Federal Highway Administration National Dialogue on Highway Automation: September 5-6, 2018 Freight Workshop Summary
Collaboration Corner
Format
The Collaboration Corner was an interactive session designed to gather input from stakeholders on a range of topics. It consisted of a career-fair-style setup with six stations for collecting different types of information from stakeholders. USDOT staff members were located at each station to encourage participation, clarify the exercise, engage in discussion, and ask follow-up questions. Information was collected at each station through two methods:
- Sticky note exercise—Attendees used sticky notes to respond to a specific prompt, which was presented on a wall-hanging poster at each station. This was a public form of communication that allowed attendees to view and engage with submitted suggestions.
- Suggestion box—Participants wrote their questions, suggestions, or other input on an index card and placed it into a suggestion box. This was a more private form of communication that allowed attendees to provide information that they may not have been comfortable sharing in a public forum.
Stakeholders provided input across the following stations:
- Future of Freight: Operational environments and use cases
- Traffic Operations: Opportunities and challenges
- Infrastructure: Design considerations and impacts
- Connectivity: Enhancing information exchange and cooperation
- Terminology: Developing a lexicon around highway automation
- Research Needs: Collecting research needs statements
- Parking Lot: Important questions and comments that do not cleanly fit at any of the other posts
The next section offers details about the station prompts and summarizes the key themes that emerged at each station. These themes reflect the stakeholder input received.
Future of Freight
This topic focused on potential opportunities and challenges for automation in the context of three categories of roads: Interstate/NHS (National Highway System), local streets, and intermodal connections. The following guiding questions were provided to gather input:
- What is the new landscape of freight movement with the introduction of automated CMVs?
- What are different use cases and operational design domains for automated CMVs (roadway type, applications, etc.)?
- How can automated freight vehicles improve intermodal connections?
- How does the use of automated delivery vehicles affect demands on local street networks?
Table 1. Participant Input: Future of Freight
|
Interstate/NHS |
| Freight workforce—Automation could help mitigate driver shortages in the freight industry, but much of the supply chain will still require a human presence, at least in the near-term. To ensure the freight workforce is prepared for automation, new training and recruitment strategies should be considered. |
| Local Streets |
| Local interests—There is concern about how well local interests (e.g., curb use, noise) will be addressed regarding AVs. |
| Flexibility and skill—It is uncertain how AVs will be able to navigate situations that human drivers have mastered (e.g., yielding to emergency vehicles, reacting to jaywalkers, nosing into traffic). Will AVs be able to operate with an acceptable level of flexibility? |
| Uncertainty of urban impact—The impact of freight automation on congestion and curb use in urban areas is unclear. |
| Intermodal Connections |
| Transferability—A variety of transferability considerations arise when exploring intermodal connections in the future of freight (e.g., interoperability of containers among different modes, establishment of transfer facilities, new mechanisms for transferring freight). |
| Other |
| Diversity—Vehicle and modal diversity is important in designing a transportation system for automation. |
| Efficiency—Automation could contribute to efficiency gains by enabling a broader range of vehicle types, reducing hours-of-service limitations, and improving throughput. |
| Standardization—Standardization (e.g., of data types, packages, equipment, regulations, road classification, etc.) could help enable freight automation. |
Traffic Operations
This topic focused on opportunities and challenges of freight automation. The following guiding questions were provided to gather input:
- What opportunities and challenges exist with integrating safe and efficient automated CMVs into the transportation network?
- What should industry, communities, and infrastructure owners and operators consider regarding the operations of truck platoons across certain environments, such as heavy traffic corridors?
- How should traffic operations and management strategies adapt to address automated CMVs in the near-term versus the long-term?
Table 2. Participant Input: Traffic Operations
| Opportunities |
| Operational efficiency—New data sources can lead to improvements in traveler information, incident response, and maintenance. |
| Challenges |
| Uncertainty—The rapid pace of technology development creates uncertainty when planning for automated freight. |
| Multi-modal operations—Interactions at grade crossings could pose safety challenges. Safe interactions with rail crossings should be considered. |
| Strategies |
| Use cases—Identifying appropriate operational design domains and use cases will be an important first step in enabling automation in the freight industry. |
| Process improvements—Inspection and enforcement processes may need to be modified to accommodate AVs. |
| Collaboration—Both the private and public sectors will play important roles. Opportunities for data sharing and other forms of collaboration should be explored. |
Infrastructure
This topic focused on infrastructure. Information was collected across three pre-defined categories: planning and design, impacts and maintenance, and truck size and weight standards. The following guiding questions were provided to gather input:
- How do automated commercial vehicles impact infrastructure design and maintenance?
- What are the important infrastructure elements for enabling safe and efficient operations for automated CMVs (e.g., lane markings, traffic control devices)?
- What are key issues regarding truck size and weight standards with respect to automated CMVs on the National network (e.g., platoons)?
