Smart roads: Driving technology accelerates

It sounds like it could be the setup for a comedian's punch line:

"Two Mercedes are driving down the road when the one Mercedes says to the other…"

Except it's no joke and actually describes a world just around the corner.

Once purely the stuff of dreams, the technology that lets a pair of similarly equipped Mercedes-Benzes, or two Cadillac Escalades, for that matter, communicate with each other about potentially dangerous road conditions, or traffic snarls, has already been developed, said Utah Department of Transportation Director John Njord.

A caboodle of safety- and convenience-related innovations, in fact, await as federal and state transportation officials and automakers work to set standards that will give rise to a futuristic highway Internet.

Njord, who has been in on discussions to create this virtual traffic network, says cars and highways will be able to communicate with each other using Direct Short Range Communications — or DSRC — on a dedicated 5.9-gigahertz frequency set aside by the Federal Communications Commission for transportation uses.

DSRC protocol combines Radio Frequency Identification — or RFID — and wireless technologies to allow vehicles to send and receive messages via roadside sensors, which have an approximate range of about 1,000 meters, or the equivalent of about six-tenths of a mile. Vehicles serve as both transmitters and receivers, while roadside sensors attached to a tower configuration act as routers tying the system together. Localized warnings can bounce back and forth, detailing accidents, malfunctioning traffic signals, construction zones, icy or dangerous patches of road and traffic jams.

DSRC also can share alerts directly between vehicles. For example, if one car applies its brakes, a DSRC device could inform other drivers, decreasing chances of an accident. DSRC could even trigger a vehicle's automatic braking system.

Costly infrastructure

This motoring future won't come cheap. Installing needed infrastructure will require massive capital outlays by federal, state and local governments that will run into the tens of billions of dollars and perhaps more, Njord said.

Nile Easton, UDOT's director of communications, said upward of 250,000 wireless roadside towers are being proposed for installation along the nation's freeways, highways, rural roads and at major intersections at a cost of between $2 billion and $3 billion. And that's just for starters.

But Njord believes the payoff in safety is easily worth the cost when considering that 235 people died on Utah's highways in 2009, based on UDOT's preliminary tally.