We are pleased to announce that CAV Canada 2019, a national conference focused on all aspects of automated and connected vehicles, will be held at the Brookstreet Hotel in Ottawa on September 9-10, 2019.

 

The Kanata North Business Association, Invest Ottawa and the Canadian Automated Vehicles Institute (CAVI) are pleased to jointly organize this conference.  This builds on three very successful prior events in 2015-2018 organized by KNBA, IO and CAVCOE.

 

This 1½ day conference will be the premier AV/CV event in Canada in 2019 and will feature presentations from stakeholders from across the country and internationally.  The conference will have three main themes, all focused on AVs:

• Technology and vehicle research, development and testing;
• Policy development and deployment planning by all three levels of government, and
• Corporate business planning for the AV era and related pilots.

In addition, local tours will be organized for the afternoon on September 18^th.
Please save the date in your calendar. More information will be published in early 2019. If you have any questions now, please write to cav-canada@cavi-icva.ca 
 

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Canadian AV News

The ‘ELA’ AV shuttle pilot project in Calgary ended on September 30^th. During its 22 operating days, the EasyMile shuttle carried 4,500 passengers. The University of Calgary handed survey cards to passengers to gauge how they felt before and after riding the shuttle as well as some transit related questions. ELA has now moved to Edmonton for a pilot project at three sites in that city starting Oct. 9^th and ending Nov. 4^th. More information is at this link.

The Winnipeg International Airport is tapped to be the first in North America to use autonomous snow-clearing equipment. The Winnipeg Airports Authority announced a partnership with Northstar Robotics Inc. and Airport Technologies Inc. to develop the autonomous snow plow. Both companies are based in Manitoba.  More information is at this link.  On a related point, an airport in Norway is also experimenting with automated snow plows.

At the ITS World Congress in Copenhagen on Sep. 18^th, the UK’s government-industry organization Meridian brought together 11 countries with the aim of finding common ground on global CAV standards. The countries are the UK, Canada, USA, Finland, The Netherlands, Australia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Singapore and South Korea. This was in collaboration with another UK agency the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV). Meridian predicts the global CAV market to be worth as much as £907 billion by 2035. More information is at this link.

Finally, in this section on Canada, we have included a list -- compiled by CAVCOE -- of recent and published future AV/CV projects, studies etc. involving Canadian municipalities, generally in cooperation with other organizations..

In any compilation like this, there is always a risk that a project has been missed out. If so, please report any errors or omissions to Barrie Kirk at bkirk@cavcoe.com  and we will include an update next month.

Calgary AB

• Study of the use of AVs in Calgary (May 2017)
• ELA pilot project using EasyMile shuttle Sept 2018

 Candiac QC

• Keolis-operated NAVYA shuttle Oct –Dec 2018. Service will resume in Spring 2019 and continue to August 2019.

 Edmonton AB

• Study of the use of AVs in Edmonton
• ELA pilot project using EasyMile shuttle Oct–Nov 2018
• Automated security robot patrolling airport perimeter in collaboration with ACAMP
• ACTIVE CV test site (operational)
• Alberta Motor Transport Association: truck testing at airport

 Kapuskasing ON

• GM’s in-house test track

 Montreal QC

• Shuttle demo at the UITP conference (May 2017)
• Shuttle demos in the Olympic Park -- extended for a few more weeks

 Ottawa ON

• Automated shuttle on Parliament Hill in 2018
• AV/CV testing on public roads, started Sept 2018
• AV/CV testing on secure AV/CV test track starting 2019

 Regina SK

• Testing of automated farming equipment

 Stratford / Kitchener / Waterloo ON

• Various AV/CV tests and demos

 Toronto ON

• Researched impact of AVs on the city
• Established inter-departmental AV working group
• Planned AV pilot project for 2020 with a $1.2m budget

 Vancouver  BC

• Study of the use of AVs in Vancouver
• Planned two AV corridors as part of joint Vancouver-Surrey Smart Cities project
• AURORA CV test site

Windsor-Essex ON

• Cross-border demo

Other Cities

• CUTRIC plans to test semi-autonomous and eventually fully-autonomous, shuttles, pods and buses in 12 Canadian municipalities.

