ITU: Autonomous Revelations

After a relentless deluge of negative news associated with automated driving technology, the third session of the International Telecommunications Union's Future Networked Car Symposium was a breath of fresh air - that is, if you are an advocate of automated driving tech. The message from the participants in the three-hour discussion (and presentations) was that commercial autonomous vehicle operations of all types are thriving and expanding, robotaxis and robotic shuttles are steadily advancing, automated middle-mile delivery operations are on the rise and profitable, and China, of course, is defining a unique path to automated driving that is both hard to ignore and will be difficult to replicate.

Waymo, which currently operates hundreds of upfitted Jaguar I-Pace SUVs, kicked off the session with a description of its automated vehicle testing philosophy and process. The company has conducted tests in more than 25 U.S. cities, logged 10M+ passenger-only miles and 1M+ passenger-only trips and has commercial operations in San Francisco and Phoenix with plans for passenger-only service coming soon in Los Angeles and Austin.

Waymo described its engagement with a wide range of constituencies from standards-setting bodies to regulators as it works to unravel the challenges associated with automated driving that are unique to each area it targets. Waymo emphasized that the pace of scaling up its operations would be determined by the steadily evolving operational design domain. In other words, Waymo is unlikely to simultaneously launch more than a few cities. There is no simple solution to ramping up operations in a city - though Waymo has nearly perfected a step-by-step process of manned-test-to-unmanned-trial-to-driverless commercial operations.

May Mobility has taken a similarly measured approach to deployment of its automated shuttle technology. May Mobility, which uses upfitted Toyota Sienna vans, has active operations in four cities and has provided more than 300,000 autonomous trips. The company also takes a measured approach to scaling and has focused in part on senior citizens and handicapped users of shared transportation services. May Mobility is less ad hoc than Waymo, focusing on fixed routes as an enhancement to or expansion of public transportation.

Gatik describes itself as the only company providing autonomy for the "middle mile" - i.e. delivering from distribution centers to retail stores, depots, lockers, or pickup hubs. The company is currently operating 60+ vehicles which have so far completed more than 600,000 deliveries. Like May Mobility, Gatik is focused on fixed destinations with limited routing requirements thereby somewhat easing the burden of automation. The driverless solution has attracted a wide range of customers including Wal-Mart, Kroger, Tyson, Pitney-Bowes, and Georgia-Pacific.

Richard Bishop of Bishop Consulting painted a broader picture of global commercial vehicle operations encompassing long haul trucking, short haul, logistics yard, and industrial operations. The organizations falling under Bishop's purview include the likes of Gatik, Torc Robotics, Kodiak, Aurora, plus.ai , Waabi, and Stack. The operational environments range from highways and secondary surface streets to mining operations.

The takeaway from Bishop's comments were that commercial operations were robust, global, and expanding and touching a wide range of applications already impacting industries and individuals. A key focal point was the leveraging of autonomous technology and vehicle platooning to address ongoing driver shortages. It's hard to imagine the autonomous commercial vehicle sector struggling in the context of enduring and urgent driver shortages.

The most stunning presentation of all, though, was that given by a senior representative of the Beijing High-Level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Zone. In this defined area of Beijing 19 organizations are testing 578 autonomous vehicles of various types from robotaxis to delivery vehicles. Permission was recently granted for four robotaxis operators to provide service from several defined pickup areas to Daxing International Airport.

The impact of the BJHAD presentation derived from its depiction of an infrastructure-centric vision of automated driving. Relying on EUHT-5G connectivity enhanced by a cloud-based traffic command center the BJHAD has been able to measure and monitor the performance of autonomous vehicles including the enhancement of traffic throughput and forensic assessments when collisions occur using existing traffic monitoring camera infrastructure.

Most "western" autonomous vehicle operators have either chosen or have been forced to rely entirely on self-contained on-vehicle sensor portfolios with some cellular communications regarding roadway hazards. The BJHAD approach, facilitated by substantial Federal and local government intervention, presents a provocative proposition for existing autonomous vehicle operators.

In the U.S. and E.U., limited strategic resources have been committed to the autonomous vehicle effort either from a policy or funding perspective. While autonomous vehicle operators are progressing successfully without much support, it is likely they'd be performing even more impressively and more operators would have been preserved with at least some support from regulators and legislators.

U.S. and E.U. cities are currently under-resourced to create the kind of infrastructure shown in association with BJHAD. Even more ominously, the BJHAD representative noted that there were dozens of such demonstration zones in cities across China.

The BJHAD representative interestingly said that the resources being provided by the demonstration zone were currently available at no cost. In the future, though, a funding model (pay per use? subscription?) would likely need to be created.

All in all, the session spotlighted the progress and successes of the current operators of autonomous vehicles, many of which are in the process of transitioning from generating revenue to generating profits as they perfect their test-and-deploy strategies. Reassuringly, as a group these operators are proceeding cautiously and, sadly, they are proceeding with limited support from Federal, state, and local governments.

It would seem that the time has come to embrace autonomous vehicle tech. As we cross that threshold there are certainly implications for adjusting policies and priorities. It also means rethinking and redefining the role of infrastructure.

"Beijing Forging into High Ground for Autonomous Driving" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zdn42ai9Xj4

ITU-FNC Session 3 - "Worldwide Status of Automated Vehicle Testing" - (Presentations and speaker profiles) - https://fnc.itu.int/2024-session-3/

TechInsights: China: C-V2X Development Update 2024 - https://library.techinsights.com/search/analysis-view/AIT-2402-802#pdfId=6088e71d003848358e38dfbdcd91f924