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Transportation Technology

Can Controlling Vehicles Make Streets Safer and More Climate Friendly? (nytimes.com) 77

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Sweden has long been at the forefront of road innovation and is again leading the way with trials of a technology known as geofencing. From a report: In April 2017, a man drove a stolen truck into a crowded shopping district in central Stockholm and crashed it into a department store, killing four people and injuring 15 others. The terrorist attack prompted the Swedish government to investigate how digital technology could be used to prevent these kinds of incidents in the future. It began a four-year research program to test one type, geofencing, in urban environments. Geofencing is a virtual tool in which software uses GPS or similar technology to trigger a preprogrammed or real-time action in vehicles to control their movements within a geographical area. It can regulate a vehicle's speed within the zone, determine whether the vehicle belongs there and automatically switch hybrid vehicles to electric driving mode.

Johannes Berg, senior adviser for digitalization at the Swedish Transport Administration, said the technology can improve traffic safety and lower emissions. It also has the potential to adjust speed based on road and weather conditions, and to ensure compliance with regulations, like stopping a vehicle if a driver doesn't have a permit to enter a geofenced area, he added. In simple uses -- like when a map with restrictions is downloaded to a vehicle before the start of a trip to reduce speed automatically when it enters a low-speed zone -- vehicles do not need to be connected to an outside source, Mr. Berg said. But in more advanced applications -- real-time use, for example -- vehicles must be connected. Rules and regulations are in a tech cloud and could be changed based on the actual position of the vehicles, he said. "The cloud service can access the engine of the vehicle using the telematics connection of the vehicle."

Sweden, which began a series of geofencing trials in 2019, has long been an innovator in vehicle-related safety. In the 1990s, it introduced Vision Zero, an approach to safety that takes human error into account. The goal is to eliminate all traffic deaths and serious injuries by creating multiple layers of protection; if one fails, others will create a safety net. Sweden now has one of the lowest crash death rates in the world, and many cities globally have implemented the approach. Earlier this year the U.S. Department of Transportation officially adopted the strategy to address a dramatic spike in the death toll in the United States. In Stockholm, geofencing pilot programs have focused on commercial traffic in the city center, assessing such things as whether deliveries to businesses could occur at lower speeds at night when streets typically have fewer people. [...] In another trial, sensors added to pavements monitor pedestrian flow, which have been able to trigger speed reduction in pilot vehicles. "The trucks are actually decreasing their speed automatically," Mr. Berg said.
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Can Controlling Vehicles Make Streets Safer and More Climate Friendly? More

Can Controlling Vehicles Make Streets Safer and More Climate Friendly?

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  • Security & Internet-scale (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01, 2022 @02:45PM (#62408798)
    I have zero confidence that this can be done effectively in such a manner that it doesn't end up getting hacked and malicious actors then being able to drive hundreds or thousands of cars into, for example, shopping malls.

    • It doesn't even require malicious intent. GPS is highly accurate....sometimes. There are factors like signal reflection that could give a bad reading. Or worse, a satellite could get pushed slightly out of orbit and the software doesn't update in time. You could have newer vehicles slamming on their brakes automatically in the middle of a busy highway, while older grandfathered vehicles don't have time to react.

      • There is no need to push a satellite anywhere. There are known techniques for active GPS tampering and denial which can do that. There is existing equipment too. For now most of it is military in "unfriendly countries" - Iran, Russia and China. It is, however, only a matter of time until it will be available to tier 2 players including terrorists and loons.

      • local hdd with updates at $250 /year and when you need an bigger one to fit our bigger DB the dealer can change $200 for an 1TB ssd + $49.99 labor to install it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        It doesn't even require malicious intent. GPS is highly accurate....sometimes. There are factors like signal reflection that could give a bad reading. Or worse, a satellite could get pushed slightly out of orbit and the software doesn't update in time. You could have newer vehicles slamming on their brakes automatically in the middle of a busy highway, while older grandfathered vehicles don't have time to react.

        The number of times that I had to manually override the speed because my Tesla thought it was on a 35 MPH side street adjacent to US-101 is not small. If this behavior were not able to be overridden by the driver, it would be catastrophic.

