Tune traffic density and speed parameters within connected vehicle (CV) applications to balance proper alerts versus false alarms in dense urban environments.

U.S. Department of Transportation Free Public Webinar Series on the Connected Vehicle Pilot Sites System Design Process.

Date Posted
06/19/2018
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Identifier
2018-L00809

New York City (NYC) Pilot Update at the System Design Milestone Webinar

Summary Information

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office (ITS JPO), the Connected Vehicle (CV) Pilot Deployment Program is a national effort to deploy, test, and operationalize cutting-edge mobile and roadside technologies and enable multiple CV applications. These innovative technologies and applications have the potential for immediate beneficial impacts – to save lives, improve personal mobility, enhance economic productivity, reduce environmental impacts, and transform public agency operations.

The USDOT awarded three cooperative agreements collectively worth more than $45 million to initiate a Design/Build/Test/Deploy CV Pilot Deployment Program to three agencies: Wyoming DOT, New York City (NYC) DOT, and Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority (THEA). From September 2015 to September 2016, each site prepared a comprehensive deployment concept to ensure a rapid and efficient connected vehicle capability roll-out. The three sites next embarked on a 20-month phase to design, build, and test these deployments of integrated wireless in-vehicle, mobile device, and roadside technologies.

In this set of webinars, the three pilot sites shared with the general public the conceptual overviews and status reports of the three pilot projects, as well as the technical challenges and lessons learned of the system design process, including those regarding security, regulation, certification, app and device development, data management and data sharing, interoperability, etc.

Lessons Learned

 

Lessons Learned from the NYCDOT Connected Vehicle Pilot Update at the System Design Milestone webinar.

Address privacy of safety/operational data using multiple tools.

Stakeholders need reassurance on the protection of their privacy. The key is to focus on privacy by design. Protection may include:

  • Memorandum of Understandings (MOU)
  • Onboard data encryption
  • Collection time limits
  • Data obfuscation, sanitization, normalization.

Address security in all aspects of the CV and DOT system.

Including but not limited to:

  • Transportation Management Center (TMC) security (physical, system access needs)
  • Devices & networks (operating firewalls, Network Address Translation (NATs), management)
  • Complexity and troubleshooting
  • Security monitoring.

Have a correction in place to handle the inaccuracy of GPS in urban canyons.

The accuracy of GPS data depends on many factors and is often limited to open sky. Accuracy diminishes in areas like NYC with tall buildings, bridges, overpasses, etc. To address this issue, the NYC Pilot vendors introduced a combination of supporting techniques to improve location accuracy, including:

  • Dead reckoning
  • CAN bus integration for speed information
  • Inertial Management Unit (IMU) integration
  • Roadside Unit (RSU) triangulation.

Tune the applications for the proper density and speed of the environment that you are deploying in.

In the absence of standard performance requirements for applications, it became evident that each vendor had their own interpretation and tuning of applications deployed. For NYC, it was key that the applications be tuned for urban density and speeds to balance proper alerts versus false alarms. This required:

  • Consistent expectations for the drivers about the sensitivity of the applications across all vendors
  • Performance tradeoffs
  • Staging open sky testing (for baseline) and urban canyon testing.

Do not underestimate how long it will take to secure FCC Licenses for Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) devices.

The FCC license application process cannot be done with a bulk application. Submission for all RSUs and devices must be done one at a time. This process took 18 months for all 400 RSUs being used in the NYC deployment. NYCDOT did however obtain two waivers to help expedite the process:

  • An Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee (IRAC) geographic coordination waiver
  • Waiver on Environmental Impact Statement on DSRC antennas.

 

New York City (NYC) Pilot Update at the System Design Milestone Webinar

New York City (NYC) Pilot Update at the System Design Milestone Webinar
Source Publication Date
10/02/2017
Author
Walker, Jonathan (Program Manager, Research & Demonstration, USDOT ITS-JPO); Mohamad Talas (NYCDOT, NYC CVPD Project Management Lead); Bob Rausch (TransCore, NYC CVPD Site Deployment Lead); and David Benevelli (TransCore, NYC CVPD System Engineering Lead)
Publisher
ITS Joint Program OfficeU.S. Department of Transportation
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