Are states ready for self-driving cars?

Marco della Cava | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Are the roads ready for self-driving cars? Self-driving cars could be on our roads in just 5 years. USA TODAY's Chris Woodyard takes a look at what it's going to take to get the roads ready.

Self-driving vehicles are synonymous with sophisticated sensors producing terabytes of data being analyzed by powerful computers. But it seems the success of this transportation revolution hinges on a decidedly low-tech material: Paint.

That's because when it comes to getting the nation’s infrastructure ready for autonomous traffic, the most critical upgrade amounts to making sure the lines on our 4 million miles of roads are solid, bright and preferably white so they can be picked up by computer vision gear.

“The (self-driving car companies) actually said make sure you have really good paint lines,” says Kirk Steudle, director of Michigan’s Department of Transportation. “So, where there are lines, we have to make sure they’re really good.”

If only things were that simple. A USA TODAY Network survey of nearly a dozen states hoping to lead the way in self-driving cars and trucks reveals varying degrees of readiness as officials balance anticipating a huge shift in mobility with a reluctance to spend limited infrastructure funds on the wrong improvements.

That one-foot-in, one-foot-out stance is echoed in guidelines recently published by the Governors Highway Safety Association.

In doling out advice for state officials on the coming age of self-driving cars, the recommendations balance action (“Be a player in your state”) with caution (“Be flexible, this is a new game.”)

While some states such as California, Michigan, Arizona and Ohio are eagerly welcoming self-driving vehicle tests and beginning to make upgrades to roads to accommodate robot-driven vehicles, others are taking a more measured approach given the nascent state of the industry.

“I want to see the manufacturers succeed, because my ultimate goal is to ensure public safety on the road,” says Mark Kopko, manager of advanced vehicle technology for Pennsylvania’s DOT.

Twin potholes lurk in the road ahead

Two factors make it difficult for states, however eager, to dive headlong into concrete infrastructure improvements, whether that’s painting lane stripes or embedding sensors in roads and traffic signals.

The first is a lack of national vision for autonomous vehicles. During his fall campaign, President Trump promised to spend upwards of $1 trillion on infrastructure needs. But so far there is no road map for securing such funds or determining how they’ll be deployed or whether self-driving car-related work will be included.

The Obama administration set out proposed guidelines for how companies can effectively self-regulate. U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said this month in Detroit that the Trump administration is "reviewing and updating this policy to incorporate feedback and improvements recommended by numerous stakeholders."

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In addition, a group of senators on June 13 released a framework for federal legislation they hope to introduce in Congress in the coming weeks that would overhaul federal motor vehicle regulations.

The second factor causing some states to pump the brakes is the sense that tech companies such as Uber and Google's Waymo, and automakers such as Ford Motor, General Motors and others, are developing self-driving cars that will have sensors and mapping systems that won’t rely on roadway upgrades.

“We are working very closely with a lot of cities, states and the federal government, but we need to make sure the technology is able to work in the current environment,” GM President Dan Ammann said in February. “So we’re not depending on an improvement in infrastructure.”

Ken Washington, Ford’s vice president of research and advanced engineering, says smart roadways would make self-driving cars even more capable, but “you can’t count on that being there, which is why our technical approach is to build the capability completely on the vehicle.”

As challenging as the leap from horses to cars

That strategy leaves many state-level officials in a bit of a quandary.

“I think this is as challenging a position as it was when we went from horses to cars,” Tennessee DOT Commissioner John Schroer says. “I don’t want to be known as the commissioner that built roads that 10 years later were obsolete.”

Nevertheless, in an effort to not miss out on this huge transportation shift and its financial and quality of life benefits, Tennessee is echoing a few other states in installing fiber-optic lines in roads that can send electronic warnings to cars about hazards ahead and other information considered important to making self-driving cars aware of their surroundings.

These vehicle-to-infrastructure and systems that allow cars to alert each other of their relative position to avoid collisions are an effort to double and triple the redundancy of the technological systems that make it possible for a computer to drive humans through the real world.

Cadillac is first out of the gate with a model packed with vehicle-to-vehicle sensors, the 2017 CTS sedan. But such in-car tech is of limited practical use without a critical mass of similarly savvy vehicles that can share road info with each other.

Despite these looming skirmishes, there are tangible spoils awaiting cities and states that manage to prepare for this new transportation vision and help to make roads safer.

The statistic cited most often by technologists working on self-driving cars is 40,000, roughly the number of deaths from traffic accidents in 2016, which after years of decline represents a 14% jump over 2014, according to the National Safety Council.

Distracted driving is largely considered to be the main culprit, which explains why many companies developing self-driving cars create demo reels of their products that show passengers deep in conversation or working on their laptops while the vehicle handles all of the driving chores. This is the highest level of self-driving car prowess, otherwise known as Level 5 autonomy, according to the Society of American Engineers.

“It’s a total tragedy that has to be addressed, and we believe (self-driving cars) can help get us to zero traffic deaths,” says Greg Larson, who leads traffic operations research for Caltrans, California’s Department of Transportation.

Golden State among those setting pace

California accounted for nearly 10% of the nation's traffic deaths last year. Its Department of Motor Vehicles so far has granted around 30 companies licenses to test autonomous vehicles around the state. That sharp focus already has led to a few pioneering efforts to bring connected car tech to its citizens.