        So I'm absolutely certain that this is infeasible until cars become fully self-driving, where they can know with certainty what road they are on based on what turns they made. And at that point, we won't actually need to prevent drivers from doing anything bad, because p

        • The number of times that I had to manually override the speed because my Tesla thought it was on a 35 MPH side street adjacent to US-101 is not small. If this behavior were not able to be overridden by the driver, it would be catastrophic.

          My BMW has a supposed functionality to sense speed limits (by reading the signs with the front facing camera so far as I can tell, I don't think it uses GPS) and warn you if you exceed them by a user defined limit. It is horribly inaccurate at knowing what the speed limit actually is though, so I just keep it disabled.

          Vision Zero comes up in a lot of discussions at city hall though. Their almost universal solution seems to be lower speed limits, everywhere. I think they just hate the fact people can t

      • If there are only 3 satellites in view of your position and they're all just on the horizon, or even worse, they're all grouped in the same general direction rather than spread around you, it can be highly inaccurate. Also even with modern GPS receivers, which are highly sensitive, it's still possible for the tiny signals from satellites to be blocked, and you lose GPS lock entirely.

        • Modern GPS it's not just GPS. It's also GLONASS and Galileo. My phone has a dual frequency receiver. I'm in the Midwest US and I can simultaneously see 8 GPS satellites, 3 of which I also see on the L5 band. I have 3 GLONASS, which is also enough to get a position. I can also see 5 Galileo from here, with three on the second frequency band. Try out the GPSTest app on Android.

          The problem is not that the satellites are just on the horizon, unless you have a mountain creating an artificially high horizon

    • must buy our data plan with the car and get roaming as with out an roaming plan you can pay up to $15-$20 a meg.

    • Yeah but you’ll won’t hear about those problems. You’ll only hear about how safe and money saving it is. And that’s what happens right before industry capture.

    • I have zero confidence that this can be done effectively in such a manner that it doesn't end up getting hacked and malicious actors then being able to drive hundreds or thousands of cars into, for example, shopping malls.

      What you said, plus the massive privacy violation of literally being tracked everywhere you go, which aside from nosy governments using that information (and perhaps limiting where citizens can and can't go for other reasons than the 'official' ones) criminal organizations and 'advertisers' getting access to that information for their own nefarious purposes.
      No thanks. I will not set foot in any vehicle I do not have total control over, that some 3rd party can suddenly take control of away from me, and caus

  • No fucking thanks... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Friday April 01, 2022 @02:56PM (#62408832)
    not in the US at least. The US is already excessively punitive. Imagine if they could geofence vehicles of people on probation, or geofence people during a COVID quarantine, or geofence people on public benefits from driving to places that are seen as unnecessary. If the pigs have a way, they'll find a way to use it to make the lives of the poor and downtrodden even more unbearable and bland.

    • Wow. If you really think it’s that bad here, it’s probably best you don’t read up on what’s going on in Australia

    • Imagine if they could geofence vehicles of people on probation

      It's called an ankle monitor. And courts can put people under house arrest if they're supposed to be quarantined.

      Next: "Imagine if they could make your car check if you've been drinking."

  • If they want to take control, (Score:5, Informative)

    by fustakrakich ( 1673220 ) on Friday April 01, 2022 @02:59PM (#62408848) Journal

    the driver must be freed of all liability for whatever happens

    • While hardware limiters (such as those found in CPUs and rice cookers) are also a form of control, I think it would be better if such controls are limited instead to the graceful degradation of a vehicle's capabilities (rather than the dystopian evil twin of autonomous driving that will drive you to a police station if you commit a traffic violation). Within certain zones, such as schools, system software would reduce car speed to walking or scooter speeds. The driver, of course, would be alerted of the pre
  • Even if you make the system foolproof, the world will just come up with a better fool. It's evolution.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dareth ( 47614 )
      So far Artificial Intelligence has been unable to keep up with Natural Stupidity. Let's see if that changes anytime soon.
  • that don't change to red right in front of you when you are the only vehicle around. Can't we make them a little smarter?

    • they need hardware for that and some are on old fixed timers.

