FCC Allocates More Bandwidth to Transportation 75
Ydeologi writes "MSNBC is running this story on the FCC finally getting around to allocating a more significant chunk of the airwaves for "intelligent transportation" services. "
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FCC Allocates More Bandwidth to Transportation
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"Beware of programmers carrying screwdrivers." -- Chip Salzenberg
Isn't there already (Score:1)
Yeah, very nice, but . . . (Score:1)
Gee. I can't wait.
Stefan
cliches galore (Score:3)
possible bad thing (Score:1)
just think if microsoft got in on this, all those M$ Car crashing everyday jokes...
Antelope Freeway. One Half Mile. (Score:2)
Antelope Freeway. One Quarter Mile.
Innit, a guy is testing out a new car; along with conversations you hear road signs "speaking" to him in the background.
Antelope Freeway. One Eigth Mile.
Cool stuff.
Antelope Freeway. One Sixteenth Mile.
Stefan
Re:Isn't there already (Score:2)
Top 10 accidents of the future (Score:4)
10. Thunderstorm in California; traffic slows down in NYC.
9. Forgot to go to the garage to get that new Service Pack.
8. Windshield is overtaken by a slew of porn site ads.
7. Incompatibility between your car's OS and the highway's OS.
6. Got distracted by all the pretty iCars.
5. That's what you get for running a beta!
4. Instead of the fancy car with all the extra options, you should have chosen that reliable, Open Source car...
3. Your car is highjacked by a script kiddie and driven into a ditch.
2. "What are you talking about? There's no Ctrl-Alt-Del in my car!"
And the #1 accident of the future...
1. It was a bad idea to advertise your new car on Slashdot...
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Wireless networking for cars? (Score:1)
That will allow telemetry data to be transmitted between cars. If the driver in front of you hits the brakes, your car can brake before you realize the need....Automatic caravans....digital CB radio.....Route/Alternate route allocation by amount of traffic and requests to travel between points
Injured software engineer wins against Mattel! [sorehands.com]
Finally (Score:2)
How long can it be before all cars will have transmitters built-in that can be set with the VIN and other data like license plate number? This data could be used instead of video or photo evidence now used to automatically identify cars violating laws such as not paying tolls etc. I imagine the data would be much easier to store and search through--and gather. This could definitely be a big privacy issue.
Unlike computers, you already need to have cars registered. It would be easy to alter the laws to require a transmitter as well as a license plate. I also think it could be quite easy to gather this data by deploying sensors at various places like intersections. Many intersections already have sensors to activate the light. Surely it would not be that costly to build a box to gather transmitted data.
Of course this could have benefits, hit and runs may be easier to trace, but imagine the government being able to have that information, and possible even sell that information. They can sell your information that they gather at the DMV why not this?
The biggest barrier is not cost of all the transmitters and receivers. That could be funded by selling data or by other automotive related fees. The biggest barrier will be standardization. It is unlikely that all 50 states will work together on such a system; they can't even work together on automated toll systems. But if some clever company made the product, it may well be able to market it to eager communities and states.
Pulled over for speeding.. (Score:1)
Wonderful... (Score:1)
Everyday, on my way to work, I see an accident. That is just a gruesome facet of life.
In fact, injury is the leading cause of death for people aged 1 - 44 years. Over half of that (55%) is as a result of motor-vehicle accidents.
Motor-vehicle deaths affect Americans way more than fire-arm deaths, and yet it receives very little attention.
Will these new options on cars help? I certainly hope so.
Standard Questions... (Score:1)
*ducks*
Imagine a beowulf clister of these babies!
*runs, hides behind tree*
Sorry, I had to...;-)
Re:Wonderful... (Score:1)
That's what we get for becoming an automobile-based society. That's pretty much what we have - public transportation is poor because everyone has to have their own car. And such we have tons of traffic, traffic jams, road rage, etc.
ANYTHING that can lower that is welcomed.
I personally will be so happy when we get some sort of transportation system that does not depend on people to do all of the controlling of the vehicles. This is just the first step.
Perhaps the privacy issues with some of these possibilities will encourage better funding and use of public transportation systems where you can be anonymous. I know they're poor now, but I suspect if they received heavy usage there would be a lot more work put into better, faster, cheaper ones.
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Re:Wonderful... (Score:1)
There is already a great way to reduce the number of individuals controlling their cars in unpredictable ways. They're called buses.
These automation systems are just cop-outs for a society unwilling to commit to a modern transportation infrastructure.
Re:Pulled over for speeding.. (Score:1)
cameras in cars (Score:3)
Yes, this is like 1984, but no it won't be an awful thing, because the cameras will be privately owned and controlled by the owners of the cars.
-owners will have complete control of the video
-owners will have the option of giving others access to their video
-if owners don't want anyone to use their camera, that's their right
-when you're in public, there are very few places where you're not in view of a car somewhere
-if you're being video taped all the time in public places, few will commit crimes.
-if the police hear about crimes, they can use the car cams that they have permission to use, and no others
-if you're at home in your living room, you're safe unless you park your car next to the TV.
Orwell wrote a good book, but the difference was that he wrote about cameras in a totalitarian society. We don't live in one of those, and cameras won't bring such a society about either. Take a look at who gets in trouble with cameras. When was the last time you saw your neighbor doing illegal things on film? Hardly ever. Instead, we've got plenty of examples of politicians getting in trouble with cameras. Think LAPD (Rodney King) or the Clinton aid caught with the hooker. Universal cameras be worse for politicians than for everyday people.
OK, and besides cameras in cars, I would like to have this technology used to provide web browser services in my car. On long drives my mind wanders a lot, and in the course of my thoughts I frequently come up with questions which the web certainly holds the answers to. It would be nice to have the luxury of instant gratification in those circumstances.
Re:Wonderful... (Score:1)
More bandwidth for privacy invasion. (Score:4)
It seems pretty simple to me: Tracking vehicles. Not just tens or hundreds, but millions simultaneously. Oh, it'll be dressed up with some noble language like "It can help the tow truck find you when you break down" or "It can direct you away from traffic jams", but none of these things require the vehicle to broadcast data (and with the mandatory cellular location features, its position) all the time.
If you travel by bus or airline, your movements are easily tracked. Now we're looking at this being true for personal automobile travel as well. Surveillance society, here we come.
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which frequencies (Score:1)
Re:Top 10 accidents of the future (Score:1)
#1. Windshield goes BSOD, with the message "Car performed an illegal operation", and you drive off road trying to click "OK?"
Re:Pulled over for speeding.. (Score:1)
Actually, a system similar to this is already in effect in many european countries. Speed meters and cameras are mounted on tall poles. If someone's spotted going a certain amount over the speed limit, the camera snaps a picture of the car with the recorded speed and date/timestamp. The image gets sent to the autorities who do a run on the plate and send the ticket to the registration address, with a copy of the photo.
The problem with this system of course is that people learn where the cameras are and slow down for that stretch. There are several systems being tested or in place where the cameras can be moved from location to location to keep drivers on their toes, though.
As for the rest of this article... I have mixed feelings on this. I can see alot of uses for this, but I can also see alot of abuses for this system as well. How forgeable would these vehicle id's be? Or failing that, how easy would it be to interfere with the signal? Hack into your car, and never hit another red light? mmmm
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Dave
"I love chess! It is like ballet only with more explosions!"
Transportation... (Score:1)
This is a step in the wrong direction (Score:3)
The real root of our car problem is cheap fuel and sprawl development. In the long run, IVHS won't reduce accident rates or congestion anywhere near as effectively as a $10/gallon hike to the gas tax.
Some technical details (Score:3)
But this is going change with the ongoing improvements to silicon processes. Soon this band and the unlicensed NII band (National Information Infrastructure - 5.725-5.825 GHz) will be supported by cheap mass-produced high-integration silicon.
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This is a Good Thing (tm) (Score:2)
Privacy concerns are common, but in every existing implementation of this sort of system legal safeguards are put in place. None of these systems can be used for speed enforcement purposes; in fact the only ticket you can get from a toll collection system is one for blowing through the toll with an expired account (or no account at all). These systems are also generally required by law to either provide a way of anonymizing the user or to provide a means of defeating the system (i.e. disable the tag so that the account isnt read if you're on a trip you want noone to keep a record of).
As far as the benefit and convenience, these things speak for themselves: ask anyone who uses E-ZPass on the East Coast, Florida SunPass, CalTrans' FasTrak, Atlanta's GA400 Cruise Card, and a host of others. Some states use a similar system for truckers, called PrePass, which uses transponders and weigh-in-motion scales built into the interstate to allow truckers to bypass weigh stations while still having their weight checked.
Some cities, such as Houston, use the transponders for the toll-collection systems in a secondary traffic-management role : antennas around the city monitor the flow of traffic and detect traffic jams and other problems by sampling the movement of the transponders. In this case, the account and other vehicle information isn't used, just the fact that vehicles are moving about is information enough.
