Floating Car Data Projects Worldwide: A Selective Review

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Floating Car Data Projects Worldwide A
Selective Review

• Richard Bishop
• Bishop Consulting
• ITS America Annual Mtg
• April 26, 2004

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Outline

• Floating Car Data introduction
• Europe
• France
• Germany
• BMW XFCD Extended Floating Car Data
• DaimlerChrysler CityFCD
• German Aerospace Center
• Ddg
• Mannesman
• Netherlands
• Sweden
• United Kingdom
• Japan
• Internet ITS
• SmartWay
• International Standards

Probably not a complete list!
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Floating Car Data

• Also known as probe data
• But probes can be company-sponsored and focused
  on particular routes of interest
• FCD refers to cars reporting data from routes
  chosen for non-traffic-probing reasons
• At least two areas of focus
• Urban street conditions
• Taxis, delivery vehicles, etc. are effective
  probes
• Commuting freeways
• private vehicles are the core data source

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Floating Car Data Activities in Europe
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France

• Mediamobile
• provides data primarily from the French road
  administration in the Paris area
• data is supplemented with FCD from taxis

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Germany
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BMW XFCD

• Extended Floating Car Data (2nd generation)
• Reporting by exception
• On-board database constantly maintained by new
  data
• Data management messages from center
• Detection algorithms filter out false data
• Ex Stopping to pick up passenger
• Applications
• Traffic
• Weather
• Precipitation
• Visibility
• Road Conditions

Reference Extended Floating Car Data An
Overview, S. Breitenberger, et al. Presented at
2003 ITS World Congress.
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BMW XFCD Vehicle Data

• Weather
• Speed, windshield wiper status, ABS signals,
  headlight status, navigation
• Allows estimates of precipitation, visibility,
  and road conditions
• Traffic
• Speed, acceleration
• Filtering Data (for data cleansing)
• Steering angle, door and window status, fuel
  level, tire pressure, gyro sensor, distance from
  surrounding objects, airbag status, crash
  sensors, rough road sensor, route navigation
  data, position data

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BMW XFCD Stance

• Development of this technology is mainly the
  responsibility of the auto manufacturers
• By integrating on-board data with processing and
  vehicle communications systems

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DaimlerChrysler CityFCD

• 2nd generation FCD techniques to reduce message
  frequency
• On-board measurement of link travel time
• Link times are compared to on-board link time
  database
• Message transmitted only by exception to the
  database

FCD FOR URBAN AREAS METHOD AND ANALYSIS OF
PRACTICAL REALISATIONS, C. Demir, et al.
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DaimlerChrysler CityFCD (2) Conclusions

• optimized message generation process can reduce
  the amount of messages by factor of 40
• Key information is time interval of
• congestion build-up
• congestion dissolution
• minimum 2 (up to 4) FCD messages are necessary to
  detect the congestion fronts.
• 1.5 FCD penetration rate gives sufficient
  service quality in urban traffic net.

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DaimlerChrysler CityFCD (3) Conclusions

• 1.5 FCD reporting detects incidents lasting
  longer than 20 minutes with 65 probability
• 2 FCD and 85 probability are possible for
  incidents longer than 30 minutes
• Communications aspects
• urban areas
• GSM point-to-point
• broadcast between traffic centre and vehicle.
• Preferred communication channels are SMS and DAB
  other possibilities are
• GPRS (at present no equipment for simultaneous
  speech and data)
• RDS (less bandwidth)

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Germany -- other

• Mannesman
• Initial pilot of 1000 vehicles
• to get 90 traffic condition detection, estimated
  that 80,000 100,000 vehicles needed with each
  at minimum 1500 km/year
• Conclusion FCD alone is difficult -- total
  system should be composed of FCD and road-based
  sensing instrumentation
• DDG
• 25,000 equipped cars (BMW VW)
• Separate services for each OEM
• Designed for three messages per car per day
• Currently processing 30M records per day

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Germany -- other

• German Aerospace Center, Institute of Transport,
  Berlin
• Taxi-FCD System
• 2300 taxis involved
• Berlin 300 taxis (5)
• Nuremburg 500 taxis (95)
• Vienna 600 taxis (12)
• Munich 220 taxis (6)
• Stuttgart 700 taxis (95)
• Using fleet management data, therefore no
  communication expenses
• no on-board expenses for data collection
• Data structure
• Vehicle ID
• Timestamp
• GPS position
• Taxi status
• Data sent at intervals of between 15-120 seconds
• Excellent information on rain, traffic

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Netherlands

• Prelude Project
• using FCD in Rotterdam
• 60 vehicles took part in the study
• European Space Agency trials in Rotterdam

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European Space Agency (1)

• Smart FCD probe data collection via satellite
• Feasibility test with small number of vehicles in
  Rotterdam area
• Satellite approaches cover the entire road
  network
• Conclusions
• the collection of valid traffic information by
  means of satellite is technically feasible
• Data gathered shows that the coverage of the
  satellite system is adequate, even in densely
  urbanized areas.
• Analysis shows traffic jams are detected well
  with the algorithms used.
• Compared to conventional detection methods, this
  concept offers better coverage and better data at
  competitive costs.
• Additional studies and next steps now under
  examination.
• http//www.estec.esa.nl/wmwww/EMS/ARTESpresentatio
  n.htm

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European Space Agency (2)Smart FCD Experiment
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Sweden FCD (1)