In Palo Alto, at the heart of Silicon Valley, the state has 11 intersections seeded with technology that can relay traffic information to connected cars, such as the speed required to make every green light. At Bishop Ranch, a huge office park east of San Francisco, employees get shuttled around in two fully autonomous buses.

“The main reason we did this is to just introduce this technology to the public and take away the fear,” says Alexander Mehran, CEO of Sunset Development Company, which runs Bishop Ranch. “And also because one of the biggest costs of our bus system is the driver.”

Incentivized by the prospect of a technology-based boost to municipal and state coffers, a range of states are forging ahead with plans to make sure they’re ready for what’s to come.

In Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan, officials also are busy weighing investments in fiber optic lines, smart traffic signals and other sensors. Manufacturers “are going to be building these vehicles and putting them on the roads whether we’re ready for them or not,” says Joe McGuinness, commissioner of Indiana’s DOT.

Ohio is already digging deep. Fiber optic cables snake alongside 241 miles of the state’s tolled Ohio Turnpike, while 4-foot-tall short-range sensors are being erected on 60 miles of freeway around Cleveland and Akron. Soon, 40 turnpike maintenance vehicles will be outfitted with sensors capable of amassing and later transmitting data about weather and traffic.

Ohio Turnpike chief Randy Cole hopes his state can soon provide hundreds of miles of testing zones for autonomous vehicles looking to augment their on-board tech with vehicle-to-infrastructure data. The key, he says, is having not just the right sensors but the ability to process all the information they collect in real time.

“No one really talks about it, but we need to have databases,” Cole says. “A lot of the headlines you’re seeing are, ‘We’re putting up sensors.’ But for us, it’s the software behind it that’s key to providing the services that the public demands."

Two states that have been very accommodating to self-driving car companies are Arizona and Nevada, the former currently hosting both Uber and Waymo’s fleets.

Trucking ripe for self-driving overhaul

Trucking is seen as a prime candidate for self-driving tech. Long-haul routes are typically done at a fixed speed, which is particularly easy for self-driving software to handle. Many states are experimenting with “platooning,” which involves using tech to allow a small convoy of autonomous trucks to travel in close formation, which cuts back on fuel use.

What’s more, experts say that if every vehicle on the road had sophisticated autonomous vehicle technology on board, highway officials could make lanes narrower and pack more cars on the road without expensive lane expansion projects. Platooning all vehicles would also maximize existing highway real estate.

Good weather also makes life easier for self-driving cars, so it’s little surprise companies are testing in parts of the country where the sun shines often.

The city of Phoenix is not only running a new autonomous vehicle ride-hailing passenger program with hundreds of Waymo’s self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans, but it is also testing connected-vehicle tech at a location north of town where emergency vehicles approaching an intersection at the same time will be notified by in-car tech which has the right of way.

At the University of Nevada at Reno, researchers are working on LiDAR sensors (which detect images and help AVs “see”) that would be able to scan metrics from passing unconnected vehicles in order to enhance safety at intersections, which are where a large percentage of accidents take place.

The state’s DOT also is launching a statewide initiative called the One Nevada Transportation Plan, which will assess the state’s infrastructure needs on a variety of fronts.

One Nevada’s mission is to “envision what Nevada transportation will look like over the next 20 years,” NDOT spokesperson Meg Ragonese says. “We know some of those needs will relate to emerging technology such as autonomous and connected vehicles.”

60,000 miles of gravel roads

Even in states committed to making infrastructure investments, the road ahead could be long. Consider Michigan, home of the automakers, where business leaders and lawmakers are very aggressive about ensuring the state once again becomes known as the birthplace of a transportation renaissance.

But for all the state’s progress on this front — welcoming state policies, innovative engineering, self-driving car-dedicated test tracks — some hurdles loom large. For starters, only half of Michigan’s 122,000 miles of roads are paved. The rest are gravel. While Michigan’s summers are glorious, its winter road conditions are treacherous and last for months.

It is in this very real world, a world built around roadway infrastructure, that often harks back to the dawn of the highway system itself, that autonomous vehicles will have to prove their worth before being embraced by a nation that, for better and for worse, is used to driving itself.

The only way for the nation’s infrastructure to effectively cope with self-driving cars is continued and frequent dialog between the key constituents: cities, states, federal officials and the manufacturers, says Michael Replogle, New York City’s DOT deputy commissioner for policy.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently announced that Audi is the first company to be granted the right to test self-driving car in his state.

"With this action, we are taking a careful yet balanced approach to incorporating autonomous vehicles on our roads to reduce dangerous driving habits, decrease the number of accidents and save lives on New York roadways," Cuomo said in a statement.

That's a good move, Replogle says: “The only way of effectively addressing these (planning) challenges is to make sure we have a seat at the table in defining the rules for automated vehicles.”

Contributing: Chris Woodyard and Nathan Bomey, USA TODAY; Brent Snavely, Detroit Free Press; Emma Ea Ambrose, Lafayette Courier and Journal; Ryan Randazzo, The Arizona Republic; Jason Hidalgo, Reno Gazette-Journal; Lizzy Alfs, The Tennessean; Chrissie Thompson, Cincinnati Enquirer; Grace Schneider, Louisville Courier Journal, Thomas Zambito, The Journal News.