While the business case for vehicle-mounted safety applications is already made in many cases, that for so-called 'environmental' applications is less clear. However, there is an opportunity to use the safety applications as a catalyst for deployment
Speculate to accumulate Andras Kovacs looks at how the historical focus of cooperative infrastructure on safety can be oriented to aid emerging environmental aims
Europe has given deployment of vehicular communications systems the green light with the allocation of a frequency band at 5.9GHz. This is for ITS and specifically road safety applications.This highly positive move came after a long period of preparatory work which included discussions of system plans within the Car-2-Car Communications Consortium, technology development within
The opportunity of having a pan-European frequency for vehicular communications provokes discussion over the applications which should make use of it. Vehicle manufacturers and their suppliers have been designing vehicular communications technology primarily for road safety applications, thinking of it as an extended-range sensor and active warning system. With the recent, increased emphasis on environmental issues, some are asking whether vehicular communications should also facilitate 'green' applications. Generally speaking, it is very good news that environmental protection is now receiving the proper attention it deserves and that CO2 emission reduction targets have been set. Specifically relating to vehicular communications, it is however difficult to see that planned road safety applications could be simply extended by adding environmental applications during initial deployment. This article explores issues relating to the introduction of cooperative environmental applications.
Deployment obstacles
The main challenge concerns deployment business models. Deployment in the short term will happen only if vehicle manufacturers decide that it is beneficial to make this technology part of every vehicle, or at least of most vehicles. To date, the rationale for vehicle manufacturers has been that such deployments raise the brand image of participating companies and prove that they take the issue of customer safety seriously. Who would not like to address the market using the 'Car that will not crash' slogan? Shifting one's focus to environmental applications, one must first of all note that there are two possible aims: reducing CO2 and NOx emissions per mile and/or reducing total mileage. Unfortunately it is difficult to see how drivers could reduce per-mile emissions through better information about nearby vehicles: per-mile emissions are mostly dependent on powertrain design and, to a small extent, driving style. That leaves the possibility of reducing total mileage - which is not a viable possibility for manufacturers either; who would want to address the market using the 'Car which makes you drive less' slogan? It is clearly not commercially attractive for vehicle manufacturers to design applications which promote less driving.An alternative path to voluntary deployment is through mandating by EU Directive that every vehicle should be equipped with some environmental application which incentivises less driving. One simple such example would be an intermodal navigator which gets the driver/traveller to a destination through combined use of the vehicle and public transport. That is unfortunately also a problematic path. Firstly, mandating applications that vehicle manufacturers do not want would jeopardise existing industry enthusiasm for road safety applications. Secondly, the regulatory process is rather long even at the best of times; we would probably simply run out of the 5.9GHz frequency availability time before seeing anything deployed on production vehicles.
Unlocking potential
While quick-fix approaches for cooperative environmental applications are problematic, all is not lost for saving the environment through better communications. One possibility, which can and should be pursued, is the deployment of environmental applications over retrofitted telematics equipment. When such applications succeed in reaching massive deployment rates - that is, become an accepted fact of life - their implementation will naturally gravitate over built-in 5.9GHz technology that should be available eventually. The other possibility involves road authorities: some environmental applications are currently infrastructure-based but Variable Message Signs (VMS) and road sensors will not be needed once all vehicles have suitable communications technologies onboard. Since vehicle manufacturers are not direct beneficiaries in this case, road authorities can start planning to incentivise vehicle manufacturers to bring such communication capabilities to market. These two possibilities are explored through examples in the following paragraphs.Two attractive environmental applications that can be achieved today through retrofitting are pay-as-you-drive vehicle insurance and dynamic parking pricing. Respectively, these would result in reductions of total mileage and per-mile emissions.
