyone have predicted Japan would beat South Africa in the World Cup?(Again he laughs and his face lights up) I have a lot of friends in both countries and family still in South Africa, it may sound strange but it was one of the proudest days of watching a rugby game I’ve ever had because I know all about the preparation and blood sweat and tears and for 80 minutes I lived vicariously through that team. Their supporters were in tears and those were tears of joy, it was fantastic. No it couldn’t be predicted but don’t be surprised by it!


Miller Crockart is convinced autonomous cars are the future

“ We’ve built 30 year models based on the combustion engine and Mr and Mrs Smith driving their vehicle, well that’s not going to be the way it is in 30 years’ time ”


THE VIEW

+ ITS UK

t has to be admitted, the world of ITS loves a buzz phrase and a passing fad, especially if it can be turned into an acronym to throw out at

meetings to signal just how up to date you are (extra points if other attendees look blank).

Being cautiously aware of this, it does still seem as if real change is underway in our sector. It started with Smart Cities, carried on through Big Data, and now most recently showed up in Mobility as a Service (MaaS). If you look away from the acronyms and the artful capitalisation, underneath is something potentially game changing – ITS within reach of their proper potential, some 30 years into its existence. If people come of age at 21, ITS are a little late, but it looks as if maturity is now on the horizon.

ITS, the use of technology, communications and information to deliver informed and efficient mobility and transport, changed the transport landscape when they first arrived. Computerised traffic signals, automated traffic violation enforcement, magnetic stripe public transport tickets which could operate unmanned gates, satellite navigation for ordinary drivers - looking back each was quite revolutionary in its own way, and changed not just travelling but the many aspects of human life which depend on travelling. Not of course forgetting goods transport, where telematics systems achieved similar step changes.

It did not take long for pioneering practitioners to start to link components together – the UK Department for Transport’s UTMC initiative from the 1990s being an excellent early example, and smartcard ticketing covering more than one service or operator is another from the early years.

But now, another fifteen years on, we are seriously looking at using ITS to create one “transport” – no more buying a car, hiring a bicycle, hailing a taxi and renewing a season ticket.

The Mobility as a Service (MaaS) concept, first named and keenly promoted by Finnish professionals and particularly centred on Helsinki, fits in with Smart City thinking, relies on big data analytics for successful service design and implementation, and even sits well with autonomous vehicles, whatever their future role in our transport services.

MaaS is still at a conceptual stage but the principles

seem fairly stable. To summarise, the idea is that ownership is almost removed from the transport

user’s role. No more owning a car, a bit of real estate to keep said car, a bicycle, a season

ticket or any other “thing” needed to achieve mobility.

Instead, the user enters into a contract with a service provider, who aggregates transport services and offers them as a package: access to cars and

vans of different types, all public transport services, city bikes, taxi services, flights

and so on. The service could be pay-as-you-go, or a contract for a certain number and types

of transport services. I might like to get a discount by pre-paying for a year of limitless public transport use, six uses of a car and six of a small van, twenty European flights and two taxi trips for those unexpected disasters.

There is a lot of excitement and buzz about MaaS right now. ERTICO-ITS Europe has set up the MaaS alliance to be an open forum for everybody who is interested. The MaaS alliance launched at the ITS World Congress in Bordeaux in early October, and a month later has more than twenty partners signed up, including ourselves.

Like autonomous vehicles, MaaS is not the answer to every transport question, despite the impression given by some evangelists. In large cities, it has real potential to be a game changer. If vehicle ownership is designed out by the creation of comprehensive, convenient and reliable MaaS packages, then a lot of street and off street space becomes available for other use, as the MaaS cars and vans will be in use nearly all the time, not parked up for most of their existence, and as public transport and taxis become easier to use the total number of vehicles in circulation would reduce.

But outside large cities, it is hard to see how MaaS can be a viable alternative to owning a car. There is not enough demand to run public transport services frequently (or late or early) enough to provide the mobility people need, and needing to wait a couple of hours for a pool car or taxi will rarely be convenient.

There are exciting and truly innovative developments underway in how we access the mobility services we need. But still no silver bullet, one size fits all solution, and there never will be. Or at least I will not live long enough to be proved wrong on that last statement.