Table 3. Participant Input: Infrastructure
| Planning and Design |
| Machine readability and overall improvements to the roadway system—While many stakeholders focus on the need for clear lane striping to support AV operations, some emphasize the need to make all road markings clear and machine-readable. Such improvements may benefit both human drivers and AVs. |
| Designated environments—Opinions differ about whether designating dedicated lanes and areas for automated freight vehicles is desirable, or whether automated freight vehicles need to integrate into the system without dedicated environments. If automated CMVs are only allowed to operate in designated environments, who will make those decisions and what criteria will be used? |
| Impacts and Maintenance |
| Data and infrastructure—Data-sharing is important for navigating, maintaining, and supplementing infrastructure. |
| Degradation concerns—Roadway degradation, specifically rutting, emerged as a potential impact of automated trucking and specifically truck platooning. Research on new roadway materials and maintenance practices may be needed. |
Financial concerns—Highway automation challenges us to rethink financial flows (e.g., business models of freight companies, road access fees proportionate to road degradation). |
| Equity concerns— There are equity concerns regarding who will fund infrastructure investments and who will reap the benefits. |
| Truck Size and Weight Standards |
| Bridge navigation—Bridge navigation is a common challenge for automated freight vehicles. Automated trucking platoons might have to adjust their following distances when traversing bridges. |
| Rutting concerns—There is concern that all automated CMVs might be programmed similarly with respect to lane keeping, and consequently exacerbate rutting. However, others suggested that automated CMVs could be programmed to allow a small amount of deviation in their paths of travel, thus mitigating rutting concerns. |
Connectivity
This topic focused on how connectivity could enhance information exchange and cooperation. The following guiding questions were provided to gather input:
- What roadway and traffic information is needed for safe and efficient freight flow?
- How could automated CMVs receive information regarding size and weight regulations?
- What opportunities does connectivity bring for automation in freight (e.g., hazardous conditions, road weather, routing, and cooperative automation applications)?
Table 4. Participant Input: Connectivity
| Information and Data |
| Safety and Mobility—Real-time information can provide safety and mobility benefits if it is provided in a usable and consistent format. |
| Connectivity and Technology |
| Communications—It is unclear what communication mechanisms will be used in the future (e.g., dedicated short-range communications [DSRC] vs. 5G cellular). |
| Institutions and Policy |
| Equity―Network availability and communications infrastructure could lead to a greater urban/rural divide. How will the benefits of public infrastructure investments be distributed across the different modes? Across jurisdictions with varying levels of resources? |
| Standardization—Standardization and harmonization of communications, data, and regulations will remove barriers to automation. |
| Cybersecurity and Privacy—Increased data sharing and connectivity can result in privacy and cybersecurity concerns. |
Terminology
At the Terminology station, workshop participants were encouraged to post examples of terms related to highway automation that they found to be clear and those they found confusing. As demonstrated in the table below, participants listed terms they found to be more or less confusing than others.
Table 5. Participant Input: Terminology
| More Confusing Terminology |
| Operational design domain |
| Autonomous vs. automated vs. self-driving |
| Light detection and ranging (LIDAR) |
| Platooning: some people think there is only a driver in the lead truck; the number of vehicles in a truck platoon is also unclear. |
| Telematics (dated); connectivity; infotainment |
| Artificial intelligence (AI) |
| Numerous acronyms |
| Cooperative adaptive cruise control (CACC): public will never understand; splitting hairs |
| Vehicle-to-everything (V2X): X means everything? Or does X mean "other" like bicycle? |
| Differences between driver-assistive truck platooning vs. CACC platooning |
| Commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) |
| Connected and automated vehicle (CAV): people usually mean only AV |
| Automated may mean AI, or it may only be simple controls |
| Safety: the term is usually used as a goal for automated driving systems (ADS) and intelligent transportation systems (ITS); system safety and software safety are not used within the context of system development; real safety is designed into the system |
| Geo-fencing |
| "Terms" (or symbols) for ADS to communicate intent to pedestrians and manually operated vehicles |
| Latency (data transmission) |
| Optionality: making a choice now that does not provide benefit but opens up more high-value choices down the line |
| More Clear Terminology |
| SAE levels of automation |
| Platooning |
Research Needs
This topic focused on potential research areas for freight automation and discussed who should conduct the research and in what timeframe. Research needs were divided into two categories based on whether the research would be driven by the public or private sector.
Table 6. Participant Input: Research Needs
| Private Sector |
| Environmental impacts and emissions considerations |
| Communications technologies |
| Human factors |
| Public Sector |
| Safety impacts |
| Potential revenue sources for public investments |
| Equity considerations |
| Infrastructure design and maintenance |
| Workforce and labor impacts |
| Standardization and harmonization of regulations, communications, and data |
| Public acceptance |
Parking Lot
At the parking lot station, participants shared any remaining questions and comments that did not cleanly fit into the other topic areas. Topics included:
- The impacts automation could have on insurance and liability.
- The different considerations for automation in different contexts (e.g., highway vs. urban).
- The need to plan for both human and automated drivers.
