GDOT & Panasonic's Connected Roadway Partnership

Transcript

Alan Davis, Georgia Department of Transportation:
What we're seeing here is a great partnership between GDOT and the Ray and Panasonic and Federal Highways on an opportunity to leverage our physical infrastructure and overlay a digital element to it.

Isabel Diaz, Panasonic’s Smart Mobility Office:
We want to showcase this technology to the end user or to any stakeholder that is interested in the technology. We're going to see what it looks like to receive information from the vehicle, have that vehicle talk back to the roadway or the infrastructure, and then get sent up to the cloud. One of the use cases that we'll be demonstrating as part of this project is a hard braking event. When traffic happens, when there's a lineup of cars, a lot of times folks will break very hard. How cool would it be if we were notified in advance of that traffic line or traffic congestion ahead?

Alan Davis, Georgia Department of Transportation:
Alright, we're going to come down to the ramp here. I'm going to simulate a hard braking event by slamming on the brakes,

Allie Kelly, The Ray:
Panasonic and CIRRUS. Their cloud-based system is going to hear the data from that car and from that hard braking event, and they're going to create a warning information for other drivers like us that a slowdown is occurring. Giving more visibility and a heads up warning to drivers that there is a slowdown ahead can increase and improve the safety as well as the efficiency of our highways and interstates by reducing that traffic.

Isabel Diaz, Panasonic’s Smart Mobility Office:
Another use case that we have is a work zone warning we all know of or seen those static signs along the roadway and those are utilized to communicate of upcoming construction areas or zones. The work zone warning brings that same messaging to the individual driver inside the vehicle.

Alan Davis, Georgia Department of Transportation:
We're coming up now to an active work zone, and there is this need for us to have all these cones and barrels up, as you can see. So through the work zone alerts we're able to send out before you even see a comb, the driver's alerted of the work zone ahead, and that's really all about reducing congestion, keeping our workers safe and drivers safe as they go through.

Isabel Diaz, Panasonic’s Smart Mobility Office:
One of the use cases that we are providing as part of this engagement with GDO in the ray is a weather event. The weather event essentially makes these vehicles weather sensors so that they know what's happening in that stretch of roadway.

Alan Davis, Georgia Department of Transportation:
Now, I'm going to simulate a weather event here by turning on my windshield wipers to simulate that it is raining.

Allie Kelly, The Ray:
If a vehicle is telling us through its data packet that the windshield wipers have been turned on, the speed is reduced and the vehicle is losing traction or connection with the road surface, we might be able to deduce, but there is a weather event like rain or snow that is causing the vehicle to hydroplane or to slip around on the ice.

Alan Davis, Georgia Department of Transportation:
Well, this is all incredibly important. This this gives us an immediate feedback from drivers on the road, and that's really important for us in managing these systems and improving safety and mobility for all as they traverse these roads.

Isabel Diaz, Panasonic’s Smart Mobility Office:
Another use case that is very important to daily operations is disabled vehicles or vehicles that have been involved in an accident. The crash alert lets the driver know that there is an accident or a disabled vehicle up ahead.

Alan Davis, Georgia Department of Transportation:
All right, so now I'm going to come bring the vehicle to a stop and press this button here on the dash to simulate that we have been in a crash. So this communicates through the radio that our airbags have been deployed in this car. So telling all the cars through the connected vehicle radio in this car that we have been in a crash. So cars that pass by us will get that information and alerts will pop up. Roadside infrastructure that is nearby will pick up that same information from our radio and send that back to Sirius into the cloud and populate that back into our management systems immediately that there has been a crash that has occurred with our vehicle. We can immediately notify first responders fire emergency police to get to the incident to help injure drivers faster, to clear the roadways for congestion issues, and that further reduces things like secondary crashes that occur when we have these major incidents.

Allie Kelly, The Ray:
This is just the tip of the iceberg as more vehicles become connected and as we have larger and larger streams of data, and ultimately that's what we're all striving for, how do we eliminate deaths and crashes and transportation? And we're leading the way here in Georgia with this Vita X technology and the partnership between Georgia DOT, the Ray, Panasonic, and Kia.