    • This already exists and is being converted/rolled out to more and more intersections.

      Cameras and/or radar see approaching vehicles (not just cars, but horses, bikes, etc.) and adjust accordingly. They stay green if nobody at side streets. As vehicles approach side, they count traffic on main, look at speeds and gaps to decide optimal time to put the yellow to minimize driver confusion accommodating trucks or longer stopping distances. The longer someone waits, the higher their priority for next turn beco

    • Never ever. I especially like it when they shorten the yellow out of the blue. I accidentally ran one right in front of the cops a few weeks ago, they must have known because I could see them laughing at my confused facial expression when I passed them.

    • Traffic engineers do that on purpose because when traffic is heavy they need to stagger traffic to keep from creating gridlock. So yeah you get to experience retard staggering when the roads are completely clear.

    • Sometimes you just have to get out and go hit the pedestrian button and hope it is actually connected to something.

  • The Netherlands has a better approach, I think. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Friday April 01, 2022 @03:30PM (#62408956) Homepage

    You don't need high-tech to slow vehicles down. Urban planning in The Netherlands is masterful. You can design roads that make people slow down naturally by making them narrow or winding. You can help protect pedestrians by raising crosswalks and coloring them differently from the road surface.

    Designing walkable cities so fewer people need to drive, and cities that support safe biking and have decent public transport also help a lot. Unfortunately, urban planning in North America is the complete antithesis of what we need, leading to massive sprawling car-dependent suburbs and completely sterile, lifeless, not to mention bankrupt, cities.

  • The controlling vehicles have evolved from the command and control vehicles of the military. Well armored, festooned with a wide array of antennae, radar and what not, usually on tracks, but sometimes on tires too. Six to eight full size balloon tires to give it off road ability. You can still these vestigial traces of these features in the controlling vehicles.

    They are usually parked on intersections to cover multiple streets in one field of view. They use a variety of beams, laser, acoustic, maser and o

  • That does seem like something Sweden would do. I’m sure they could get it working like clockwork! Shoot, when they finally get it done, they won’t even be any need for any Swedish people anymore. Perhaps that’s why they’re all moving away.

    Seriously though, obviously the safest solution is always to move responsibility and liability to somebody else, ideally an entity who doesn’t share your same goals of safety and reliability but profit making and creating a captive mar

  • At some point in the not-too-distant future most people won't bother to own a car. You will just summon an autonomous vehicle like a robot Uber. It will link up in traffic to a convoy of 5 or 6 vehicles with close spacing that act as a unit, and peel off to drop you at your destination. Got a problem with lack of privacy? We already know where you are going in your car because of your cellphone and the ALR tech on the roadside, so relax.

    • At some point in the not-too-distant future most people won't bother to own a car. You will just summon an autonomous vehicle like a robot Uber. It will link up in traffic to a convoy of 5 or 6 vehicles with close spacing that act as a unit, and peel off to drop you at your destination.

      I don't know why people actively see fit to cheer for dystopian futures where as the phrase has been popularized as "you will own nothing and be happy". What do you think is going to happen? Is human nature going to change? Will all the added power no longer corrupt? When you centralize control over everything nothing bad is going to happen with that right? People are actively cheering the pushing gini coefficients further into the stratosphere.

      Presently in the real world new truck sales are thru the r

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Klaxton ( 609696 )

        A nasty set of remarks there, and when I need some jerk on the internet to put words in my mouth I'll let you know.

        I'm merely describing what's likely to happen with vehicle transportation, and I didn't say it is a bad thing. Even now when you get on a plane everyone knows who you are and where you are going. Same could be true for bus and train travel. And people are "just going to roll over and accept this dystopian nonsense" related to autonomous cars because that's basically just an extension of the way

        • A nasty set of remarks there, and when I need some jerk on the internet to put words in my mouth I'll let you know.

          I said nothing derisive about you yet you see fit to call me a jerk. If you can't handle the possibility of others disagreeing don't post.

          Got a problem with lack of privacy?
          We already know where you are going in your car because of your cellphone and the ALR tech on the roadside, so relax.

