users. The requirements for urban, inter- urban and rural networks will be very different as will the economics of entry across diverse segments of society and geography.
ANTICIPATING THE FUTURE In the short term it’s conceivable that tra- ditional infrastructure (copper/fibre net- works linking roadside devices) could be replaced by more ‘open’ networks (wire- less/fibre) with less roadside infrastructure and more reliance on crowd sourced data and broadcast channels. These backbones will perhaps facilitate the emergence of V2I and V2V technologies and in time, partial and full autonomy. Presently, who specifies what is up for grabs. With less traditional infrastructure the
role of the network operator will be signifi- cantly different. The concrete and tarmac will still exist, but how it’s marked out, how capacity is maximised, maintenance is undertaken and network access is granted could be very different. How legacy sys- tems integrate with future generations of vehicles will be particularly challenging. With a more controlled approach to the
network is there an opportunity to manage finite capacity with meaningful, integrated, technology led alternatives? ITS may have
a significant role to play in the door-to-door journey with connected vehicles being just one part of a blended solution. Moving to a reliance on automated
vehicle safety systems to govern traffic behaviour on the network is a major shift considering that cars have been machines without intelligence thus far with human responsibility for all decisions at a network, flow and individual user level. A creep- ing change to machine reliance will have inevitable consequences in terms of roles, responsibility and ultimately case law. What might the day-to-day responsi-
bilities of the network operator be? At one extreme they could simply be the provider and maintainer of the ‘track’ at the other the network operator could adopt a rail- way type approach with vehicles negotiat- ing slots within available network capacity with the system optimising speeds, ensur- ing flow and journey times. The impact of V2V and V2I systems on
highway network operations could be con- siderable but at the moment it is impos- sible to determine when these impacts might start to bite. Potentially, connected and autonomous
vehicles could deliver significant benefits but the cycle of adoption, consolidation and assimilation is complex and continu-
ally shifting. Undoubtedly, previous game-chang-
ing innovations have had a meaning- ful impacts on society at large, but in the case of ‘future ITS’ the myriad of potential solutions which impact upon the driving experience, the networks on which they will operate and their poten- tial complex markets will need careful and co-ordinated consideration in order to succeed quickly. Given the complexity of emerging
technologies and the pace of develop- ment there is a need for government, operators, manufactures and other stakeholders to engage in a meaning- ful dialogue to develop processes within which timely decisions can be made. The views contained in this article are purely those of Giles Perkins and not necessarily those of Mouchel.
Giles Perkins is Business Development Director, Intelligent Transport at Mouchel
Giles.perkins@
mouchel.com
mouchel.com
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