Transportation Engineering and SmartDrivingCars, Vol. 1, No.3
Crowd Sourced Data
by Prof. Alain L. Kornhauser, Ph.D.
Data are a precious byproduct of the mobility, safety and environmental enhancements delivered by SmartDrivingCars. Without a professional custodian to oversee the harvest, analysis, dissemination, and use of this resrouce its full value will not be realized. The ITE is the ideal entity to act as custodian.
Today, our eyes and ears sense the environment, and our brain effectively figures out how our hands and feet should move in order to drive and usually not crash. For the most part, we do this very well. However, if, for whatever reason, we need to recreate what just happened , we are hard pressed. We are simply not able to recall in sufficient detail what we confronted, what actions we took and what actually happened. Consequently, intricate and highly significant details are lost.
With SmartDrivingCars (SDC) , sensors necessarily convert the reality of the driving environment into data. These data are subsequently manipulated to provide the digital inputs to electronic controllers that activate the steering, throttle, brake, turn signals and other associated driving actuators. While there are, and always will be, limitations as to how “well” (reliably and thoroughly) the sensors convert reality into data and how “well” theSmartDrivingCar responds to the control inputs, there exists a deterministic coupling between the set of sensory data input and the set of data fed to the various controllers. Simply stated, during each short time interval, say 1/10th of a second, data are created that describe the current state of the SmartDriving Car, the environment in which it is operating and the actions that are being requested of each of its controllers. This means that whatever is happening at any instant of time, as well as what happened leading up to that instant and what happened after that instant, could be re-enacted, if so desired.
Such capabilities are essentially unachievable in today’s cars but are a fundamental byproduct of SDCs. The value of having the opportunity to re-enact the driving performance of the SmartDrivingCar (SDC) cannot be overstated. What is necessary, however, is that these data be captured and temporarily stored by each SDC and be subsequently harvested by an external entity that can make the data available (to those that have developed and use the tools that deliver their inherent value to society. )
The capture and harvest of these data from a substantial (>~25%) of the SDCs may well be the only practical way to both uncover and quickly address unsafe and previously unknown rare events. The data are absolutely necessary to design and test improvements that will enable the SDC’s automated driving system to safely and effectively traverse or to otherwise avoid those circumstances all together. As we all know, we don’t know what we don’t know. It is imperative that the data that allows us to recreate these events be captured as a normal operational activity so that those data are available if the event was one of particular interest. Since everything is operating in real time, going backwards in time to capture and store data is not an option. The data capture and storage must be done pro-actively.
Assessing rare events, while likely the most important, is but one of many uses for these data. As has been shown with respect to monitoring real-time travel times on today’s highways to enhance the effectiveness of today’s turn-by-turn navigation systems , such crowd-sourced data will be an effective way to monitor the effectiveness of the SDC’s lane keeping system. Using simple cellular based communications systems a database can be maintained to identify which lanes between which mileposts are sufficiently well designated, signed and supported so that any particular SDC can deliver “level 3” functionality. Such designations could then be used by the SDC’s navigation system to more properly tailor a route for the driver. Such crowd-sourced data could also be used by local transport authorities to plan and schedule maintenance and improvements.
Numerous other uses exist for such data. The key point is that each SmartDrivingCar creates these data in real time. The data could easily be used and erased. Alternatively, with slightly more effort, the data can be used, stored, harvested and put to good use. I’m suggesting that ITE take on the role of harvesting and putting to good use these data.
Skeptics will ask “what about privacy” ” This is a non-trivial questions for which I offer a straightforward, but not necessarily simple approach: Each SDC should be equipped with the capability to store and harvest the appropriate data but the capability should require the user’s voluntary decision to enable it.. It was my experience with the CoPilot turn-by-turn navigation system that a substantial percentage of CoPilot users voluntarily shared with ALK the GPS data that their CoPilot stored in real time. These users were only asked to share the data so as to help ALK improve the product. Their only direct benefit was helping ALK improve the product. The customer response was uplifting. I believe that this, plus one other thing, is all that will be necessary with respect to the real-time SDC automated driving data.
That other thing is a “hold harmless/no self-incrimination” clause.
Since we are dealing here with data that can reconstruct the driving behavior, including the events leading up to and through an accident, we are dealing with extremely serious implications that could point fingers all over the place, including back to the owner of the SDC. Given such serious implications, it is extremely unlikely that any individual would behave like a CoPilot user. The risks are enormous and the reward is infinitesimal. One solution might be through legislation that characterizes these data as being self-generated and potentially self-incriminating and that provides for binding “hold-harmless” clauses. It is my understanding that these legal issues are not easy. However, I call on ITE to work to develop appropriate legislation. Without protection for owner privacy, all of the discussion about the value of the data will all be in vain. No one will allow these data to be captured, let alone stored and harvested.