I

ITS (UK)’s Secretary General is excited aboutthe industry’s latest buzz phrase

Jennie Martin


Jennie Martin is Secretary General of ITS (UK)[email protected]

“ Ownership is almost removed from the

transport user’s role ”

smartHIGHWAYS Vol 3 No 4 15t @SmartHighwaysM | www.smarthighways.net

mailto:[email protected]://www.smarthighways.net

THE VIEW

+ What the customer wants


ometimes you think you are the only one that is thinking something. Then someone puts the thought into words and it turns out everyone has been thinking it too. That is what happened at a recent ITS (UK)

meeting when someone asked, ‘What’s the point of the driverless car?’

I can see how Google justify their involvement in the development of driverless cars and the business case for the folk who plan to make and sell driverless vehicles is obvious, but what advantage do they offer highways managers, councils or Joe Public?

They will only be as green as their method of propulsion so the carbon output of a driverless car will be the same as a ‘driven’ car with the same engine type. The proposition that they will be safer than driven cars is based on an assumption, not an evidenced fact, and while they have to mix with cyclists, driven vehicles and pedestrians, it may not be the case.

They take up the same space on the roads as driven cars and early tests suggest that to ensure human passengers are comfortable they have to be programmed to keep the same distances between vehicles as driven cars, with the same braking and acceleration patterns, so they won’t significantly reduce congestion. Indeed they may even increase it as some commentators suggest that driverless cabs will not park but drive constantly around the roads until directed to a waiting client.

What we can be sure of is the impact they will have on the economy and employment. Taxi drivers will be the first to see employment fall, then van drivers, next will be bus drivers and eventually lorry drivers. I know one bus company that is involved with research into driverless vehicles has assured its workforce it has no intention of ever introducing driverless buses but if that is not an option, why be involved at all? How many people, who drive for a living delivering people or goods, might eventually find themselves looking for work?

Of course, progress is inevitable. King Canute sat on the shore to prove to his followers that no earthly King could control the waves and its just as certain that no earthly government can stop the development of the driverless vehicle, but would it not be a good idea to start

planning for the consequences? The Luddites could not stop industrialisation by destroying power looms but the industrial revolution ultimately created more jobs by increasing production, boosting demand and creating new types of employment but there is no reason to believe driverless cars will do the same since they might be replacing driven vehicles without increasing the efficiency of the road network or the productivity of the workforce.

I don’t suggest that we should stop the development of driverless vehicles – the domination of road traffic by driverless vehicles is almost certainly inevitable and all that is in doubt is the time scale. I only offer the advice that the implementation of them needs to be planned and thought about, not left to those who benefit commercially from their introduction. Local and national politicians, communities, trade unions, trade groups and highways managers need

to get their thinking caps on and recognise that the early implementation of driverless vehicles will not be a universal benefit.

In the meantime, should our efforts in the near and middle term not be more focussed on technology that does improve the efficiency of the road network? Congestion costs the economy at least £4billion per year and some

estimates put the cost as high as £15billion per year, so solutions that address that issue would ultimately increase GDP, living standards and generate jobs now.

Real time management of the entire road network based on widespread traffic monitoring and using evidence-based models to synchronise traffic signals, control speed limits, implement ramp metering and prioritise bus routes could make serious inroads into the economic cost of congestion and deliver benefits that far outweigh almost anything else that is planned to boost the economy.

This is technology that is available today and which can be introduced over time as funding becomes available. More than that it can be leveraged. Make the data available to anyone and ‘app’ makers will use it to build tools that empower road users to make better decisions. An empowered public that can make the best choice of route, start time for their journey and modality will become willing partners in the overall task of spreading demand and reducing congestion.

S

The former Transport Minister asks ifdriverless cars are the Emperor’s New Clothes

16

Dr Stephen Ladyman

“ The industrial revolution ultimately created more jobs by increasing production, boosting demand and creating new types of employment but there is no

reason to believe driverless cars will do the same ”

Dr Stephen Ladyman was the UK Minister of State for Transport between 2005-7. Today he is the Smart City Ambassador for the Clearview Traffi c Group. He can be contacted at stephen.ladyman@clearviewtraffi c.com

and Clearview Traffi c can be contacted at 01869 362800


http://[email protected]


THE VIEW

+ In my experience...


t has long been recognised that dynamically managing the flow and/or volume of traffic in certain locations can improve air quality

in these locations. Was this analysis based on the data provided by vehicle manufacturers – the same data that now may well be suspect? Fortunately I know that independent measurements were taken to prove the impact traffic behaviour has on air quality so I believe the results of the data analysis. However, to be able to dynamically manage traffic behaviour to improve the overall air quality remains a challenge for traffic managers today. We have not yet seen wide-scale deployment of air quality measuring devices and only a few pilot schemes have been deployed to dynamically manage air quality in city centres.

What about the pedestrian and cyclist who travels through those same locations where the air quality is poor, and usually at a lower speed? How do we inform the pedestrians and the cyclists that they should avoid these areas of bad air quality? Initially, we clearly need a reasonable density of measuring devices combined with roadside display panels displaying not only the air quality measurements, good or bad, but alternative routes to take people through those locations where the air quality is within acceptable levels.

With the improved availability of air quality measurements, traffic managers will then be able to make informed decisions to determine if vehicles should have the journey speeds altered or even diverted away from the worst affected locations. Going forward, factors that affect air quality will be better understood if all the related data is available for analysis within a single data storage facility. This would include data on speed/flow, vehicle composition and weather. Is this an application for connected cars where they act as the data probe ie mobile air quality measuring devices with the data transmitted back to a central location in near real-time for immediate analysis?

There are an increasing number of route guidance apps available that embrace multi-modal journeys. Indeed the addition of real-time elements into these applications has long been a highly desired prize. Imagine the popularity of a multi-modal route guidance application which has

air quality as one of the route-affecting parameters! If this facility was provided,

how many people would voluntarily take an alternative route despite being informed their journey would be longer or more expensive to avoid an area of bad air quality? Should transport departments pay for the technology

to provide this information even if the uptake is very low?If we provided information on a vehicle’s

dashboard indicating the actual impact that vehicle was having on air quality do we think the driver’s

behaviour would change? Some confusion exists as drivers don’t know what elements of a vehicle’s emissions are having the most detrimental impact on the health of the

nation. Any information presented on a vehicle dashboard would need to be backed up by a publicity campaign to inform drivers what to look out for.

Implementing emission monitoring capability within each vehicle would add to the cost but it would enable vehicle buyers to base

their purchase selection on the declared emissions. In light of recent revelations within the car industry can we trust the car manufacturers to instrument vehicles and to display data we can trust? Perhaps we need some independent validation of the accuracy of the devices and the software that displays it on the dashboard. All of this will add to the cost of the car but will it lead to improved air quality if drivers don’t change their behaviours?

Clearly improving air quality should be a high priority on all government environmental agendas and government needs to be the ones who drive change in the automotive industry to support that agenda. Whether that is through funding the development of improved measuring or better still improved emissions from engines, by funding a greater density of measurement points or by legislating improved provision of emission data something needs to be done soon.

In addition, transport departments need to be supported financially to take active decisions relative to the air quality within known bad spots within their town or city. There won’t be an instant change but over time improvements can be made and the improvement on the nation’s health will deliver a return on that investment.

IDavid considers how we manage the impact of emissions

David Bonn

“ Imagine the popularity of a multi-modal route guidance

application which has air quality as one of the route-affecting

parameters! ”

David Bonn is a Director of Bonn Business Solutions Limited based in Glasgow.

[email protected]. Bonnbusinesssolutions.co.uk


mailto:[email protected]://www.smarthighways.nethttp://www.bonnbusinesssolutions.co.uk

THE VIEW

+ From the engineer...


ere you to go back into the trade press and media about five years then you might well have noticed the acronym AQMA appearing regularly. I happily recall Professor Margaret Bell CBE of Newcastle University attending

the JCT symposium in Nottingham and in her inimitable enthusiastic style delivering papers with huge insight into the subject. Now maybe I just don’t spend enough time keeping up with the media, but it had seemed to me that those four letters seemed to have gone out of fashion, so when I heard them twice, (thank you Martin & Richard) in the last couple of weeks I took notice.

