This Car Brakes Without You
Published: November 7, 2005
Cars that automatically step on the brakes to avoid crashes, maps that update themselves so drivers can steer around roadwork, intersections that let drivers know when it’s safe to make a left turn, handheld gadgets that show where traffic is clogged.
The future of transportation will be formed by a collision, as it were, between mobility and technology. This week, the people behind these innovations are gathering in San Francisco to share what they’ve learned and show off what they’ve built.
About 4,000 transportation and technology experts from around the globe are attending the Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress at the Moscone Center, which began Sunday and runs through Thursday. About 100 are exhibiting their products in the convention hall, and 40 others are demonstrating their developments in a China Basin parking lot outfitted with test tracks.
It’s an impressive array of gadgets and gizmos — stuff that until now has been limited to science fiction and test laboratories.
“I read about this stuff, too,” said Sabrina Quirarte, a spokeswoman for the Intelligent Transportation Society of America. “But to see it happen is amazing. This stuff really exists — and it works.”
For the Bay Area, the convention offers a sneak peek at the future. But the region is already a laboratory for transportation technology because of the presence of Silicon Valley and the inescapable reality of some of the nation’s worst traffic congestion.
“There’s a temptation to think of these things as whizbang, 23rd century-type stuff,” said Steve Heminger, executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the region’s transportation planning agency. “But we’ve already got $160 million invested in this kind of technology in the Bay Area.”
The commission’s 511 transportation information phone and Web site, the recently expanded driving-time displays on electronic message boards, FasTrak, the TransLink universal transit ticket and the signs on Highway 24 advising drivers of the availability of parking at the Rockridge BART station are among the advanced transportation systems being used or developed in the Bay Area.
Caltrans and the commission plan to show off the Bay Area projects, but they’re just a small sample of the gadgetry that will be displayed.
General Motors will be among the exhibitors demonstrating vehicle-to-vehicle communication — technology that allows cars to communicate with each other, avoid collisions and detect other cars in blind spots — but only when all of the cars are outfitted with the GM equipment.
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: