Imagine the Connected Vehicle of Tomorrow, Today

By Cecile Thirion, Global Marketing director for Xerox Transportation

Imagine…travelling seamlessly from New York City to Chicago without stopping at a toll booth or swapping transponders.

Imagine…if your car could tell you where to find a parking spot, advise you in real time how to avoid congestion or prevent a collision.

Imagine… asking your car to purchase your next train ticket while you’re driving, really?

Most of us around the world depend on our car to get around daily. Yet few would say that driving a car makes life simpler. It might be the easiest way to get from point A to point B but there should be a smarter, faster way to get where we need to go. There should be an easier way to choose multi-modal transport, and we believe it is coming.

Transform Transportation

The world’s becoming more and more connected whether it’s our phones, our homes, our cities and of course our cars. Technology is transforming the world. Connected vehicles and infrastructure will transform transportation for the better.

Just imagine…the promise of connected vehicles of tomorrow, today: vehicles that connect to each other, to the infrastructure, and to various transaction systems for purposes such as paying for parking or tolls directly from your vehicle without worrying about change, or your time expiring.  In the age of connected vehicles, you would have the freedom to travel in the express lane or the ability to rely on your car to find the nearest open spot. (Of course, your car isn’t employed, so the transaction would be securely tied to your personal account.)

Better yet, what if traffic could be monitored in real-time? Tomorrow, transportation planners will be able to time traffic lights to optimize traffic flow so that you don’t spend precious minutes sitting at a red light at an empty intersection. Transportation planners could also be notified of that pothole that everyone seems to hit, anticipate those sorts of road repairs, and minimize the impact of construction.

Imagine… how connected vehicle solutions and the associated potential of data analytics could significantly change your life for the better.

Watch our urban mobility-connected vehicles video and see what we believe is likely to happen:

Bespoke Research at M City

Exciting, isn’t it? You might wonder how we can make it happen.

The University of Michigan’s Mobility Transformation Center (MTC) and its partners, including Xerox, are working together to shape the future of urban mobility. In collaboration with the U.S. Department of Transportation (UDSOT), the MTC is developing a 32-acre simulated city called M City, which will be the largest on-road vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure test environment in the world. The site will be reflective of a typical city street with sidewalks, construction obstacles, traffic signals, parked cars, and pedestrians.

In the months to come, expect to learn more about our tailored research projects with MTC and if you can’t wait, let’s meet in the Entrepreneurial Village in our booth (#528) at the Intelligent Transportation Systems Expo in Pittsburgh.

How do you imagine your future with connected vehicles?

Leave us a comment and/or engage the conversation with us on Twitter @XeroxTransport. I’d love to share your ideas in a follow-up blog post.

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The post was originally published on ITS America Annual Meeting blog. When Cecile (@CecileSF) isn’t attending an event, you might see her at @PARCinc collaborating with researchers.