Smart highways

I feel like I might have posted about these things before, but given my past blog posts on the topic, I figured it was worth sharing either way. Via Barry Ritholtz comes a quick summary of these so-called "smart" highways, which are scheduled to debut in the Netherlands later this year. Pretty cool stuff.

From their own fact sheet (with some funky translations):

Smart Highway are interactive and sustainable roads of today. Designer Daan Roosegaarde and Heijmans Infrastructure are developing new designs and technologies for this Route 66 of the future. 

New designs include the ‘Glow-in-the-Dark Road’, ‘Dynamic Paint’, ‘Interactive Light’, ‘Induction Priority Lane’ and ‘Wind Light’. The goal is to make roads which are more sustainable and interactive by using light, energy and road signs that automatically adapt to the traffic situation. 

Awarded with a Best Future Concept by the Dutch Design Awards 2012 the first meters Smart Highway will be realized mid 2013 in the Netherlands. 

The "Dynamic Paint" design, for example, puts designs on the road that will change based on temperature and general road conditions, to better inform drivers of what to expect. And the "Induction Priority Lane" has induction coils underneath the surface, which can allow electric cars to recharge their batteries as they drive on them.

Here's a short video showing what these guys are doing, and what's possible.


Futuristic highways glow in the dark by Daan Roosegaarde and Heijmans from Daan Roosegaarde on Vimeo.

While this still seems like pretty crude and early-stage technology, I think it's a good step toward being more creative with how we think about our roads and their functions. The days of having a piezoelectric national highway system that powers the cars that drive on it may not be so far away, after all.

Finally, some real innovation

You see, guys, what have I always been telling you? If we really want to get some real innovation in this country to get us out of our economic doldrums, we just have to start taking our cues from Russia. Wait, that can't be right...

In October, design practice Y/N studio caused a stir by designing a blueprint for a swimming lane along Regent's canal in London, so that people could swim to work. Now, the Estonian architecture studio Salto has built an equally inventive solution to the boredom of the morning commute – a 51m (170ft) -long trampoline, so that you can bounce to your destination. 

 

The trampoline, called Fast Track, has been built and installed at arts festival Archstoyanie, and has been a hit since it was opened at the end of November in the Nikola-Lenivets forest, in south-west Russia. Made of black rubber, it is, according to Salto "an attempt to create [an] intelligent infrastructure that is emotional and corresponds to the local context, giving the user a different experience of moving and perceiving the environment".

Hey, that's a fantastic idea! It's green, it gets us off our butts and exercising a little bit, it encourages our long-lost love of nature... what could possibly go wrong? Oh... right.

The future of automotive transportation

While I spend a lot of time on this blog decrying the current state of our economy (and political environment), I try my best to balance that cynicism with a fair amount of optimism about our future, especially where new technologies are concerned. If we can be courageous enough to allow for the breaking down of old paradigms (and for the failure of outdated and obsolete business models), the future for our nation is indeed incredibly bright.

In that vein, a pair of articles that I read over the weekend have me particularly excited. First up, from US News & World Report:

Last week, California became the third and by far the most important state to legalize driverless cars, joining Nevada and Florida. Google has been getting most of the attention here for its work developing driverless vehicles. But it is hardly alone. Major automakers have their own projects under development. 

Google may want to leapfrog existing technology to point the way toward a driverless future. Existing auto companies will seek incremental changes that protect their franchises while moving toward an automated future. It's not clear what the pace of commercialization will be for driverless cars. 

After all, many of the improvements promised at the 1939 World's Fair in New York still have not come to pass. And there will be no shortage of open-road lovers and skeptics reluctant to cede control of their cars to a bunch of computers—shades of Skynet and The Terminator. 

But as Google, Apple, and other new-tech giants have demonstrated, the pace of change is likely to be much faster when it comes to automated vehicles. Using increasingly sophisticated sensors and software, driverless cars hold out the promise of saving lives, fuel, and time. They react more quickly to accident threats. They don't panic. They can tie into traffic grids and do a much better job of balancing traffic flows. They can optimize fuel consumption. 

