01-Assessment of Standards and Practices in Preparation for Roadway Digital Infrastructure - Considerations as we Integrate Highly Automated Systems
Date and Time: Tuesday, July 30, 2024: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Location: Indigo BC
Ashley Nylen
Acting Assistant Director, Program Development and Strategy and Senior Strategist, Surface Automation & Safety, U.S. Department of Transportation, Highly Automated Systems Safety Center of Excellence
Presentation Description
As highlighted by the United States Department of Transportation’s (USDOT’s) Research, Development, and Technology Strategic Plan, the transportation system of the future will integrate digital technologies and infrastructure to support safe, reliable, and convenient multimodal travel. Roadway automation benefits from interoperable digital infrastructure, through communication and cooperation between vehicles, infrastructure, and other road users. This supports driving automation features, improved control methods, and Vulnerable Road User safety applications, and serves many use cases. However, ubiquitous, interoperable digital infrastructure requires significant work in planning, design, and long-term operation and maintenance, much of which is continued to be understood at the federal, state, and local levels.
The increasing role that information (data) plays today for decision making is critical to transportation system safety and operation. Transportation data of today largely requires a significant digital infrastructure (digital layer) that supports the transmission, ingestion, transformation, and analysis for consumptive use of that information. However, variance in design, deployment, maintenance, and operation can pose a significant threat to the interoperability of digital infrastructure and the subsequent information (data) it’s looking to share with relevant stakeholders. Understanding these existent gaps, needs, challenges, and opportunities posed by digital infrastructure offers immense preparatory value to deployers for their current investments, while also providing research and insights to consider for the transportation system of the future.
The Highly Automated Systems Safety Center of Excellence (HASS COE), in cooperation with colleagues from across the USDOT, has begun to review possible impediments and considerations that may impede an interoperable digital infrastructure. Following in the footpath of the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center’s prior work, “Review of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) for Automated Vehicles,”1 HASS COE conducted a similar assessment that sought to identify an inventory of potential barriers, practices, and impediments that may challenge an interoperable digital infrastructure. This poster will feature an in-depth overview of the problem statement, including how current frameworks in design, deployment, and operational practices may contribute to challenges to scalable, trustworthy interoperability between systems and data providers. The poster will provide in-depth inventory of the research review HASS COE has conducted on identifying and inventorying possible practices and gaps that may work against scalable interoperability of digital infrastructure in the future.
The results from the research review features areas and lessons learned in design, deployment, integration, standards, traffic engineering, and procurement practices that infrastructure owner operators (IOOs) can be mindful of when delivering or maintaining digital infrastructure projects. Notably, the results will detail ITS devices and software system challenges, system architecture considerations, and IOO practices and traffic engineering methodologies that have encountered interoperability, data sharing, data quality, or scalability challenges. The findings will provide real-world experiences that IOOs and transportation operators may consider as they plan for, evaluate, design, implement, deploy, maintain, or advance their digital infrastructures.
Speaker Biography
Ashley Nylen is the Acting Assistant Director of Program Development & Strategy at the USDOT Highly Automated Systems Safety Center of Excellence (HASS COE), leading operational excellence and efficiency within the office, and provides expertise in automated technology deployment, emerging technology data, public policy, and research. She has served in the public sector for over 13 years, with 10 of those years focused in the connected and automated technology space. Prior to joining the USDOT, Ashley served as the Assistant Director of Mobility Technology at the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT). She led CDOT’s strategy for connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) technologies in Colorado and was the state’s subject matter expert on advanced vehicle technologies. Prior to joining CDOT, Ashley led the Automated Driving Systems Research Division with the University of Iowa Driving Safety Research Institute. She led the center’s research on advanced driver assistance systems and automated vehicles with a focus on human factors and driver understanding.
Presentation File
Assessment of Standards and Practices in Preparation for Roadway Digital Infrastructure - Considerations as we Integrate Highly Automated Systems
Category
Infrastructure Technology Supporting Road Vehicle Automation