MEDIA HYPE Automated highways criss-crossing America

MEDIA HYPE

Automated highways criss-crossing America

Fellow scribe Paul A Eisenstein recently wrote in a long automotive innovations supplement in FORBES magazine that “thanks to a ground-breaking experiment...near San Diego, fully automated highways may soon move from the realm of science fiction to the world of fact. Sponsored by the National Automated Highway System Consortium (NAHSC) the $25m project has fielded a fleet of sedans equipped with sophisticated technology smart enough to put a car on autopilot, even in the densest rush-hour traffic. NAHSC officials believe that by 2000 the nation could be crisscrossed with a network of automated highways...” (11/3/97)

No NAHSC official I ever spoke to ever said anything as fantastic as that, but then it would have been difficult for Eisenstein to find out what such officials believed because by then they were hard to reach. The NAHSC office in Troy Michigan, just a local phone call away for Eisenstein in Detroit, was closing — news that somehow eluded this Detroit auto industry newshound.

Noone at NAHSC in their wildest imaginings ever said even one single working automated highway (AH) was going to be built by 2000, let alone the network criss-crossing America of Eisenstein’s vivid imagination.

What drove the AHS program in its early days was the idea of AHs criss-crossing Los Angeles not America. It was concern about gridlock on the LA freeways that caught the interest of Caltrans its major state sponsor, according to Bob Parsons, one of the veterans of the NAHSC. We spoke to Parsons recently — he has relocated to the Richmond VA area following the foldup of NAHSC — and he said it was the fixation of the NAHSC on urban roads which was its undoing. AHs were promoted as a solution to urban highway congestion but there are huge problems implementing them in cities, notably the need for spacious shoulders and special interchanges, safety barriers...and not overwhelming benefits given the many short trips. Caltrans which had been the major initial enthusiast for the concept cooled on the idea. And the Feds worried about relieving the driver of all responsibility. That was the end of NAHSC but it won’t be the end of AHs.

Automation makes more sense on interurban routes with longer travel times, and greater safety problems. Run-off-the-road accidents from the driver falling asleep or becoming bored and inattentive are the major source of accidents. In addition AHS is more doable on rural highways than inside urban areas because there’s more space for the safety shoulders that are going to be essential in the early days at least. And there are fewer transitions between manual and automated to cope with because there are fewer interchanges. The automation helps on the line-haul part of the journey and on inter-urban trips there’s a lot of line-haul.

The best chance for implementing AHS is on heavily trafficked inter-urban highways that are in need of being widened anyway — 2x2-lane mwys carrying 30k to 50k vehs/day, 20% to 30% being heavy trucks, which means the NJ, OH, IN and PA turnpikes, I-80 PA, I-81 PA-VA-TN, sections of I-15/I-70 Los Angeles-Denver-St Louis, parts of I-95, I-10 LA-Houston etc.

IXLs on AZ I-10

The most concrete project is being proposed is called Intelligent Express Lanes (IXL) I-10, Phoenix to Tucson. A report from Dave Bruggeman of BRW for the Arizona DOT recommends the IXL as a phased approach to an automated highway. I-10 Phoenix-Tucson is 140km, and a major truck route between S. Cal and TX, while also supporting cross-commuting between Phoenix (pop 2.6m) and Tucson (0.7m) and major traffic from both cities to warehouses stores at Casa Grande midway between the two major cities of Arizona (AADT 30k/veh).

The Bruggeman report has been favorably received in Arizona, and the project seems practical. In its first stage, to be opened in 2001, the so- called Intelligent Express Lanes (IXL) would be opened for vehicles able to maintain a minimum speed of 120km/hr (75mph) whether or not they were equipped with cruise control or other advanced ITS features. The IXL at this stage would be a single lane each direction, barrier protected. The single traffic lanes each direction would have (see diagram) buffer lanes as well as a shoulder alongside to enable a disabled vehicle to pull out of the high speed IXL. The buffer lanes would be converted to second IXL lanes in the future if full automated control were implemented. Or they could be restriped for regular traffic if the IXL project were to be abandoned.

Over most of the 140km length of the project there is a central grass median of 24m wide, sufficient for 4 regular 3.6m lanes plus breakdown shoulders and the 3 concrete barriers.

Bruggeman proposes a phasing of automation with emphasis at first on the Express part of the name and the minimum speed limit of 120km/hr (75mph) and encouragement of advanced cruise controls, collision warning and impaired driver countermeasures devices. between the opening of the lanes 2001-03 and 2008 when the first fully automated vehicles could be expected. Soon after that the lanes could be dedicated to automated vehicles. Central magnetic markers would be installed from the beginning, a relatively cheap device that allows both run-off-the-road warnings to the driver and automatic steering.

