Emergence of the Connected Car

Connected vehicles use Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) wireless communications to share information with other vehicles and transportation infrastructure around them. This allows vehicles to "talk" to each other and alerts drivers to potential hazards on the roadway even before they can see them. The US Department of Transportation started researching connected vehicle technologies in the late 1990s with a goal of reducing collisions. Since then, major automakers like General Motors, Ford and Toyota have been working to integrate connectivity features into new vehicles.

By 2025, it is estimated that over 50 million connected cars will be on U.S. roads. Most new vehicles are now being manufactured with built-in telematics control units, onboard diagnostics ports, Wi-Fi hotspots and other components that facilitate future upgrades to connected systems. With falling costs of hardware, the proliferation of high-speed wireless networks and new cooperative safety applications in development, connected vehicle technologies are poised to transform transportation safety, mobility and the driving experience over the next decade.

Cooperative Safety Applications

One of the first waves of Connected Vehicles applications focuses on cooperative safety. Using V2V and V2I communications, these applications exchange basic safety data to provide drivers with advanced warnings of potential collision risks, even when line-of-sight visibility is limited or obstructed. Intersection movement assist warns drivers entering an intersection about approaching vehicles that may not be visible. Left turn assist notifies drivers when oncoming traffic is approaching an intersectionhidden by buildings or other obstacles during a left turn.

The Federal Communications Commission has allocated 75 MHz of spectrum in the 5.9 GHz band for dedicated short-range V2V safety communications. Researchers have proven that V2V-based safety applications can help avoid or mitigate numerous crash types such as rear-end, lane change, merge and road departure collisions. Cooperative adaptive cruise control uses V2V data to allow vehicles to maintain safe following distances in tightly-packed traffic while maintaining highway speeds. Transportation agencies are exploring V2I applications that alert drivers to upcoming red lights, stopped traffic, dangerous curves or work zones.

Connected Mobility and Automation

Beyond safety, connectivity will help deliver more efficient mobility choices. With real-time traffic, transit and parking data shared between infrastructure and vehicles, journeys can be optimized to avoid delays. Travelers will have more accurate ETAs whether driving, using shared vehicles or taking public transit. Emerging mobility services like Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) and carsharing benefit from connectivity through dynamic dispatching and ride-sharing. Automated vehicles will rely on connectivity as a core function for navigation, collision avoidance and vehicle control.

Vehicle connectivity will serve as the backbone for cooperative automated vehicle systems, enabling vehicles to cooperatively sense and share data about the driving environment beyond the capabilities of human senses or vehicle sensors alone. Connected and automated features will work in tandem, as connectivity enables automated vehicles to expand their sensing range using environmental data from surrounding infrastructure and vehicles. This could vastly increase roadway capacity and reduce human-driven bottlenecks since platoons of automated vehicles can travel seamlessly together at highway speeds with minimal spacing.

Data Security and Privacy Safeguards

While connectivity enables huge safety and mobility benefits, it also introduces new data security and privacy risks that must be properly addressed. Vehicle systems and wireless communications are vulnerable to cyber-attacks that could compromise safety-critical functions or expose personal user information. To prevent hackers or other malicious actors from interfering with connected vehicle operations, manufacturers are integrating security features like authentication encryption and intrusion detection into embedded modem hardware and software protocols.

Rather than transmitting personally identifiable driver data, the V2V and V2I messages that cooperative safety applications rely on contain only basic safety characteristics like position, speed and heading. However, as vehicles share more comprehensive mobility and operational data with roadway infrastructure for emerging applications, stronger privacy and consent frameworks are needed to protect user anonymity. Transportation agencies, automakers and technology firms are collaborating to develop robust security architectures and put privacy by design principles into practice that meet public expectations for the responsible use of connected vehicle information.

Advancing Deployment through Public-Private Partnerships

While connected and automated vehicle technologies have largely been developed through public research initiatives and private sector innovation, fully deploying them across vehicle fleets and transportation infrastructure networks requires unprecedented cooperation. Major automakers, 5G cellular carriers, digital mapping companies and IoT platform providers must work in tandem with federal, state and local transportation agencies to build out dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) and cellular connectivity infrastructure. Common language is critical for interoperability between vehicles from different brands. National standards bodies like SAE International help coordinate technical specifications.

Pilots of integrated CAV technologies are underway in several cities and highway corridors through public-private research partnerships involving municipal, regional and state DOTs. This includes large-scale safety field tests of V2V-enabled safety applications in Michigan and New York City and the deployment of smart corridors integrating V2I, traffic signals and digital signage in Tampa. Successful pilots inform technology readiness for nationwide deployment strategies, including the USDOT ́s 10-year roadmap and designation of proving grounds across the country to accelerate innovation. Achieving the full promise of connected vehicles to save lives, optimize mobility and enable automation will require ongoing collaboration across industry and government.

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