Some models of radar detector can already read signals and warn of emergency vehicles and/or receive text messages sent by a portable roadside antenna; these can warn of traffic congestion problems, accidents, etc., and are another way of helping traffic flow. The biggest problem contributing to traffic jams stemming from accidents etc, is that by the time drivers know about a problem, they've gone too far to turn around or take an alternate route.
In short, traffic management systems using radio transmitters and other technologies are already in place in various locations. Steps like the FCC has taken will help all of these sytems standardize and become interoperable, which will help everyone on the road.
Re:cameras in cars (Score:1)
Oh, great. Now we'll get people getting in accidents with the excuse "I just looked at Slashdot for a second, honest!"
Drive Now, Talk Later [cars.com]
Re:cameras in cars (Score:1)
This sounds too much like the US Government's argument for public-key encryption. Do you really believe that because you own your car's cameras that the goverment cannot just take it under the guise of 'public safety'.
This is why our freedoms in the U.S. continue to be eroded away. People are duped into thinking that new technology will save them from the evils of thinking for themselves. (Not meant to slam previous poster, just a fact of society).
What ever happened to common sense? I guess it's become uncommon. We are moving more toward 1984, IMHO.
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Re:This is a step in the wrong direction (Score:1)
Stoplight sensors use magnets, I believe (at least the ones around here). Bikes tend not to have enough metal to trigger them. I always end up getting off and hitting the "Push button for green light" button, and walking my bike across.
Or just making the driver's test actually difficult, and revoking licenses for running a red light or driving drunk. Once. You know the rules, there is no need for a second chance!
Re:Pulled over for speeding.. (Score:1)
Re:This is a step in the wrong direction (Score:1)
Radar isn't a good idea for these types of things. There are other sensors, such as light curtains or overhead laser profilers, which can provide accurate images reliably, regardless of the size of the vehicle.
You'd be surprised at how small transponders are; the ones most often used today are about the size of a pack of cigarettes or a mouse and weigh about as much.
And it's true that the best way to avoid congestion is for everyone to give up their vehicles, but that's hardly likely to happen anytime soon. Best to use technology to solve problems, rather than giving up and living in a cave somewhere.
Re:This is a step in the wrong direction (Score:1)
If fuel cell vehicles were to become economically practical and you could run your car on combining hydrogen and oxygen, surprise, surprise, you would still have people who would be against cars.
TML
This can be a great thing... (Score:1)
What we need to watch out for is technology with no off switch, no individual control, no anonymizing capability, and mandatory transmissions. If somebody can push a button and make your transponder trip (which is the current case with EZ Pass in NY), it's a bad thing because such technology can be defeated by criminals but honest people will be entangled by it since they won't be defeating it.
TML
Re:Standard Questions... (Score:1)
*Poster sadly dies*
*Slashdot crowd goes extatic with joy*
User-unfriendly site design at MSNBC (Score:2)
furthermore Re:Finally (Score:1)
To get really paranoid:
It might be very simple to troll for cars that don't have transeivers/transmitters. You simply have a couple other devices that detect, say, the presence of a large amount of metal and a camera to take a snapshot of the liscence plate. This could easily be done at most intersections, where they already have sensors in place.
If you've removed the transmitter, you get a ticket in the mail a couple days later, and if that doesn't bare any fruit, then the police start looking for a car that matches the photo.
I could see this as a major plot device in a movie.
"There! There it is again! A phantam car! ...a ...Chandler MetalSmith ...Mark ...III, with no transmitter, and no autopilot signature! That thing's manual!"
Re:Yeah, very nice, but . . . (Score:1)
"Please click on the banner add to notify the nearest hospital."
Isn't technology wonderful?
Re:Pulled over for speeding.. (Score:1)
They just match up the licence plate - confirm make and colour - and you have a fine in the mail. There is one system, wiht a radio link to the police / transport department, that has the fine being sent to you within a few minutes.
Ken
Re:cameras in cars (Score:1)
NO! this is a NEW TAX (Score:1)
What I've been reading about is satilite tracking systems that can turn any road into a turnpike! That's right, no toll booth needed, drive down this road and a bill gets mailed to your house. Beware!
No (Score:1)
Nowhere did I see that the car would constantly broadcast information. A device to warn cars of ice on a bridge would broadcast a low-power signal that would only reach cars at a distance of, say, 500 feet. Nowhere does the car have to broadcast anything. Cars would only have to send information in case of an emergency or for "interactive" services. If your car was in a ditch, of course you would want to radio your location to the police. And once you got out of the ditch, there would be no need to continue sending your position.