Automated vehicles would run at 135km/hr (85mph) or 145km/hr (90mph). Once there is full automation, with manually controlled vehicles excluded, it would be possible to eliminate the buffer lane and run two automated lanes side by side, the report says, perhaps with one being set for higher speed operation than the other, or split between trucks and lighter vehicles.

The Bruggeman report suggests the I-10 IX lanes be kept extremely simple with no access for regular vehicles except (1) at the Phoenix terminus near the I-10/South Mtn toll road IC (2) at Casa Grande where I-8 comes in from San Diego, and (3) at the north Tucson terminus. The two stretches without access (on either side of Casa Grande) measure about 70km each.

The 140km stretch proposed for the IXL has an annual average of 750 crashes, involving 400 injuries and 19 fatalities, the majority single vehicle incidents that highway automation is well suited to combat. If combined with other benefits the system could be could be pitched strongly to trucking companies.

“Arizona could take the lead in enabling safer and more effficient freight movement. Through institutional incentives, freight carriers could choose to invest in collision warning systems, adaptive cruise control, and impaired driver countermeasures — all resulting in increased safety and lowered overall costs for freight.”

A state senator Tom Freeman is proposing to establish a vehicle-highway automation center at Arizona State University to support the program. Bruggerman says he deliberately left aside issues of financing in his report and that he hopes the project can attract projects from the Intelligent Vehicle Initiative, the successor program to the defunct Automated Highway System program.

Tim Wolfe of Arizona DOT says that the Bruggeman report is “solid” and has been “well received.” He says the the IXL project makes much more sense than alternative proposals put by rail enthusaists for a highspeed rail line between Arizona’s two largest cities.

The rail line would cost around $500m compared to about $225m for the IXL. Rail would be a high risk investment because there is no alternative use for the track equipment and stations if passengers do not turn up to fill trains, whereas the IXL lanes can be constructed for perhaps $20m to $30m more than the already programmed widening of I-10 which will be needed in any case. High speed rail requires excellent transit at either end, which is non-existent in Arizona.

Other possible automated lanes

On the east coast in Virginia there are also moves to apply some elements of highway automation. Ashwin Amanna at Virginia Tech who is project manager for the 10km Smart Road being built in Blacksburg says he hopes to lay magnetic lane-keeping markers in his pavement so it can be used to test highway automation, though its main function is to study other aspects of ITS.

Robert Parsons says that I-81 in western VA represents the best single highway in the US to implement aspects of automation. Richard Bishop who was in charge of automated highway issues at the FHA Turner Fairbank research center agrees.

I-81 has become the major truck route between NY/New England and the Carolinas and TX. Traffic is overwhelming its 4-lanes. Virginia DOT is developing detailed designs for widening its 520km to 2x3 lanes and 4x2 lanes in a $2 billion project likely to extend over 15 or 20 years without toll funding. Complementary work is needed in PA north to the Penna pike and south in TN.

Compaq Corridor: The only urban automated highway project on the horizon is a proposed 2x1-lane busway or HOT project in a 30km commuter corridor in the northwest part of Houston TX. The corridor goes from the I-610 inner loop near US-290 through Willowbrook up the Burlington N railroad to about Tomball and is sometimes colloquially called the Compaq Corridor because Compaq computer is there. Automation is attractive because there isn’t the width for a regular 4-lane urban motorway, according to John Sedlak head of planning at Houston Metro which runs bus and HOV lanes there. But there’s isn’t even a major investment study proposed yet, so any work is a ways off.

Highway automation for long distance trucks in the US might be attractive along the proposed NAFTA highway I-69 Toronto-Detroit-Indianapolis-Memphis-Houston-Laredo-Monterrey Mexico.

Highway automation seems naturally suited to implementation as an optional value-added user-pays tolled service, implemented by self-financing market-oriented entities. And the political entrepreneurs will also seek help from Uncle$am.

The case for highway automation was put very lucidly by UC Berkeley’s Steven Shladover in an excellent paper (980641) at the Jan 98 Transp Research Bd conference. (Contacts: Dave Bruggeman BRW 602 234 1591; Tim Wolfe AZDOT 602 255 6622, Robert Parsons 804 763 2944; Richard Bishop 410 312 7427; John Sedlak, Houston Metro 713 739 4600; Steven Shladover 510 231 9537)