Air Quality Management Areas – those areas under local authority control (and where isn’t?) where that authority has good reason to think that the national air quality objectives will not be met.

Air quality nationally is the responsibility of DEFRA and their web pages (http://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/aqma/maps) make interesting viewing. The downloadable list of AQMAs declared, modified runs to 768 entries with the earliest I found dating to March 1999. This does include some modifications and, thankfully, about 20 per cent that have subsequently been revoked. Will those Authorities please let us know how they achieved this (Hindhead’s approach was perhaps a bit extreme)? For all that, there still remain some 500 odd sites scattered liberally across the UK where breathing can be an unhealthy activity. I notice that these include the New Forest and the Highlands of Scotland – although to be fair to both, these authorities do contain built up areas and it is in these that they have problems – think of summer tourist traffic.

The Air Quality thresholds are part of a binding European agreement (so would/should we have had AQMAs were we not part of the EU?) and the UK’s failure to meet them is resulting in fines (up to £300M pa) which are/will inevitably flow down to both local authorities and ultimately us as tax payers. The health consequences of polluted air have been widely discussed and their economic and social cost are huge.

But what of these AQMAs – where are they, what is it about certain places that makes them into AQMAs? A clue is found in Hindhead’s AQMA, declared in August 2007 and revoked in February 2015 – notably a while after the tunnel on the A3 opened. But not every location can be bypassed, some are truly destinations. So the DEFRA list can be split into two

groups; those like Wakefield’s M1, M62 and A1 AQMAs relating to corridors through their territory over which they have relatively little control, and those like West Berkshire’s Newbury AQMA, which generically covers the town. And if you have a role in any of the Authorities mentioned above please don’t take exception, I just happened to be in the ‘W’ section of the DEFRA list while I wrote this. It applies equally across the alphabet.

The problem then is relatively simply described - if there are too many sources of pollutants gathered together for too long in too confined a space then the rate at which the pollutants are formed exceeds the rate at which they are

broken down, washed out of the atmosphere or otherwise disposed of, and the levels build up. (I decline to mention any specific brand of vehicle regardless of how timely the cheating revelations are, as I would be surprised to find they are alone.)

Transport continues to be a major source of the three pollutants (the generic NOx or nitrogen oxides, PM10 and SO2, sulphur dioxide) to which limits apply and that will lead to an AQMA.

As traffic engineers I think we tend to feel awkward about this subject, we know that we have the tools to help, but feel that we don’t get joined up enough with the air quality measuring people who could tell us more about when and perhaps why.

And this column? Just an opportunity to remind you that this problem, one of many we face, affects us all, is still there and still needs our attention.

W

Mark discusses some initials that are suddenly, rather unsurprisingly, being talked about again…

18

Mark Pleydell


“ The health consequences of polluted air have been widely discussed and their economic

and social cost are huge ”

Mark Pleydell is owner of Pleydell Technology Consulting Ltd, drawing on 18 years of practice in the traffi c industry. [email protected]


http://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/aqma/mapsmailto:[email protected]://www.smarthighways.net

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THE VIEW

+ Socially speaking


he heartbeat of every form of media is content, the “stuff” that we create, craft and publish in print

or digitally. You will have surely heard the oft repeated phrase “content is King” and never has that been truer than in the world of Social Communication.

So, are You Content With Your Content?It’s a question worth asking yourself, as part of your main

Social Media strategy sessions or as a regular housekeeping function. Whatever you are publishing, whether it’s text, photos, videos, other visuals, a mixture of everything, it is all content.

I’ve put together a small checklist that may help you to assess your current content.

1) IS YOUR CONTENT SUITABLE FOR THE PLATFORM IT’S ONYou may have a handful of social outlets for your business, each one will require a different approach. Twitter gives you the chance to create short to the point tweets which grab attention or point your follower to another location (your website, other social channel or link to content you want to share). Facebook helps you to go into more depth with the opportunity to add a visual to your status and to start conversation threads with your fans and customers. Pinterest is an excellent way of curating quality visuals as well as being able to provide links to other sites and content. Instagram is more “in the moment” and may suit your business perfectly.