          I'm merely describing what's likely to happen with vehicle transportation

          Privacy commentary clearly goes beyond mere description into advocacy. You are effectively saying if you don't like it tough shit.

          Even now when you get on a plane everyone knows who you are and where you are going.

          What do airplanes which most people do not own, can't afford to own, operate or maintain nor even know how to use have in common with most people not bothering to own a car where none of those things apply?

          Same could be true for bus and train travel.

          Or walking.

          And people are "just going to roll over and accept this dystopian nonsense" related to autonomous cars because that's basically just an extension of the way things are now.

          This is nothing like how

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Klaxton ( 609696 )

            'If you think "most people" are just going to roll over and accept this dystopian nonsense you're out of your mind', I didn't say anything like that and your remark was offensive.

            "I don't know why people actively see fit to cheer for dystopian futures", I didn't cheer for any such thing but when I need some jerk on the internet to put words in my mouth I'll let you know.

            • you think "most people" are just going to roll over and accept this dystopian nonsense you're out of your mind', I didn't say anything like that and your remark was offensive.

              Dystopian nonsense in my view is exactly what was being described. If this offends you talk to someone who cares.

    • And not too long after that, a hacker will re-program those autonomous vehicles to seek out pedestrians and run them over.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Klaxton ( 609696 )

        Remains to be seen, but a possibility of course. There are already autopilots on planes and boats, and some degree of autonomous driving in Tesla cars. They seem fine for now.

        Not sure why someone would go to all that effort (and personal risk) to do nothing but cause deliberate harm. I would expect an effort to monetize the hack somehow. Unless it were a hostile nation-state.

        • By the same logic, it's fine to connect the electrical infrastructure to the Internet. It remains to be seen if this is a problem. However, it didn't work out for the petroleum pipelines in the US. That wasn't a problem until it was.

  • Huh? (Score:2)

    by PPH ( 736903 )

    lower speeds at night when streets typically have fewer people

    Does this imply higher speeds during the day when streets have more people?

  • That would be great except the bad people will just use an older model without the new remote control feature or they will disable the feature in a newer model. Since government vehicles will likely not have the feature or will have a way of easily disabling it a ready supply of vehicles to use as a battering ram will always be available.

  • and in the near future, big brother will also be controlling...
  • It's been 2 years of reality being sillier than the April Fool's pranks. I just can't tell anymore.
  • Yet another giant target for cyber attacks with potentially really serious consequences (in both money and lives). With sensors and vehicle communications everywhere, the attack surface is huge. Example attacks, increase a speed limit around a curved road such that cars which automatically adjust will just crash, or geofence all ambulances from driving within a 2km radius of any hospital. Possibilities are endless. Furthermore, it doesn't always take a malicious attack, a malfunction could lead to just as d

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Klaxton ( 609696 )

      Why would it be a centralized control system? No reason the car has to phone home somehow to get you where you're going. Geofencing seems pretty benign. "reduce speed automatically when it enters a low-speed zone -- vehicles do not need to be connected to an outside source", seems harmless.

      The example given was; "a man drove a stolen truck into a crowded shopping district in central Stockholm and crashed it into a department store, killing four people and injuring 15 others".

      "NHTSA’s early estimates s

  • Instead of finding someone ready to crash into a department store, terrorists now just need to hack the system so that a random person is crashed into a department store.
  • It's myopic to look at cars and trucks as the only transportation. A new Honda Grom get's 125 MPG and put's out half the emissions than a civic, much less than a SUV.

  • Why not go straight to mind control and just make me do what you want at all times?

  • So, I'm in Norway (for Americans and Brits {same thing anyway}, just think of it as the capital of Sweden, we gave up trying to convince you otherwise. And yes we ride reindeer drawn sleighs to work and school and wear funny hats).

    We turn over cars quickly. There are harsh emissions controls which oddly even make driving 10 year old electric cars prohibitively expensive. This may sound environmentally unfriendly, but there is a trickledown effect which makes good quality, emission friendlier, used cars avai

  • Goal of the left: everything not forbidden is compulsory.

  • If I get into a car, give me a steering wheel and total control (root access) otherwise I am at the merci of where the 'They' want me to go. Not a chance!

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