In 1937, filmmaker Jam Handy made a short newsreel movie for General Motors called “Conquering Roads.” The film starts out following a covered wagon as it transitions from a dusty desert trail to a paved roadway busy with traffic. The joke, the narrator explains, is the fact that an old-fashioned wagon on a modern street is just as ludicrous as modern vehicles driving on outdated roads — a common phenomenon at the time.
The film then highlights the advancements made in transportation following the explosion in popularity for motor vehicles that occurred in the United States during the 1930s. Such innovations included lighted, paved roadways; medians; multi-lane highways; cloverleaf interchanges; and traffic circles. Though the film praises road builders of the day, the message is clear: the transportation industry must continuously evolve and innovate if it hopes to remain relevant.
For a modern audience, films like these can seem like an archeological specimen of a more primitive time. Scenes that detail how a long, straight highway is the end-all solution to traffic congestion may seem downright silly to modern traffic engineers who are tasked with updating decades-old infrastructure, but the message of the past remains true today: without innovation the transportation industry will become stagnant and irrelevant.
In many ways, innovation in the transportation sector has driven cultural evolution, from the days when shipbuilding allowed for colonization and worldwide trade routes; to modern times, when vehicular transportation plays a mammoth role in the social and economic lives of most people. Innovation continues to drive the world of transportation, but just what ‘innovation’ means, and the expectations we have for these innovations, varies wildly around the globe.
In wealthy, developed nations the future seems to be headed in a direction where innovation is about bringing convenience and even entertainment to motorists, but human-caused accidents remain a deadly and growing reality. Some countries, like Russia and China, are working feverishly to improve their transportation infrastructure, including installing intelligent transportation systems already proven in other parts of the world, in order to keep up with a rapidly increasing vehicle market and to attract businesses and investors to help pay for further infrastructure improvement.
Meanwhile, in many developing nations the condition of the transportation industry is not far removed from horse and buggy days. For many of these countries, including much of Africa, driving can be a deadly exercise and a worldwide effort is needed to bring current safety standards to these areas.
At the 2014 Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, the big news in transportation innovation was bringing smartphone and tablet-like applications inside the vehicle.
GM, Audi and Ford were among the automakers promising in-vehicle apps with the convenience of 4G Internet speeds to allow motorists to check weather and road conditions; book rooms in hotels; look for nearby restaurants and other tasks currently in the domain of the smartphone.
The buzzword floating around this move is “infotainment” for the motorist. This innovation is designed to educate and entertain motorists and, perhaps more pointedly, to help automakers and Internet companies capitalize on the countless hours motorists spend behind the wheel.
“Consumers will pay for services that make their lives easier,” Chevrolet global chief Alan Batey told the CES audience. “Consumers will want it because when they get into the car it’s already there.”
This type of innovation may be treading down a dangerous road. According to Dave Teater, senior director at the Chicago-based, non-profit National Safety Council, these concepts will only work to further distract an already distracted motoring public.
“It’s dangerous and it’s irresponsible,” says Teater. “I think the companies should make it so the driver cannot engage in those activities while driving in the car.”
According to the National Safety Council, vehicle accidents are the number one cause of accidental death in the United States, and 90 percent of those deaths are caused by human error. But for Teater, it goes beyond statistics. Teater and his wife, Judy, lost their son Joseph in a 2004 collision. The 12-year old boy was fatally injured when a 20-year-old woman, distracted by a cellphone call, crashed into the family’s vehicle. Teater decided to spend his time understanding how distracted driving affects people – and he is blunt with his findings.
“People cannot drive at full mental capacity while they talk or text on a phone,” Teater said. “Humans are actually very poor multi-taskers and it’s been proven time and again we can’t engage in these activities and have faculties to operate a motor vehicle.”
Teater is concerned to see vehicle innovation heading towards a seemingly more distracted future. Instead, he would like to see the industry innovate to promote safer traffic systems and ways to prevent drivers from engaging in distracting behavior.
“Technology is both good and bad, depending on how it’s used,” Teater says. “It’s really good to mitigate crashes and there are many ways it can work for that, but why would we want to rush to do lots of other stuff – close business deals, check Facebook, make reservations – rather than drive a car?”
Teater suggests vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure technology has the potential to do the most good simply because it takes the driver out of the equation, though he is dubious of a future seen by some of self-driving vehicles. “Americans like driving cars, are we going to give that up?” Teater asks.