2) DON’T BE AFRAID TO TRY SOMETHING NEWYou may have settled on a few platforms with which you are happy but something new will come along. If you think a new platform that one of your staff or your Consultant suggests might work, try it. You have nothing to lose. If it takes off you can add it to your social portfolio to strengthen your digital toolkit.

3) THINK FOR A MINUTEWhen you’ve created some content, stop for a moment and listen for the voice in your head. Sometimes it will ask you. “Do you think that’s suitable content?” In my experience if you have to stop and think about publishing content then you probably shouldn’t. That little voice in your head is nearly always right.

4) BE HUMANIt’s okay to use your social media platforms to give your business a human face and personality; in fact that’s what they’re great for. Of course you have to strike the right tone but you should

know what that is. It may take a little practice at first but it will pay dividends. People expect their social media interaction to be personable and human; the businesses who are using social most effectively understand this.

5) KNOW WHAT WORKS FOR YOUIf you are on top of your social analysis and metrics then you will know the types of content which give you the best engagement. You will be able to discover the times and days when your content ignites and this information will help you plan your content creation and publication each week. Of course the beauty of social media is being spontaneous but having a catalogue of detailed analysis will be the backbone to your function.

6) IS YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE GOLD STANDARD?Your social platforms will now be the first port of call for many of your customers or clients if they have a problem. It is so much easier to post a Facebook comment than search out a website for a contact number or e-mail address. I’ve always maintained that “Gold Standard” customer service shouldn’t be a target, it should be the norm. It is so easy to use your social media outlets to provide excellent customer service and that doesn’t mean waiting for something to go wrong before you engage and interact. Just saying “thank you” when you get a positive comment will mean more to your customer than you think.

7) IS YOUR AUDIENCE CONTENT WITH YOUR CONTENT?If your followers, fans and customers are not getting enough from your content to engage with it then that’s all you need to know that your content strategy is not working. Social is sometimes hit and miss and it takes time to find your voice. The big advantage about social media broadcasting is that if a piece of content doesn’t work for you, take note, understand the reasons why and try something else.

8) BE TOPICALIf your social media strategy includes a content calendar then you won’t miss opportunities to tie in topical issues or events to your business. I feel that businesses and organisations whose social content shows their followers that they are tapping into relevant issues and stories stand out from the crowd. Of course that same approach also increases the amount of content you can create for your platforms. Oh, and if your social media strategy doesn’t include content calendar, it really should.

TOur social media pioneer asks “are you content with your content?”

20

Chris Moore


Chris Moore is the founder of Social Media Solutions

www.chrismooremedia.co.uk

“ It is so much easier to post a Facebook comment than search

out a website for a contact number or e-mail address ”


http://www.chrismooremedia.co.ukhttp://www.smarthighways.net

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THE INVESTIGATION

+ Getting to the core of the issue

he deployment of Connected and Autonomous Vehicle (CAV) capability has considerable

ramifications on the wider transport sector and on cities and communities in general. Key questions that must be addressed relate to the infrastructure investment needed, the data and intelligence that can be garnered for a transport operator, and how CAV is one piece of the Smart City puzzle.

To get a wider perspective, Lee Woodcock of Atkins talked to Chris Jackson, a Partner at the legal firm Burgess Salmon, which, among other things has specialists in the CAV field, Katrien Hermans, Business Development Manager at Williams F1 which through its motor racing is at the cutting edge of automotive technology, and experts at the Government’s Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles, the CCAV.

Lee Woodcock What is the compelling case for Britain to adopt CAVs and how do you sell this to the public? Do you sell all the benefi ts or focus on one or two (ie safety, inclusivity, effi ciency)? Have we even yet made the case to push forward with this technology? CCAV There are real and significant benefits for government, industry and the wider public in adopting CAV technologies. In a society challenged

TAt the end of the day CAV

technologies are more than just the latest technological development but something which is likely to transform the way we approach and understand getting people and goods from one place to another.

Chris Jackson There are two compelling cases and they come from very different ends of the spectrum: The first is inclusion – empowering and enabling transport for groups who are currently excluded or heavily disadvantaged in transport and therefore in their options. The second is the economic case – Intelligent Mobility is a market predicted to grow to an annual value of £900bn globally by 2025 and CAVs will be a significant part of that. The UK has a choice (but that choice will swiftly evaporate) on whether to be a leader/seller or a buyer/follower in that market. It is rightly pushing for the first choice.The safety arguments are logical and real - but will not widely persuade. Road users - particularly drivers – currently accept greater levels of objective risk from vehicles than in other areas of life or modes. Risk perception is subjective – not linear.

