I spoke with a friend of mine today, a retired Toyota employee that now lives in Palo Alto. He worked at Toyota for 35 years, the last 12 of which were in the ITS group. ITS=Intelligent Transportation Systems.
Our discussion let to a consideration of "Automated Highways" as a possible focus that would have appeal to the entrepreneurs and visionary members of the VLAB.
He's currently consulting and developing research centers in the telematics and transporation area at universities like Berkeley and UofM. I asked him if he could point me to a few local visionary companies in the telematics area.
He was happy to help, and asked about our focus. According to him, telematics is a major undertaking that involves the govt, public sector and academia. He's heaviliy involved with groups like the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, ITSA, a large group of 1000 organizations and the Dept of Transportation. Toyota was one of the founding members. Here is a short description: "A broad range of diverse technologies, known collectively as intelligent transportation systems (ITS), holds the answer to many of our transportation problems. ITS is comprised of a number of technologies, including information processing, communications, control, and electronics. Joining these technologies to our transportation system will save lives, save time, and save money." The ITS meets every 6 years to plan their program and budget. Last time they met, they provided about $6 billion to aid research in the telematics and transporation area. They'll meet again in 2003.
Currently, location based services are emerging, but I felt that was too much in the present (and certainly out of favor in the investment world), and we should focus more on the future.
This is his area of expertise, and he can provide us with many contacts once we have a better focus.
I did some research (Google). I found a seminal article on Automated Highways in the 1997 Scientific American. In the story entitled Automated Highways by a James H. Rillings of GM (also back then the Program Manager for the National Automated Highway System Consortium. He writes, "In all, excessive traffic causes more than five billion hours of delay every year; it wastes countless gallons of fuel and needlessly multiplies exhaust emissions." It's a well written article, and I see that several other have referred to it, including Steven Ashley of Mechanical Engineering magazine in his piece Smart Cars and Automated Highways.
Seems a prototype was built and tested in 1994 near San Diego. The augmented cars in the test ran a total of 8000 miles carrying 4000 passengers, and had no safety accidents. The participants included Bechtel, Caltrans, Delco, Carnegie Mellon Uiv, GM, Lockheed Martin, Parsons Brinkerhoff, PATH, and Raytheon. The James Rillings mentioned above served as the program manager.
This could be an attractive talk. Many technologies will have to come together. What do you think?
On Monday, I hope to finally speak with some folks at Ford and Visteon. The "Family Entertainment Systems Manager" at Visteon apparently has been incorporating Blue Tooth technology into the vehicle.
People I have called and/or emailed:
1. Doug Vandagens, Director, Wireless Mobility, Ford Motor
2. John Slosar, Director Platform Development Telematics, Multimedia Systems, Visteon
3. Tom Theisen, Technology Office, Telematics Business Development, Visteon
4. Kyle Walworth, Family Entertainment Systems, Bluetooth technologies, Visteon
5. Emily Clark, BMW Technology Office USA, Palo Alto
6. Maja Vukovic, Daimler Chrysler Research & Technology, Palo Alto
I've only heard back from Emily so far. She'll provide me a list of companies that BMW is working with. I'll also ask her about obtaining a vehicle for demo. Alex?? can we somehow get a fullsize vehicle into the enclosed area outside of Bishop auditorium?
Al Nevarez
|
|
