2020 Issue

51 It’s common to see people eating and talking on a cell phone, and although there are many ways to prevent deaths and injuries, most of them require at least a little cooperation on the part of the driver. Nevertheless, many people are doing what they can. Car manufacturers are building structurally safer cars, cities are putting in guard- rails at dangerous spots and putting up signs for drivers such as DON’T LOVE YOUR PHONE TO DEATH; DRIVE FOCUSED, and an obviously impaired driver risks being pulled over by a police officer. The move to autonomous cars is a logical way to prevent people from harming themselves or others while driving. Of the models that can be easily found on the internet, one involves six levels: • 0: No automation • 1: Driver assistance • 2: Partial automation • 3: Conditional automation • 4: High automation • 5: Full automation Utah is one of the states that has moved aggressively to allow autonomous driving. When talking about regulation, it’s useful to separate it into two parts, the aspects that are controlled on a federal level and those that are controlled on a state level. The federal government is primarily responsible for motor vehicle safety standards (FMVSS), including recalls for malfunctions. In contrast, the state has jurisdiction over laws of operation, such as the speed limit, and matters such as vehicle regis- tration and inspection and emissions tests. The state also controls driver training and licensing and enforcement. UDOT and UTA have worked together on an automated shuttle pilot program that has been deployed in several locations. The goal has been to give people the chance to see and ride on or in an automated vehicle. Those who have seen the shuttle in action have had a positive experience and therefore trust autonomous vehicles more as a result. The state is already moving to make roads safer by making the roads smarter. For example: • UDOT has a successful project on a section of Red- wood Road that has been operational since Nov. 2017. The goal is to help buses do a better job of staying on schedule. To accomplish the goal, UDOT has DSRC communication technology on 24 intersections. It uses 802.11 technology in a dedicated 5.9 GHz band. Ten UTA buses also have DSRC. If a bus is five minutes or more behind schedule, the lights can give the bus conditional priority to help the bus move faster and get back on schedule. • Another project does essentially the same thing for snowplows on five corridors and 55 intersections in the Salt Lake valley. The system has been operational since March 2019. UDOT is currently evaluating the program’s effectiveness. • The Provo-Orem BRT project (UVX) has been imple- mented on a 10.5-mile corridor. DSRC has been put in place on 47 intersections and 25 buses, and the whole system has been operational since Dec. 3, 2108. The full deployment of a data ecosystem for connected vehicles won’t happen immediately. It is going to take place in distinct phases: • Phase 1: Data collection › Crash/incident detection › Weather event data › Data visualization › Deploy along I-80 • Phase 2: V2I applications › Spot weather impact warning › Curve speed warning › Deploy on: ◊ Interstate curves ◊ Big Cottonwood curves ◊ Near Park City Roads are currently designed for drivers. Blaine expects that to change as more and more autonomous vehicles are being used. Instead of signs using language and num- bers to convey information, signs may eventually move to machine languages such as binary. Someday it won’t matter if someone is eating and talking in the car. They won’t even have to be paying attention to what is happening around the vehicle. That is going to be a good thing. Blaine D. Leonard, P.E., F.ASCE Transportation Technology Engineer, Utah DOT. Blaine was the featured speaker of the Engineers Week 2020 Ban- quet. Read more about him on page 9.