M Live - New Bills Urge More Talking-Highway Technology; Sen. Gary Peters Hopes Michigan Will be Leader

News Article

By David Muller

Several new cars are already equipped with early forms of automated driving, and projects are afoot in Michigan to speed potentially life-saving road-to-car communication technologies forward.

U.S. Sens. Gary Peters (D-Bloomfield Township) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) have introduced legislation that will help states move more quickly in adapting vehicle-to-infrastructure, one key aspect in evolving technology that should lead to safer roads.

The so-called "V2I" technology involves using sensors on parts of the road that communicate information to vehicles.

The sensors can monitor conditions, alerting vehicles to how much ice is on a bridge, and cars can respond accordingly. The V2I technology can communicate traffic signals to vehicles, letting them know when it's a red light. Vehicles can be privy to work zones and other conditions that call for reduced speeds even if motorists are not. And so on.

The bipartisan legislation introduced by Peters and Blunt would allow states to use existing federal transportation funding from several programs specifically for V2I infrastructure projects.

The bill is a companion to one introduced in the House by Rep. Candice Miller (R-Harrison Township) and Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Southfield).

Implementing the technology alongside automakers will reduce accidents and help save thousands of lives, Peters told reporters on a conference call Wednesday.

"Connected vehicles and infrastructure are the next frontier of the American auto industry and vehicle safety," Peters said.

Peters also said he wants Michigan to be "the engine" at forefront of this frontier.

It has a good start. Some Metro Detroit highways have already become a testing ground, thanks to a partnership between General Motors, Ford Motor Co., the University of Michigan and the Michigan Department of Transportation that aims to eventually equip more than 120 miles of road with V2I technology.

The primary stretch being equipped is on Interstates 96 and 696 from US-23 in Brighton to Interstate 94 in St. Clair Shores. The area was selected to be the region's first "connected corridor" because it has some of the heaviest traffic volumes, MDOT said when the project was announced at the World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems in Detroit last September.

At that time, GM also announced it would begin offering vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) technology and some automated driving on select 2017 Cadillac models.

Several new vehicles made by GM and other OEMs already offer adaptive cruise, in which the vehicle's sensors will automatically slow it down if it detects something fast approaching on the road ahead - regardless of what the driver is doing.

Some new cars and trucks have features such as lane departure warning, in which sensors detect the painted lines on the road and let drivers know - via beeping and/or vibrating the driver's seat - if the vehicle is veering outside of those lines.

These are technologies that signal a future of automated driving, and are expected to be developed alongside that of V2I.

As for the Metro Detroit highways, MDOT spokesman Rob Morose said the V2I corridor is supposed to eventually be one big loop, with portions of I-94, US-23 and I-75 also becoming equipped.

On this front, Morose told MLive earlier this spring that so far the roadside units have been deployed are primarily on I-96 between Milford Road and M-5 in Novi. There is no set timeline yet for when this project would be complete.

"As funding becomes available we'll continue to do more deployments along the 96 corridor," Morose said at the time.

With these bipartisan bills, legislatures suggest that could be sooner rather than later.

Source