Katrien Hermans The regulations for testing autonomous vehicles in the UK (as opposed to the eg US) are very favourable, so this is an

INVESTIGATION BY LEE WOODCOCK

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Roads of the future? THE INVESTIGATION

by increasing urbanisation, congestion and an ageing population, connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) offer a range of potentially vital solutions.

The short answer is that different benefits will appeal to different sectors of society and that we in government will have to tailor our messages for each of these “publics”. We must also take the public with us on this journey and have open discussions about the benefits and trade-offs that these revolutionary new technologies suggest.

That being said, it is important for government to prioritise the benefits, secure the value for the UK and ensure a clear and consistent message. The most important benefits are undoubtedly the life-saving and life-changing potential CAVs could bring. These technologies could bring mobility to those who haven’t previously been able to drive (physically or financially) or are at risk of losing access to mobility, such as the elderly. Currently, around 1.25m people are killed on the world’s roads every year and human error is the cause of more than 90 per cent of traffic accidents. Automated driving features are already demonstrating significant safety benefits, eg automatic emergency braking, with insurers reporting sharp declines in accidents and injuries in vehicles fitted with this automated function.


Lee Woodcock asks, how will connectivity and automation change the way we travel?



opportunity the UK should exploit. As an organisation, Williams currently focuses on the testing and safety aspect of autonomous vehicles. We believe that testing is the first pillar towards adoption of CAVs. But there is a big learning curve in this space. No one can fully predict which way this technology will take us and what the future pinch points are. A lot of this information will become clear during testing. This is why the validation/testing phase is so important - it is the period in which the right mistakes will need to be made.

Lee One of the issues is that there are several different types of person who make up the “public” - how do you cater for the young non-driver at one end, the elderly person at the other and the petrolhead in the middle? CCAV It is essential that government and industry understand what is important to the public and their travel needs. The Traveller Needs and UK Capability Study [https://ts.catapult.org.uk/traveller-needs-and-uk-capability-study], jointly funded by Innovate UK, the Department for Transport, and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, provides insight into how different kinds of UK traveller experience their journeys and what they value most as part of those journeys.

In addition one area of focus in each of the three, ongoing driverless car trials is to establish how autonomous vehicles interact with the public, whether the vehicles serve their intended purpose and what unexpected insights and new business models may be identified.

Katrien One of the big advantages CAVs will bring is that population groups that would otherwise be dependent on public transport, will be able to drive autonomous vehicles (disabled, teenagers, elderly etc). However, it will be a challenge to satisfy all population groups with just one design – just as is the case with manual vehicles. But shifting to CAVs will always come with giving up some level of control - and driving for the thrill of it won’t be a big part of the CAV’s proposition.

Chris As with any significant change, one step at a time toward, then beyond, a tipping point. All groups have different reactions. Early adopters will pave the way. These are likely to be the young and the currently disadvantaged in transport terms. Economically however those groups may have comparatively less economic leverage so the business case and change management route map will need to recognise and work with that reality.

Lee Have we even yet made the case to push forward with this technology? Chris To those to whom it is visible we have very strongly. But to society, not yet. There needs to be societal acceptance of the need based on the points of greatest persuasion and also trust in the robustness of the solutions. There also needs to be realism that (as with telematics based insurance) the downside in terms of loss of driver

autonomy will drive resistance from the large, and economically influential market segments, namely adult drivers. Logic alone will not be enough.

Katrien Another important part of testing is making sure CAVs deliver the benefits they have set out to deliver. Simulation is crucial in this context. We need to make sure as many scenarios as possible are simulated to anticipate human reactions, reactions of other CAVs etc. Simulation can also teach us a lot about physical design and its benefits. Should the CAV have a steering wheel? Should the passengers be facing traffic? And so on. Most importantly, testing can help take away people’s prejudice.

When it comes to society adapting to autonomous vehicles – again - a lot can be learned from the adoption process of other technologies like mobile phones and computers. There will always be early adopter markets and tech savvy users who are more eager to welcome change.

