UFTI Hosts TTI Agency Director Greg Winfree

Gregory Winfree, TTI Agency Director, visited the UFTI to give a speech about connected autonomous vehicles.

Below is the abstract and recording of the presentation.

Abstract: Autonomous – or “self-driving” – vehicles are all the rage in the news today, with significantly more focus given to the vehicles driving themselves than whether the vehicles can actually “connect” to each other or to our roadway infrastructure to help drivers make safer and more informed decisions. Unlike an autonomous vehicle, the use of a “connected vehicle” (CV) doesn’t imply that the vehicle is making decisions for the driver. Instead, a connected vehicle is giving information to the driver to increase situational awareness, such as potentially dangerous situations to avoid. Until our roadway infrastructure is connected-vehicle-ready, the use of autonomous vehicles will be constrained – if not ineffective. And until the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration mandates inclusion of 5.9-GHz-based equipment in all new vehicles to make them CV-ready, we won’t begin to realize the potential safety benefits of CV technologies, which are estimated to eliminate 80 percent of unimpaired crashes and save tens of thousands of lives each year. Moreover, ongoing threats to GPS risk rendering unreliable the technology that underpins the very ability for autonomous vehicles to operate at all. We’ll explore together why it’s time for a reset, and a return to the original game plan of placing our main focus on connected vehicles and infrastructure first.