The anticipated environmental effect of insurance that involves per-mile/distance-based pricing has been researched by Allen Greenberg from the US Department of Transport (USDOT). The results of the USDOT's study, entitled "Designing Pay-Per-Mile Auto Insurance Regulatory Incentives", anticipate a 10 per cent reduction of total mileage among customers using dynamically priced insurance. Unfortunately, European insurers are not yet generally supportive of the concept. There is however a large number of cost-neutral or low-cost initiatives which could make a big difference to uptake. For example, roads authorities can sponsor the equipping of petrol stations with
In addition, external accident costs, such as wreck towing and ambulance expenses, could be charged to insurance companies. This fair method of accident cost reallocation would further incentivise insurers to personalise the risk generated by drivers.
Finally, a fund for per-mile insurance pricing could be created, with all vehicle insurers obliged to contribute in proportion to the number of clients which they have. This fund could then be distributed among insurers offering distance-based insurance products.
With the accelerometer-based analysis and up-to-date electronic speed limit databases which have recently become a possibility, vehicle insurers could measure per-distance risk accurately enough to profitably offer distance-based discounts to over 25 per cent of drivers even without the incentives mentioned above. After implementing the above-mentioned measures, personalised vehicle insurance would be purchased by the majority of drivers and would result in a total emissions reduction of over 5 per cent. This emissions reduction effect could be easily increased to over 10 per cent by allowing distance-based vehicle registration tax payment for participating insurance clients. After such a resolution of this chicken-and-egg dilemma, insurers and drivers will be both interested in utilising 5.9GHz vehicular technology for insurance personalisation, totally eliminating insurance-specific onboard hardware costs.
Dynamic parking pricing would lower per-distance emissions by spreading peaks of usage over longer periods. The idea is that those drivers who begin and end their parking time during off-peak hours will receive a discount on an hourly parking price. A suitable telematics system for initial deployment can be simply the driver's mobile phone: the driver would call in to a predefined service number at the beginning and end of parking. Once urban drivers get used to paying dynamically priced parking fees and 5.9GHz communication equipment becomes available on all vehicles, it will be natural to utilise it for the dynamically priced urban parking payment, saving municipalities the costs of payment terminals and parking enforcement.
Roads authorities' role
Regarding infrastructure-based environmental applications, enabling the use of hard shoulders during peak hours when traffic is moving slowly is an attractive way to lower per-mile emissions. Very few such deployments exist today, as the required numbers of VMS and accident-monitoring infrastructure costs are significant. However, when the vast majority of vehicles become equipped with vehicular communications technology these infrastructure costs will become unnecessary. Vehicular onboard computers will replace VMS for informing drivers about the actual status of lanes and broken-down vehicles will warn those following them to leave the hard shoulder. This very neatly fits the planned concept of decentralised vehicular communications as an extended sensing and warning solution. To enable the dynamic use of hard shoulders, roads authorities should come up with a joint application standard which can be implemented without additional cost to vehicle manufacturers; ETSI's ITS committee is the right platform for such a task. While technology implementation can be straightforward, vehicle manufacturers will not benefit directly from the resulting infrastructure cost savings. Perhaps it would be fair for road operators to pass on some fraction of anticipated infrastructure cost savings as a donation to vehicle manufacturers for subsidising 5.9GHz technology deployment.Safety first!
In conclusion, one can see that basing 5.9GHz vehicular communications deployment on environmental applications faces multiple obstacles, such as an unattractive business case for vehicle manufacturers and the organisational challenges of involving multiple stakeholders. Furthermore, while safety applications have a clearly defined concept of acting as extended sensors and achieving advanced warning features, the definition of the most effective and acceptable environmental applications is not yet clear-cut. This article has suggested some common-sense applications, but there might be also other good candidates. It appears that the best course of action would be to let vehicle manufacturers bring 5.9GHz vehicular communications systems to market, retaining the current focus on road safety applications. In the meantime, governmental organisations can resolve the chicken-and-egg problem of distance-based vehicle insurance and registration tax through shaping the regulatory environment and enabling cost-efficient retrofitted OBUs. They can furthermore recycle some anticipated infrastructure savings into subsidies of 5.9GHz vehicular communications technology. Proposed environmental applications will then find their way naturally into communicating vehicles.<%$Linker:
