When human beings are like drunk robots: Driverless vehicles,ethics, and the future of transport

It is often argued that driverless vehicles will save lives. In this paper, we treat the ethical case for driverless vehicles seriously and show that it has radical implications for the future of transport. After briefly discussing the current state of driverless vehicle technology, we suggest that systems that rely upon human supervision are likely to be dangerous when used by ordinary people in real-world driving conditions and are unlikely to satisfy the desires of consumers. We then argue that the invention of fully autonomous vehicles that pose a lower risk to third parties than human drivers will establish a compelling case against the moral permissibility of manual driving. As long as driverless vehicles aren’t safer than human drivers, it will be unethical to sell them. Once they are safer than human drivers when it comes to risks to 3rd parties, then it should be illegal to drive them: at that point human drivers will be the moral equivalent of drunk robots. We also describe two plausible mechanisms whereby this ethical argument may generate political pressure to have it reflected in legislation. Freeing people from the necessity of driving, though, will transform the relationship people have with their cars, which will in turn open up new possibilities for the transport uses of the automobile. The ethical challenge posed by driverless vehicles for transport policy is therefore to ensure that the most socially and environmentally beneficial of these possibilities is realised. We highlight several key policy choices that will determine how likely it is that this challenge will be met.     

Influence of composition,amount and life span of passenger cars on end-of-life vehicles waste in Belgium: A system dynamics approach

The increasing worldwide production of passenger cars depletes natural resources and increases the number of end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) to be processed. Lack of landfill capacity and a growing scarcity of natural resources have lead to severe ELV reuse and recovery targets in the European Union (EU). This paper examines the main influencing parameters affecting the amount and composition of ELV waste originating from passenger cars to be treated in Authorized Treatment Facilities (ATFs). Moreover the effect of a changing number, composition and life span of passenger cars on the ability to meet the ambitious EU ELV Directive 2000/53/EC targets in 2015 is examined for Belgium. Using system dynamics, the aforementioned changing parameters are studied from 1990 and projected to 2030. The model results show that the total annual weight of ELV waste to be reused and recycled in Belgium is expected to grow over the coming years despite the economic downturn of 2008 and its effect on GDP growth. Moreover it shows that Belgium can sustainably achieve the ambitious EU ELV Directive 2000/53/EC targets in 2015 and thereafter if it continues to invest in waste treatment of ELV plastics. The availability of higher amounts of ELV plastics proves to be favourable to trigger investments in their reusing and recycling. We demonstrate that this can be realized by reducing export of discarded passenger cars, shortening the life span of passenger cars or shortening the time for investing in additional plastic recovery.     

Help or hindrance? The travel,energy and carbon impacts of highly automated vehicles

Experts predict that new automobiles will be capable of driving themselves under limited conditions within 5–10 years, and under most conditions within 10–20 years. Automation may affect road vehicle energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in a host of ways, positive and negative, by causing changes in travel demand, vehicle design, vehicle operating profiles, and choices of fuels. In this paper, we identify specific mechanisms through which automation may affect travel and energy demand and resulting GHG emissions and bring them together using a coherent energy decomposition framework. We review the literature for estimates of the energy impacts of each mechanism and, where the literature is lacking, develop our own estimates using engineering and economic analysis. We consider how widely applicable each mechanism is, and quantify the potential impact of each mechanism on a common basis: the percentage change it is expected to cause in total GHG emissions from light-duty or heavy-duty vehicles in the U.S. Our primary focus is travel related energy consumption and emissions, since potential lifecycle impacts are generally smaller in magnitude. We explore the net effects of automation on emissions through several illustrative scenarios, finding that automation might plausibly reduce road transport GHG emissions and energy use by nearly half – or nearly double them – depending on which effects come to dominate. We also find that many potential energy-reduction benefits may be realized through partial automation, while the major energy/emission downside risks appear more likely at full automation. We close by presenting some implications for policymakers and identifying priority areas for further research.     

Incident detection methods using probe vehicles with on-board GPS equipment

Mobile communication instruments have made detecting traffic incidents possible by using floating traffic data. This paper studies the properties of traffic flow dynamics during incidents and proposes incident detection methods using floating data collected by probe vehicles equipped with on-board global positioning system (GPS) equipment. The proposed algorithms predict the time and location of traffic congestion caused by an incident. The detection rate and false rate of the models are examined using a traffic flow simulator, and the performance measures of the proposed methods are compared with those of previous methods.     

