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CAV News Digest - Vol. 4 Number 2 May 2020

Barry Einsig

Principal

CAV Technology and IoT in the Time of COVID-19

A new era in transportation and mobility

I hope this issue of the CAVita News Digest finds you safe and healthy. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted virtually every part of our lives, from the ways we work and socialize to how we commute…or lack thereof. Normally, I travel constantly and write this editorial while on a plane or between meetings. The past few weeks have given me some time to observe the change in habits many of us have had to make, especially as it relates to transportation and mobility. How will the business models for Mobility as a Service (MaaS), Mobility on Demand (MoD), transit, and Micro Mobility platforms adapt and evolve to a post-COVID-19 world? While the news looks dire, sometimes these abrupt and unexpected changes help bring about innovation. On the bright side, I have seen society leverage IoT technology like never before. The widespread acceptance and use of video conferencing and virtual meetings over the Internet have been amazing. Will this help accelerate the Digitization of Transportation, including CAV and IoT? It appears so, but that will depend on each organization’s willingness to embrace change in the throes of all of the other changes happening at the same time.

One impact of the COVID-19 virus that is already becoming apparent: the economic decline and the uncertainty of business activity as usual. This is true for public agencies as fewer miles are traveled, and lowered tax revenue impacts public sector and private sector investment in transportation. The impacts are being felt by traditional infrastructure operators, all the way to private company investments in innovations like MoD, MaaS, and Highly-Automated Vehicle Systems.

The other thing the pandemic has shined a spotlight on is the dramatic decrease in traffic congestion, pollution, and traffic-related accidents. Since this was really only theoretical in the past, in the form of simulation, we are now able to see the potential long-term impact on roadway safety, efficiencies, and emissions, from cities as far apart as New Delhi and Los Angeles. Many of our connected and adaptive systems are gathering real-time data now, but can we make this a permanent goal for efficiency, that connecting vehicles and intersections can help deliver in the near future? I think so.

1. Is the Corona Virus the Transportation Industry's Opportunity?

The Story: 2020 has started off in nightmarish biblical proportions- droughts, fires, floods, and a pandemic virus that has gripped the planet. The response by governments, companies, and communities over the COVID-19 pandemic has suddenly impacted our way of life and that of our local, regional, and global transportation systems. The speed with which these impacts have been felt is significant as global airlines, national railways, and local subway and bus systems experience free-fall declines in customers.

The Takeaway: While the restrictions have serious and material impacts to our workforce, transportation, and economy, there may be some temporary upsides that could endure. For the first time, we are experiencing a global and dramatic reduction in traffic congestion, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. We should also see lower numbers of traffic crashes and fatalities. It is by no means an ideal scenario even with the temporary upside and I can’t underscore enough how serious this is.

So how do we learn from this? Is the pandemic an opportunity to rethink our transportation priorities? We shouldn’t have to choose between the economy, our lives and the planet. In transportation, we know it’s technically feasible and economically possible to make this a win-win, we just need to get our political mindset to shift our collective behavior and make the temporary upside permanent.

2. AV: Come Together, Right Now, Over Safety

The Story: How many safety standards does it take to screw in the lightbulb in a highly automated vehicle? A few years ago, automotive market novices would have said, “None.” These days, the number seems to keep increasing as the industry finally comes to grips with the technical challenges of producing demonstrably safe automated vehicles. Driven by the winner-takes-all Internet platform business model, automated vehicle (AV) zealots were racing to develop the industry’s first robocar. Their goal was simple. Dominate the AV platform so completely that everyone else in the industry would be forced to follow and license.

The Takeaway: Fast forward to 2020. The go-it-alone, my-way-or-the-highway approach is driving on fumes. In contrast to a few years ago, leading automotive OEMs, Tier Ones, and tech suppliers, including chip vendors are more engaged in forming industry-wide coalitions to develop AV standards that have safety considerations at their core.