• OPTIS Optimized Traffic In Sweden
• 2002 Field Trial
• Partners
• SAAB Automobiles, Scania Commercial Vehicles,
  Volvo Cars, Volvo Trucks, Swedish National Road
  Administration
• The OPTIS field trial comprised 223 probe
  equipped vehicles in the city of Gothenburg
• Use of Volvo OnCall telematics units

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Sweden FCD (2)

• Simplicity in both probe and server
• probe collects and wirelessly transmits positions
• No calculations executed in the probe, therefore
• no digital map in the vehicle
• geographically independent probe
• no need to update map information
• no advanced algorithms
• ??Cost of Simplicity
• more intense communication between probe and
  server (compared to a more advanced probe
  calculating travel times directly)
• Travel times are calculated at link level for
  each probe using reported position data and
  timestamps

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Sweden FCD (3)

• OPTIS evaluation results
• ??High quality travel information can be produced
  with the OPTIS concept.
• ??Alternative routes at major incidents can save
  as much as 25 minutes for those involved.
• ??The illustrated actual travel time and travel
  speed produced by OPTIS facilitate more accurate
  traffic messages
• provides TIC with a better overall picture of the
  current traffic situation
• The installation cost of the FCD solution is
  estimated to be half that of a fixed detector
  system.

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Sweden FCD (4)

• Government Role
• The benefit and the road users willingness to
  pay are limited as long as the supply of useful
  travel data is small and irregular
• Government should finance implementation of the
  concept during the transitional period until
  there are enough equipped production vehicles on
  the market
• During transition period, promotion and
  development of the concept, including large scale
  demonstration projects
• Next steps 2004 implementation in the three
  biggest cities in Sweden

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United Kingdom (1)

• UK Road Traffic Advisor
• Objectives
• Evaluate New Two-Way Communication System
• Provide a National Test Site
• Develop In-Vehicle Electronics
• Develop an Open Architecture
• Product Development
• 350 km of M4 from airports to Swansea
• 80 5.8 Ghz beacons
• Project completed and not currently active

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United Kingdom (2)

• UK -- Trafficmaster
• Company established in 1988 in UK
• collects and processes traffic data and offer a
  series of traffic information services.
• major part of data comes from stationary
  sensors data is supplemented with FCD.
• Trafficmaster subscribers mount technical device
  in their cars that both transmit and receive
  traffic information.
• Trafficmaster is now also established in the
  continent of Europe
• Germany
• Italy.

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Japan Smartway Deployment (1)

• Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport
  (MLIT) planning and researching floating car
  techniques for road administration ongoing since
  1999
• 1999
• 16 cities
• 2001 congestion loss indicators via 4700
  survey vehicles over 11,000 km of arterials
• 2002 buses as probes
• 2004 10,000 probe survey vehicles
• Focus is on long term road management and
  evaluation
• not on real-time probe processing

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Japan Smartway Deployment (2)

• Objectives
• measuring national congestion loss and applying
  road performance monitoring
• developing and operating national probe
  information systems
• road project evaluation (before and after)
• researching road performance indicators
• planning of "national travel speed survey
  (FY2006)"
• environmental emission factor estimation

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Japan (METI/JARI) (1)

• Real-time probe processing using taxi fleet
• 1999 verification testing of prototype system
• 2001 large-scale field trial with 300 probe
  cars
• 2004 public field trial scheduled using
  practical implementation methods
• Primary sponsorship by the Ministry of Economy,
  Trade and Industry
• Supported by JSK companies (Denso) and Keio
  University.
• Applications
• travel time information
• management of service vehicles
• eco-driving (promotion of energy-saving driving
  behavior)
• weather (rainfall) information
• Probe cars and probe car data center linked via
  the Internet.

RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND FIELD TESTING OF THE
PROBE CAR INFORMATION SYSTEM (III), Koji Wada
General Manager Probe Car Project Office
Association of Electronic Technology for
Automobile Traffic and Driving (JSK), et al.
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Japan (METI/JARI) (2)

• Integrated in-vehicle system
• collects sensor data stored onboard the vehicles.
• receives instructions from a data center
• transmitting relevant probe car data
• security functions against external attempts to
  access probe cars
• Data items
• Windshield wiper operation
• Position
• Traveling speed
• Fuel consumption
• Engine rpm
• Position
• Turn Signals

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Japan (METI/JARI) (3)

• Techniques in place for addressing the issue of
  privacy in the collection of probe car data
• authentication
• encryption
• data overhead for security / privacy increased by
  3-5 times compared to earlier systems without
  these features
• Applications selected take into account
• the market prospects for the service (scale of
  demand)
• business viability (advantages of using probe car
  data)
• potential for implementation (technical
  feasibility).

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International Standards

• BMW standardization is important in early
  development stages for inter-operability
• In-Vehicle
• Standard Sensor Interface developed by INVENT
  (Germany)
• Encoding of message contents
• Message protocols
• ISO TC204 (ITS) Working Group 16 (ITS
  Communications)
• Sub-working group 16.3 focuses on probe vehicle
  data elements which are transmitted to the probe
  processing center
• New participants are encouraged
• Membership open to US Working Advisory Group for
  WG16

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Business Model Considerations

• Industry
• Reporting by exception essential and feasible
• Small fleet penetrations levels offer valuable
  data
• Multiple communications options exist
• Roles
• Government can support / subsidize in early years
  to gain momentum
• Main responsibility is with auto manufacturers to
  equip vehicles
• Privacy issues being addressed in Japan

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Thank you.

• www.IVsource.net
• (access to download presentation)
• richardbishop_at_mindspring.com