We already trust a lot to technology when we drive. We generally believe traffic signals and respond to GPS guidance and traffic congestion reports. We expect speed and fuel flows to respond properly when we use cruise controls. We use digitized cameras and back-up sensors. Newer cars monitor weather conditions and automatically trigger any number of safety responses. Increasingly, we even pay for auto insurance using on-board computers to record where and how we are driving. And many of these functions are voice-activated on newer vehicles.

For more on the Google Car project, check out this video on Bloomberg—you have to admit, it looks pretty awesome. But in case driverless cars don't get you all excited, I've got another car-related article that is equally awesome. From Yahoo Finance:

Tesla Motors today unveiled its highly anticipated Supercharger network. Constructed in secret, Tesla revealed the locations of the first six Supercharger stations, which will allow the Model S to travel long distances with ultra fast charging throughout California, parts of Nevada and Arizona.  

The technology at the heart of the Supercharger was developed internally and leverages the economies of scale of existing charging technology already used by the Model S, enabling Tesla to create the Supercharger device at minimal cost. The electricity used by the Supercharger comes from a solar carport system provided by SolarCity, which results in almost zero marginal energy cost after installation. Combining these two factors, Tesla is able to provide Model S owners1 free long distance travel indefinitely. 

Each solar power system is designed to generate more energy from the sun over the course of a year than is consumed by Tesla vehicles using the Supercharger. This results in a slight net positive transfer of sunlight generated power back to the electricity grid. In addition to lowering the cost of electricity, this addresses a commonly held misunderstanding that charging an electric car simply pushes carbon emissions to the power plant. The Supercharger system will always generate more power from sunlight than Model S customers use for driving. By adding even a small solar system at their home, electric car owners can extend this same principle to local city driving too. 

The six California locations unveiled today are just the beginning. By next year, we plan to install Superchargers in high traffic corridors across the continental United States, enabling fast, purely electric travel from Vancouver to San Diego, Miami to Montreal and Los Angeles to New York. Tesla will also begin installing Superchargers in Europe and Asia in the second half of 2013. 

The Supercharger is substantially more powerful than any charging technology to date, providing almost 100 kilowatts of power to the Model S, with the potential to go as high as 120 kilowatts in the future. This can replenish three hours of driving at 60 mph in about half an hour, which is the convenience inflection point for travelers at a highway rest stop. Most people who begin a road trip at 9:00 a.m. would normally stop by noon to have lunch, refresh and pick up a coffee or soda for the road, all of which takes about 30 minutes. 

"Tesla's Supercharger network is a game changer for electric vehicles, providing long distance travel that has a level of convenience equivalent to gasoline cars for all practical purposes. However, by making electric long distance travel at no cost, an impossibility for gasoline cars, Tesla is demonstrating just how fundamentally better electric transport can be," said Elon Musk, Tesla Motors co-founder and CEO. "We are giving Model S the ability to drive almost anywhere for free on pure sunlight."

Make it through that whole thing? Good. To date, I haven't been particularly excited about electric cars, in large part because previous models have mostly relied upon existing sources of electric energy, the majority of which is generated from the burning of fossil fuels (largely oil and coal). In other words, there's no real fundamental change, just a shifting of where the fuel is burned—in a power plant instead of in your car.

But if we can make a shift to solar, then that's a legitimate game-changer in the automobile world. Of course, as I've mentioned on here once before, what would be even cooler is if we could figure out a way to turn all of our highways into piezo-electric energy generators, with the cars effectively powering themselves, at least in part. Spray some transparent solar film on the outside of all the car's windows, and we could take this whole thing even another step further.

Yes, I know that some of this probably sounds insane, but I also think it's completely possible and plausible. The technology all exists, it's just a matter of harnessing it in a way (and scaling it up to a point) that makes it broadly useful and usable.