Russia is facing unique challenges, not just because their roadways have to stand up to some of the most severe weather on the planet, but because the current state of economics makes it difficult not only to fund new roadway projects but also to attract outside investment that would help fund the projects.
While sections of Russia’s federal highways in the western part of the country, where roads connect major metropolitan areas, are mostly in good shape, vast tracks of road are crumbling, especially in the cold and less-populated areas in the east like Sakha, Amur and Khabarovsk, where spring thaws often mean impassable roads. Even where the infrastructure of the roadways is intact, an ever-increasing number of vehicles is causing massive congestion for most urban areas.
Russia’s current focus on innovation is to extend the useful life of its infrastructure, according to Konstantin Mogilny, director general of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise ‘Russian Road Research Institute.’ In an interview with Andrey Pavlov for the International Quality & Productivity Centre, Mogilny said Russian transportation infrastructure traditionally had estimated lifespans of 40 to 60 years; today, that lifespan expectation is at least 100 years.
“Of course, all of this is based on the implementation of all the latest technologies,” Mogilny said. “So overall, the key tendency in the use of innovative materials is to increase useful life and bring down maintenance costs.”
This idea of reducing maintenance costs often means higher upfront costs – costs that can be supplemented by foreign investors, though foreign investors are unlikely to invest without a suitable infrastructure. In June 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to spend 450 billion rubles ($13.6 billion USD) on infrastructure projects, which could bring some relief to Russia’s perpetual infrastructure problems.
According to a Reuters report from the Russian Ministry of Transport, Russia’s GDP is currently missing an estimated seven to nine percent in funding due to investors being turned off by the current state of Russian roadways. By installing proven ITS solutions in urban areas to combat congestion, while improving the highway system in the east, Russia could easily see a healthy return on investments.
China, likewise, is experiencing a vehicle boom. According to data released by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, passenger car ownership in China reached 120 million in 2012, while the total vehicle population was approximately 240 million. China has also become the world’s largest car producer and the largest new car market. It’s estimated that car ownership will top 200 million in China by 2020.
Many look at China’s response to this increase of traffic as one of the most innovative in the world. At the 6th Annual US – China Transportation Forum in October 2013, Vice Minister Gao Hongfeng said China plans on adding around 500,000 km (311,000 miles) of highway and 108,000 km (67,000 miles) of motorway within the next five years.
These roads, along with the 4.2 million km (2.6 million miles) of highway already in place in China, will benefit from improved transportation management using ITS to prevent congestion and increase safety. Gao also said there will be a larger effort to implement green technology, like converting public transport vehicles and ships to natural gas fuels. China also plans on investing up to 600 billion Yuan ($98 billion USD) on rail activity.
“All in all, our goal is to develop our transport system in a more efficient, healthy and green way,” Gao said.
Even as innovation in the transportation industry continues, many parts of the world live where any motorized transportation could mean death. According to a January 2014 report in The Economist, road crashes now kill 1.3 million people a year worldwide, more than malaria or tuberculosis. If nothing is done to reverse this trend, then by 2030, traffic accidents could take a greater toll than these two diseases combined.
A report by Professor Adnan Hyder for the World Innovation Summit for Health shows how dire the situation is for many people. According to the report, road traffic injuries are the eighth leading cause of death globally and the leading cause of death for people aged 15 to 29. These deaths occur disproportionately in developing countries. Eighty percent of all road traffic fatalities occur in low and middle-income countries, even though they have only 52 percent of the world’s registered vehicles. In 31 countries, all classified as low-income, more that one in every 100 vehicles will be involved in a fatal accident. In three countries, Togo, Ethiopia and Liberia, that number is one in 10. For people in these situations, innovation is a matter of life and death.
Hyder says there must be continuous innovation in the entire transportation industry with an eye toward safety if we hope to reduce these numbers. Hyder separates key risk factors into two sections: first, activities drivers participate in that cause accidents – speeding and not wearing seat belts, for example; second, external factors such as lack of law enforcement and poor road infrastructure.
Hyder says roadway accidents are “predictable and preventable,” and, looking at the next decade, a worldwide focus on innovation directed at safety in the transportation industry could save millions of lives.
Regardless of individual situations around the world, continued innovation is a must for the transportation industry. Whether that innovation takes the form of a worldwide, transportation-community effort to lower global traffic-related deaths; a willingness for governments to invest money into proven technology to keep an increasing motorized population safe; or a change in priorities for innovators towards increasing safety and decreasing distractions, the transportation industry cannot afford to become stagnant.