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International AV News

On July 19, 2018, the UK  Parliament passed the Automated and Electric Vehicles 2018 (AEV) Act.  This is a significant step and a recognition that the rapid developments in the AV space have not gone unnoticed by this country’s highest legislator. More information is at this link and UK Parliament’s own site at this link.

 On September 25, 2018, the U.S. Department of Transportation (US DoT) released a major new document titled Preparing for the Future of Transportation - Automated Vehicles 3.0. This 80 page report is the next iteration on release 2.0 released in September 2017.  The current report details US DoT’s outlook for the continuation of developments in AV space and actions taken by this agency to remove barriers to progress.  It also focuses on the impact that AV technology will have on employment.  The report can be downloaded from US DoT’s website at this link.

US DoT‘s Automated Vehicles 3.0 also gives more leeway for self-driving truck operations by allowing interstate automated commercial vehicle travel. This is a significant development for technology companies working on self-driving truck and trucking companies.  More information at this link.

The Australian Government announced the establishment of the Office of Future Transport Technologies to help prepare for the arrival of automated vehicles and other advanced transportation technologies.  The initial funding for this initiative is A$9.7 million. More information is at this link.

In another development in Australia, the law firm of Norton Rose Fullbright has published a  172 page report titled Pedal to the metal or slamming on the brakes - Worldwide regulations of AVs. The report focuses on regulatory and liability issues associated with AVs and what needs to be done to pave the way for introduction on AVs on Australia’s public roads. A copy of the report can be downloaded from this link.

In a departure from ‘business as usual’, LM Industries (formerly Local Motors) is inviting cities and other organizations to approach it with ideas for using its Olli AV shuttles for their projects.  LM Industries has launched a ‘fleet challenge’ that invites local governments, companies, and other interested parties to propose three-month use programs for a fleet of Olli vehicles (2-5 AVs). The program initially has Sacramento and Phoenix as its first two candidate cities with plans to expand to other areas. More information is at this link.

In another step forward, GM and its AV arm Cruise, have announced a partnership with Honda to tap into Honda’s vast automotive experience and resources. The aim is not merely modifying existing cars to become self-driving but to design/build a new vehicle from the ground up with autonomous driving in mind. Honda will also invest up to $2.75 billion in GM & Cruise over a period of 12 years.  More information is at this link.

The City of Arlington TX (pop. 400,000) has never had a conventional public transportation system.  In a bold move, it has partnered with Drive.ai to provide free self-driving vans in certain parts of Arlington and with ‘Via’ for a ride-sharing/ride-hailing scheme similar to Uber and Lyft where riders pay a $3 fee to ride the Mercedes passenger vans. These services are heavily subsidized at present, but the City hopes with rising ridership, the costs will go down.  The thinking is that conventional bus services running on large buses and fixed routes and schedules were designed for an era when buses needed drivers, and passengers lacked smartphones. Now that most people have a smartphone and driverless technology is making rapid advances, it may be time for a rethink of how we deliver these services to the public. More information is at this link.

3M is a major supplier of pavement marking material as well materials used in manufacture of road signs.  Through its ‘Connected Roads Program’, it is working to form a coalition to embed intelligence in pavement markings and road signage so that sensors on AVs such as cameras, LiDAR, radar, etc. can pick up additional machine readable information from these assets.  3M aims to make the existing road infrastructure smarter rather than imposing costs for new infrastructure.  More info. at this link.

ARM is a leading semiconductor design house whose designs are used in two-thirds of collision detection processor chips worldwide. It recently announced a new generation of processors specifically aimed at the growing AV market. The new line of AE, or ‘Automotive Enhanced’  application processors lets chip-makers design chips with security features that allow autonomous cars to meet the toughest safety requirements   More information is at this link.

Autonomy is not just limited to cars and trucks. French car maker Groupe PSA has teamed up with EasyMile and ‘TLD Group’ to design and deploy an automated ‘tow tractor’ to bring auto parts from PSA’s suppliers to the assembly line where up to 2,100 cars are assembled per day. The tow tractor also has applications at airports and other locations too. More information is at this link.

And finally, an academic book titled ‘The End of Driving: Transportation Systems and Public Policy Planning for Autonomous Vehicles’ was published in June 2018. The authors are Bern Grush and John Niles. The book is targeted towards academic and commercial transportation planning researchers, practitioners and policy makers. More information at this link.