Actually, it's 5.850 to 5.925 (Score:1)
You did enter 75MHz so it must've been a typo.
Drive now, talk later... (Score:1)
Re:Wonderful... (Score:1)
Of course, this is Utopia. Noone's gonna give up the pride of owning a vehicle to drive around anywhere, anytime.
Speed Enforcement (Score:1)
It would be so easy for the authorities to use it for speed enforcement purposes, though. Put two gates on the road, a known distance apart. When any given car passes through both of them, you get two timestamps. Subtract the first from the second to get an elapsed-time figure. Divide by the distance between the gates (known) to get an average velocity. If this velocity is greater than the speed limit for the road (plus a little "slop" to guard against computational errors, say, 5 mph), issue the driver a ticket.
They do this now on turnpikes with multiple toll booths at different points on the road. Automated toll collection just makes it much easier.
Eric
--
"Free your code...and the rest will follow."
Re:Wonderful... (Score:1)
Re:No (Score:1)
Why bother with improving AM, when FM is better anyway? Simply reallocate the AM band for FM use and get one kind of radio for everything.
Re:Pulled over for speeding.. (Score:1)
//rdj
In the year 2000 (Score:1)
New car owner approaches her Saturn2000 car.
CAR: 'Please slide your ID card through, madam.'
Suddenly a red light blinks.
CAR: 'IQ Under 120 - Sorry, you'll have to take the bus.'
How do you spot a hacker in the year 2000? His car never gets the red light. Oh I'm looking forward to this.
Re:No (Score:1)
It depends on your definition of cheap (Score:1)
The 902-928MHz unlicensed band is covered by cheap silicon because the cellular band is close enough. The silicon RF chips for the 1.8 GHz PCS band cannot be easily stretched to cover the 2.4GHz unlicensed band and it remains a little expensive to implement. Bluetooth will change that soon but 5GHz is still out of the range of cheap silicon.
(and yes, the 9 GHz upper limit was a typo...)
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Re:User-unfriendly site design at MSNBC (Score:1)
Anyone, Anyone, Bueller?
Thoughts (Score:2)
(regarding the toll booth thing, for example) Okay, assume you're not broadcasting a cc#, just an ID number.. What's to prevent someone copying that and running up charges on your account?
The fact is, that any system like this can be duplicated and abused, while it's in its infancy.. Look at all the fraud that has occured (and still occurs) with cell-phone theft.. It's not hard to see that the system is becoming available before the means to secure it.
Yes, it could be secure. Public-key cryptography could make a system secure by, for example, the toll-booth broadcasting a key out to encrypt with (just off the top of my head, so don't take it as fact or anything).. But how much do you want to bet that security has not been implemented to the point where you, or I, or Joe Cracker thinks it's secure?
Any system that involves automatic transfer of funds or services needs absolute security within unreasonable limits before I will adopt it. Plain and simple. By "unreasonable limits," I mean limits that are above and beyond my expectations. If there's a chance I could crack the system myself in under a month, I won't go for it. Forget it. I'll stick to cash, thanks.
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Re:Speed Enforcement (Score:1)
This sort of rumor has been going around for a long time, but no one ever seems to have gotten such a ticket (but they know someone who did). Hmm...
This type of thing really wouldn't stand up in court (due to lack of evidence), and would be too politically unacceptable. The toll road itself gains no benefit from doing this, so they won't do it, and on the other hand the first time someone gets a ticket due to an error it would show up on the front page. Not likely to happen.
I remember when I was working on a demo of the video capture software for one of these systems (cameras are used to record vehicle type mismatches, expired accounts, and no-tag violations) I put in a line on the text inserter that showed a speed calculation provided by the overhead profiler device (accurate to within 5mph). I was mostly doing this to amuse myself (since I was testing the thing with my own car!) and to show the client agency what could be done with it. They just went ballistic, and kept insisting (long after we'd happily agreed) that it be taken off.
The point is, this sort of law enforcement / privacy invasion issue is too politically charged to ever really happen. It's possible, sure, simple even. But that's why we have media and voting, and all it takes is enough angry people and the officials in charge are kept in line.
The future or the present? (Score:1)
A system like this is already in place. I believe it is called "SWS" -- it is supported on most radar detectors.
* Enable ambulances approaching a stoplight to change it to green or prolong the green -- rather than having to run through a red light -- to minimize accidents.