Do I think that a future of self-driving cars which use virtually no energy is possible? Absolutely. Do I think that we as humans have the courage to embrace that future, if it means destroying entire companies and industries in the process? That jury's still out. But I certainly hope so.

[US News]
[Yahoo Finance]

Time to write another letter

You know, I'm always ranting on here about the dangers of government overreach and counter-productive policymaking, so much so that you might even think that's all I ever do. Well, it's not. I also enjoy baseball. And golf. So there.

But, you see... when it comes to government policies, there's stupid... and then there's stupid. The e-mail that I received in my inbox last night from the Virginia Department of Transportation and E-ZPass Virginia falls into the latter category.

Dear E-ZPass Customer, 

With Virginia’s E-ZPass program doubling over the next several years as new toll roads open, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) is proposing a monthly fee of about $1 per transponder to pay for administrative and operations costs. 

VDOT has the utmost understanding that E-ZPass operations brings convenience and efficiency to toll operations.  E-ZPass allows for electronic toll collection at Virginia toll facilities and lessens the need for manual collection.  However, there is a cost to providing the service to the participating toll facilities, most of which are not operated by VDOT.  The Virginia E-ZPass program is being expanded to support several new toll facilities scheduled or expected to be opened over the next few years.  The cost associated with the enhanced distribution and specialized services for the new facilities and additional transponders requires a new business model. 

The proposed monthly fee would cover costs for:   

- Buying nearly one-half million transponders 

- Implementing a retail program where transponders can be obtained at various stores in Northern Virginia and eventually Hampton Roads 

- Providing service at select DMV locations 

- Upgrading information technology to accommodate the expanded program 

- Account management and processing of toll transactions (managing billing of all transactions) 

- Customer service and the operations of three customer service centers

The fee would also help control costs and manage the selection and demand for E-ZPass transponders.

Okay, you know what... there's just way too much for me to unpack here in a simple blog post, and this one calls for more. In times of true governmental idiocy, there is only one reasonable answer. This requires... another letter to my senators. (Note that this is a draft... I may revise this before sending it out, because I'm not sure if it properly conveys my anger and head-shaking bewilderment in response to this absurd proposal. Also note that I'll be sending this one to State Senators, not U.S. Senators. Whatever).

Dear Senator (fill in name), 

I am writing in regards to the recently proposed monthly E-ZPass fee, as announced to me in an e-mail dated May 31, 2012. The proposed fee is, quite simply, one of the most foolish and counter-productive pieces of government garbage that I have ever encountered.  

Setting aside the patent absurdity and circular nature of the argument that we all should be required to pay a fee for the right to be taxed (it's roughly equivalent to imposing a filing fee on IRS tax returns, which would make little sense), the proposal fails to meet muster in two fundamental ways. 

#1: Don't kill the golden goose 

Regardless of the costs associated with administering the E-ZPass program, it should be self-evident that those costs are lower than the traditional method of physically-manned tollbooths. In fact, the e-mail announcing the proposed fee even conceded this fact, extolling the "convenience and efficiency" that electronic toll collection affords. Therefore, we should be encouraging E-ZPass usage by any means necessary, not discouraging it via the imposition of an added fee. 

If this fee is indeed imposed, my wife and I will immediately be canceling our E-ZPass accounts and returning to the traditional manual method of paying our tolls. Many others will likely follow suit, which will inevitably increase the burden on the existing manual tollbooths, likely requiring new hiring of tollbooth operators and thereby increasing overall system-wide administrative costs. 

Does it cost money to raise money? Yes, of course. But any well-designed program should be able to comfortably cover its administrative costs, with room to spare. If it cannot, then the program is ill-advised at its inception, and should be scrapped in its entirety. Indeed, if these new toll roads cannot provide a net benefit to VDOT without the imposition of this fee, then the entire program needs to be revisited. Yes, indeed, you need a new business model. Clearly. This isn't it. 