Dissipation of stop-and-go waves via control of autonomous vehicles: Field experiments

Traffic waves are phenomena that emerge when the vehicular density exceeds a critical threshold. Considering the presence of increasingly automated vehicles in the traffic stream, a number of research activities have focused on the influence of automated vehicles on the bulk traffic flow. In the present article, we demonstrate experimentally that intelligent control of an autonomous vehicle is able to dampen stop-and-go waves that can arise even in the absence of geometric or lane changing triggers. Precisely, our experiments on a circular track with more than 20 vehicles show that traffic waves emerge consistently, and that they can be dampened by controlling the velocity of a single vehicle in the flow. We compare metrics for velocity, braking events, and fuel economy across experiments. These experimental findings suggest a paradigm shift in traffic management: flow control will be possible via a few mobile actuators (less than 5%) long before a majority of vehicles have autonomous capabilities.     

铁路机车车辆电子控制装置的电磁兼容性研究

阐述了电磁兼容性的基本概念、电磁兼容性试验的项目，指出严酷等级确定的依据，介绍了目前车载电子控制装置电磁兼容性能的现状，强调了电磁兼容性的重要性。     

地铁车辆的空调、暖通系统设计

文章以一种较典型的B型地铁车辆的设计方案为例,对城轨车辆的空调、通风及采暖系统的结构组成、参数计算及供电和自动控制进行了介绍。     

A hybrid controller for autonomous vehicles driving on automated highways

This paper addresses the problem of the hybrid control of autonomous vehicles driving on automated highways. Vehicles are autonomous, so they do not communicate with each other nor with the infrastructure. Two problems have to be dealt with: a vehicle driving in a single-lane highway must never collide with its leading vehicle; and a vehicle entering the highway at a designated entry junction must be able to merge from the merging lane to the main lane, again without any collision. To solve these problems, we equip each vehicle with a hybrid controller, consisting of several continuous control laws embedded inside a finite state automaton. The automaton specifies when a given vehicle must enter the highway, merge into the main lane, yield to other vehicles, exit from the highway, and so on. The continuous control laws specify what acceleration the vehicle must have in order to avoid collisions with nearby vehicles. By carefully designing these control laws and the conditions guarding the automaton transitions, we are able to demonstrate three important results. First, we state the initial conditions guaranteeing that a following vehicle never collides with its leading vehicle. Second, we extend this first result to a lane of autonomous vehicles. Third, we prove that if all the vehicles are equipped with our hybrid controller, then no collision can ever occur, and all vehicles either merge successfully or are forced to drop out when they reach the end of their merging lane. Finally, we show the outcome of a highway microsimulation modelled after the Katy Corridor near Houston, Texas: our single-lane highway can accommodate 4000 vehicles per hour with neither drop-outs nor traffic congestion. It is entirely programmed in SHIFT, a hybrid systems simulation language developed at UC Berkeley by the PATH group. This shows that SHIFT is a well suited language for designing safe control laws for autonomous highway systems, among others.     

城市轨道车辆制动节能研究

本文针对城市轨道车辆的运行特点,提出了对其采取制动节能的主要措施,为制动装置系统的设计提供了一定的依据.     

Electric versus conventional vehicles: social costs and benefits in France

This article compares the social costs of electric vehicles with those of conventional, thermal vehicles for typical passenger use in the Ile-de-France region (Greater Paris), a case of particular interest because nearly 80% of the electricity is generated by nuclear power plants. A four-seat electric car is compared to a new conventional car of the same make and model; for the latter both the gasoline and the diesel version are considered because almost half of new car sales in France are diesel. These results are also compared to typical existing diesel and gasoline vehicles in the current French fleet. The methodology developed by the ExternE (External Costs of Energy) Project of the European Commission is used to estimate the costs associated with atmospheric pollution due to power plants, refineries and tail pipe emissions. Our discussion of externalities is limited to air pollution thus excluding others such as costs associated with noise or accidents. Our results imply that the external costs are large and significant, even when one considers the uncertainties. If internalized by government regulations, these externalities can render the total cost of an electric vehicle more competitive with that of currently available thermal vehicles in large urban centers if the electricity is produced by sources with low pollution. However, the current generation electric vehicles are so expensive that internalization of pollution damage would not give it a very clear advantage.