How long until someone cracks this so they can get to work on time? I prefer the current system.. pull over when you see sirens.
* Allow car passes to become "wireless credit cards." Parking lot charges, gas fill-ups or even fast food from drive-throughs could all be billed to the same card, instead of the driver digging around for money to pay on site.
This is already available. Mobil has that thing you can stick in your window, and of course there is the iPass system. Personally, I prefer to have absolute control over my money.. I don't want things to be charged to my credit card unless I actually stick it in the machine. This automatic system doesn't really make things more convenient anyway. You are still going to have to wait for Burger King to put your food in a bag.. you are still going to have to get out of your car to pump your gas. Just seems silly to me.
* Warn drivers of collision dangers when approaching an intersection or railroad crossing.
As I said above, Radar dectectors with SWS already have this capability.
* Allow long-distance truckers to use the same transponder signaling device to communicate with authorities in each of the states they travel, eliminating time-consuming paperwork checks.
Ever heard of Citizen's Band aka CB? Channel 9 is for communicating with the authorities in emergencies. As for paperwork, I believe they also inspect and weigh the truck at this time, which is not a step I think is a good idea to skip.
Sort of related: GM has a 'concept car' of some sort that has a trackball in it instead of knobs, dials, and switches. You have to use it for everything except brakes and gas. Am I the only one who thinks this is a BAD IDEA?? I am all for computer technology improving cars but I am not for computer technology to obfuscate cars.
Re:Thoughts - some technical points (Score:1)
The fact is, that any system like this can be duplicated and abused, while it's in its infancy.. Look at all the fraud that has occured (and still occurs) with cell-phone theft.. It's not hard to see that the system is becoming available before the means to secure it.
The biggest obstacle is that the type of tags used in ETC systems are of the passive-backscatter variety. That is, they receive a signal from an antenna and reflect it back; the tag may or may not contain a battery depending on how much data it needs to insert into the signal, whether it supports a write capability, etc.
The point being, that it's not easy to read such a tag, since you need a fairly powerful (and very large and bulky) antenna to get any sort of range. If you were to try and sit on an overpass and sniff tags, you'd need a roughly 9-square-foot antenna and a hefty power source -- not very inconspicuous.
If you are lucky enough to be in an area that uses reprogrammable tags (tags whose ID can be changed), and manage to get hold of someone's tag ID and clone it, then you still run a pretty good risk of getting caught. The unlucky person who's tag you're cloning will probably notice the high charge on their statement and complain to the agency ; they'll flag the tag to automatically have an image captured every time it's used, and eventually you'll get caught.
All that risk and trouble to evade a 4-dollar toll? I don't think so...
Re:No (Score:2)
This extra spectrum is for purposes above and beyond the useful little things like that.Do not make the mistake of believing that the explanation for this action is the same as the reason for it.
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Re:The future or the present? (Score:1)
Ever heard of Citizen's Band aka CB? Channel 9 is for communicating with the authorities in emergencies. As for paperwork, I believe they also inspect and weigh the truck at this time, which is not a step I think is a good idea to skip.
Actually, the PrePass system (http://www.cvo.com) available in some states makes use of RFID technology and weigh-in-motion scales to allow truckers to skip stopping at weigh stations; everything is done automatically and all the billing and paperwork goes to the right places. Truckers love it since it means they don't have to wait in line for the scales.
At any rate, you're absolutely right that most of this technology already exists (I'm an especially big fan of the radar detector with SWS technology). The thing I'd like to see is for all of this to get integrated -- it would be nice to have a combination OnTrack type of thing in every car, which can receive messages, identify the vehicle, serve as a toll/parking lot tag, etc. That's where I hope this is all going.
As far as the trackball thing, ugh, the way GM makes everything else in cars all we need is a single point of failure system to break all the electronics in the vehicle at once....
Re:No (Score:2)
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Re:No (Score:1)
Exactly.
I probably should rephrase my original statement. It's been done before, but it hasn't caught on due to the sheer inertia of the "peasants". In addition, it is very expensive to upgrade the transmitters and recording studio to stereo. The people won't upgrade until the stations do, the stations won't upgrade until the people do...
Re:cameras in cars (Score:2)
If you own a camera, do you really forsee that the gubment would tell you to turn it in? What about TV stations? What about vacationers taking snapshots? What about mom with the camcorder at the birthday party?
I think you're being paranoid. You didn't explain why private ownership of cameras would be subverted, but private ownership of cars would not be. What's the difference?
Re:Wonderful... (Score:1)
But as I said, Perfect Systems don't work.