Going straight to Stage Five (full automation) is a risk, but it gives Google the advantage of being able to build a monopoly in the ‘fully autonomous’ space. The disadvantage is that they will have to deal with the inevitable legal issues and teething issues. My view is that different OEMs will carve out their own ‘niche’ when it comes to CAVs – whether it is going fully autonomous or focus on driver assist.

Lee How can we make sure we do deliver the benefi ts? Chris By clarity of thinking and realism. Also persistence through set-backs. The amount of change over 2-5 years tends to be over-estimated; over 10-15 years under-estimated. CCAV There are a number of benefits to be realised from the adoption of CAV technologies but we can’t do them all. We need to target our efforts in a small number of areas which will deliver long-term, sustainable social and economic value for the UK. We have taken the first steps through the creation of the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV), our collaborative R&D competitions, and the Traveller Needs Study.

Contributors in this article write on their own behalf and not on behalf of Atkins. Editorial control remains with Smart Highways

23

ABOUT THE ATKINS INVESTIGATION

ATKINS IS A COMPANY which will always work for its clients to understand the issues involved and provides expertise, answers and ideas in ITS, and now more recently in Smart Cities and Intelligent Mobility. Delivering an appropriate and sustainable transportation network for the 21st century is an exciting challenge. Atkins is committed to planning, designing and enabling our clients’ transportation programmes.

Atkins has a proven track record of successfully planning, designing and enabling urban transport and environmental improvements across all scales of developments. Successful transport strategies examine the journeys that people need to make in all aspects of their lives and provide realistic travel options. The services provided to clients range from strategic policy advice and performance management, through all aspects of demand forecasting, behavioural analysis, to accessibility, transport for land development, streetscapes and traffi c engineering design.

Atkins supports the Atkins Investigation in Smart Highways because the investigation, like Atkins, gets to the heart of an issue in order to understand it, and then utilise the knowledge and understanding to help its clients translate and navigate diffi cult issues in order for them make the right decisions safe in the knowledge they have the facts.


https://ts.catapult.org.uk/traveller-needs-and-uk-capability-studyhttps://ts.catapult.org.uk/traveller-needs-and-uk-capability-study]https://ts.catapult.org.uk/traveller-needs-and-uk-capability-study]http://www.smarthighways.net


+ Getting to the core of the issue

debates of the decade.

Lee There’s a lot of talk about the legal hurdles to overcome, while insurance companies will have to change their models too. What are the biggest challenges and are some of the things people think are going to be diffi cult really as bad as they’re made out? Chris The legal and insurance position can be dealt with by clarity of thought and realism. It has the potential to be either an enabler or a blocker.Insurance is the business of pricing risk. The industry has been flexible in adapting to pricing different risks as society and technology changes over the centuries and, led by the most innovative strategic providers in the insurance market, that will continue. The law can be a more cautious animal. Both the civil (compensation) and criminal (punitive) streams will need to change. The main areas are:■ The liability regime – currently all is based on a fault based driver oriented model. CAV requires a move to a product based and more strict liability (fault less relevant) based model.■ Human factors mean also that we will not be able to maintain in the medium term a fiction of a disengaged individual “ready” to take back control. That is a necessary but ultimately unsustainable short-term fix.■ Data use and protection – including cyber security and data protection.■ Safety Law, Intellectual property and the tense dichotomy between standardisation, innovation and IP exploitation by providers.■ Procurement and State Aid (given the likely balance of funding during early phases).

■ Competition law – with some hard choices in the post sale market on service to be made.■ Road Traffic and Insurance Regulatory requirements.

Some of the changes can be made nationally and a number will require international approaches.

CCAV Cybersecurity is one of the biggest challenges for the development of these technologies and we in government are determined that CAVs are safe and secure by design. Security of personal data is particularly important but we need to work with industry and the various sectors of society to ensure that we can securely use enough data to achieve the significant benefits of CAV technologies in safety, air quality, network congestion, seamless journeys, and so on. This is an important societal debate and we must manage the risk proactively rather than avoid and react to it. We are making a start but there is much to do.

Lee With Britain having three separate trials, and other countries working on the technol

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