The U.S. Government and industry are attempting to prototype a new type of mobile computing and wireless mesh, where vehicles all communicate with each other about a whole variety of parameters. They are currently planning to use the 5.9GHz band for DSRC (5.8GHz in Europe) for their Vehicle Infrastructure Integration initiative. Whether they incorporate WAVE or not is another matter, but it does mark the entrance to another generation of mobile devices.
I’ve always wished I could get myself into gear and set up an on-board computer in the Land Rover, but I’ve never found the time to do it. We all use a mobile computer if we drive a car made after around 1990, whether it’s in the form of the ECU for engine management, or the in-built computer to control everything from the on-board bus to the bluetooth link to your mobile phone. Using any of the popular technologies, one day you’ll be able to sync your cars entertainment system music collection in the same way you sync your iPod. At the same time, your car will be updating the GPS map database, checking for new firmware, and telling your house that you’re home and to put the kettle on. When you are out and about on the move, your car will be able to predict what is happening beyond your line of sight. Not all of us seem to watch out for the brake lights of cars through the windows of the car in front, nor can we always see through the car in front. Modern cars are already using radar and lidar to slow down when the car in front slows down, they already pre-tension the seatbelt cartridges when you stamp on the ABS, and some will even sense the rate of application of the brakes and increase its own rate if it reckons you are about to do an emergency stop. Windscreen wipers can tell other cars about the current rainfall rate (power required to drive wipers is related to amount of pressure on them exerted by the water on the windscreen), and braking systems could tell other cars to slow down on the motorway to ease a motorway shockwave.
The technology is there, but the integration isn’t. Imagine the day when you get in your car and ask your GPS to plot the fastest route to the airport. As some of us may know, Glasgow Airport has horrendous roadworks to the East of it, but is quite accessible from the West. Living in Yoker I can choose either direction, approaching through the Tunnel or over the Erskine Bridge, but I shouldn’t have to. The GPS can interrogate traffic data from Traffic Scotland and route appropriately. Using the same traffic data from surrounding areas, it could even begin to use alternative routes, effectively load balancing traffic across the area. This is using real world data that is available right now, not some day in 5 years time.
Another proposed feature of this wonderful GPS/mobile computing platform would be Open Source mapping. This is already progressing well with the OpenStreetmap project. Admittedly Charlotte and I use TomTom, and it’s very good. But like all things, it could do far more. It still doesn’t know about the Clyde Arc (or The Squinty Bridge, to give it its local name). OpenStreetmap doesn’t, but all it would take is for me, or someone with a GPS receiver, to cross the bridge, upload the GPS track and then update the map. My proposed solution is for all those in-car GPS receivers to upload on a daily basis the routes that they’ve taken (with the owners permission, of course). If a certain number of people, say 1000 per day, decide to do a Dukes of Hazard style jump over the River Clyde, then it would be a fair assumption to say that a new bridge has been opened. In a similar vein, the new layout of the Clydeside Expressway could be represented on an online map within a few days, instead of the months and months it currently takes for maps to be updated. Also, being an Open Source effort, the maps are not subject to the same licensing restrictions the Ordnance Survey places on the maps of today. With just a little bit more programming, one way systems could also be interpreted and updated on a daily basis. In a modern, dynamic city like Barcelona, the ever changing route of one way streets would no longer be a problem to most people.
It’s all there, everything we need. We have mobile internet, gps tracking and planning, open source methodologies. We don’t need governments to spur this on, it should be second nature to the geeks amongst us.
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