#2: The supposed benefits of the plan are specious 

For the life of me, I cannot understand why E-ZPass would need to open a "retail program" in Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, or anywhere else in the Commonwealth. In the internet age, the wild inefficiency of brick-and-mortar retail outlets has been laid bare for all to see (for examples, please consider Borders Books, Circuit City, and countless other traditional retailers that have failed to thrive in the internet age). It is hard to see why E-ZPass would prove an exception to this rule, and therefore I cannot understand why a retail program would be a necessary or efficient use of program resources. 

The entire benefit of E-ZPass to begin with is that it allows us to save costs on employees needlessly manning tollbooths. If we instead pay employees to needlessly man retail outlets, we end up basically right back where we started from, with an added expense for rent and utilities, to boot. Terrific work, folks. What are we doing here? 

As to the other costs that this fee is attempting to cover, all of these are pre-existing costs that should be built in to the existing toll fee structure. There have always been and will always be administrative costs associated with toll collection. I fail to see why the current expansion of toll roads should increase these in any meaningful way, let alone to a degree that the increased toll collection would not offset the increase.  

I fundamentally do not understand why taxpayers should be asked to pay a fee for the right to pay a toll. It's absurd, it's counter-productive, and it will ultimately prove to cost VDOT more than it saves. This policy is a disaster. If you indeed need a new business model, keep searching. These kinds of deeply flawed business models would lead a private-sector company to bankruptcy. They will do the very same thing to our public sector organizations if they are allowed to pass.

Sincerely, 

The Crimson Cavalier

Well, that should about cover it, right? I don't know, was I clear enough? Bitter enough? What do you think? This government stupidity must end, now. Or else we're seriously screwed.

When innovation doesn't lead to progress

MIT News has a pretty fascinating article up this week that gives a slightly surprising answer to the question of why average automobile fuel efficiency has not improved in recent decades, despite near-constant efforts to solve the fuel efficiency puzzle. Let's let them tell the story (emphasis mine).

Contrary to common perception, the major automakers have produced large increases in fuel efficiency through better technology in recent decades. There’s just one catch: All those advances have barely increased the mileage per gallon that autos actually achieve on the road. 

Sound perplexing? This situation is the result of a trend newly quantified by MIT economist Christopher Knittel: Because automobiles are bigger and more powerful than they were three decades ago, major innovations in fuel efficiency have only produced minor gains in gas mileage. 

Specifically, between 1980 and 2006, the average gas mileage of vehicles sold in the United States increased by slightly more than 15 percent — a relatively modest improvement. But during that time, Knittel has found, the average curb weight of those vehicles increased 26 percent, while their horsepower rose 107 percent. All factors being equal, fuel economy actually increased by 60 percent between 1980 and 2006, as Knittel shows in a new research paper, “Automobiles on Steroids,” just published in the American Economic Review.

The puzzle basically boils down to an earn-more, spend-more cycle, where we continually fritter away the gains that technology has given us. Simply put, the technology of 20 years ago simply could not have produced a heavy, powerful SUV with any sort of fuel efficiency whatsoever. Now that it's feasible, we want it, and consumers want the power and size more than we care about the added fuel economy. As a result, overall fuel economy stays pretty much constant, while the cars we drive change drastically.

This is a pretty difficult problem to solve, and not just in the arena of automobile manufacturing. When we as a nation earn more money or become generally more productive, we rarely redirect our newfound earnings (or time) into productive avenues--instead, we fritter it away on conspicuous consumption or myriad time-wasting activities. If we ask ourselves why, the answer is invariably hidden among many layers of complex and bizarre human psychology, often augmented or reinforced by a herd mentality. Yes, I'm rambling.

Ultimately, though, this is just another obstacle to technological progress, the first of which--our societal aversion to change--I mentioned in this post several months ago. Having good ideas available is a necessary condition, but not sufficient. To move forward as a society, we must be willing and able to truly embrace the new possibilities that have been opened up for us--and not to fritter those possibilities away mindlessly. In the case of fuel efficiency, it seems, we've been our own worst enemy. That's too bad.

[MIT News]