3. How Realtime Event Streaming Improves Vehicle Mobility

The Story: Solace, whose data movement technology has been selected as a key infrastructure component of Singapore’s next-generation ERP system, proposes a system solution of real-time event-driven data streaming.

The Takeaway: Sumeet Puri, senior vice president and global head of field technology at Solace, explains: “The underlying network is provided by the telco. This connectivity forms the core backend. That same network carries different types of data — news, payment transactions, location information, etc. Real-time distribution of data between cars, other road users, infrastructure, and applications is required for guaranteed deliveries of this data. This is where Solace’s PubSub+ Platform comes in with complete event streaming and management.”

4. United States IoT in Automotive Market Report 2019-2025

The Story: The United States IoT in Automotive Market is expected to witness a significant growth with the CAGR of approximately 20% during the forecast period. The automotive sector is changing at a rapid pace. One of the factors that are indicating the wellbeing of a country is development in transportation. One of the uses of IoT in transportation is its application to reduce fuel costs, as well as the impact of global warming. IoT in transportation eliminates the problems regarding poor fleet management through better analytics and control such as monitoring idling, fuel consumption, travel conditions, and travel time between points.

The Takeaway: Connected cars, along with the IoT-enabled car, offers opportunities for the consumer as well as automotive manufacturers. The connected car for the consumers is the integration of traffic and navigation information, entertainment, and advanced features, including remote diagnostics and maintenance, safety, and emergency assistance.

For the manufacturers, the connected car enables valuable insights into vehicle operations and performance, safety services for the lifetime of a vehicle, remote diagnostics, and creates better interaction with customers. Also, automobile production is increasing at a significant rate, in turn creating new opportunities for the IoT in the automobile sector.

5. After COVID-19: Permanent Changes and Evolution to Smart Cities and Transportation

The Story: The pandemic we are facing is going to permanently impact more areas of everyday life in the United States when the virus eventually dies off. The changes will be a lot more than just redefining some of our healthcare responses, hospital procedures, and the CDC’s framework for dealing with national emergencies. There are other areas in business, customer service, education, and transportation that could radically evolve as the temporary adjustments we implemented to accommodate the issues of social distancing and not spreading the COVID-19 virus could take hold as permanent improvements.

The Takeaway: In coping with changes because of the pandemic, some of us have come to realize the need to re-evaluate many areas including education, transportation, commercial real estate, and emerging concepts like smart cities and intelligent infrastructure. Building for the future means advancing from the past. We cannot sustain old ideas and infrastructure from two centuries ago which do not support the dynamic global markets of the 21st century.

In places like Chicago, the region is long overdue for the consolidation of four different boards and agencies that basically overlap one another in the area of transportation. The CTA (Chicago Transit Authority), the RTA (Regional Transportation Authority), METRA (Metropolitan Rail), and PACE (Suburban Bus division) all have boards of directors and chairmen that could be consolidated into one board that focuses on regional transportation.

About CAVita

CAVita is a strategic consultancy focused on connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) that was formed in 2015 by seasoned and highly respected ITS industry executives Abbas Mohaddes and Peter Sweatman to provide public and private companies, municipalities, and organizations with the deep expertise required to successfully navigate and take advantage of transportation’s evolution.

Now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Econolite, CAVita maintains extensive contacts with decision-makers in vehicle and infrastructure technology, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), mobility systems for people and freight, technology companies, CAV deployment and testing consortia, leading research universities, and broader parts of the ecosystem including telecommunications, data analytics, logistics, Internet-of-Things (IoT), and insurance. Furthermore, CAVita’s Econolite affiliation affords unparalleled access to a broad array of engineering resources, ITS expertise, and deployment capabilities.

CAVita’s clients include some of the transportation industry’s leading organizations, such as the two largest transportation research institutes, the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI), and Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI). Other clients include the Transportation Research Board (TRB), the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP), and numerous private companies.

Contact CAVita today to discuss how we can help you accomplish your connected and automated vehicle goals!

CAV News Digest is a production of CAVita, LLC, an Econolite company.

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