The Magazine - Siemens Mobility · “ITS magazine”, after ten years and 38 issues, has evolved into “The Magazine ... of some 270 kilometers of freeway and major roads to the

Space for ideas Increased traffic efficiency opens up new opportunities in urban planning

Doing things the smart way New answers of traffic engineering to the challenges of the next Mobility Revolution

“It’s all about safety and efficiency” Interview with VDA President Matthias Wissmann

The joy of being driven? How the automation of road traffic impacts our mobility habits

39.2016 | siemens.com/magazine

The Magazine for Intelligent Traffic Systems

2 siemens.com/magazine/mobility/its | 39.2016

After ten years and 38 issues, the

“ITS magazine” has evolved into

“The Magazine for Intelligent Traffic Systems”

39.2016 | siemens.com/magazine/mobility/its 3

Editorial

Markus Schlitt

Sincerely,

As you have certainly gathered from the ‘flying page’ on the cover, the “ITS magazine”, after ten years and 38 issues, has evolved into “The Magazine for Intelligent Traffic Systems”. The most exiting perspectives on mobility have been updated to an even more contemporary, attractive and reader- friendly layout. We hope that you will find the transformation refreshing and enriching.

On the content level, we remain of course true to our successful journalistic approach: The editorial team will continue to make sure that the viewpoint from which the latest trends, challenges and chances in the world of mobility are examined is not company-centered, but always takes the wider perspec-tive: For this issue, for instance, Matthias Wissmann has been invited to pres-ent his views. The interview with the former German Minister of Transport and current President of the Association of the Automotive Industry revolves around one of the most fascinating topics in today’s mobility industry: auto-mated driving.

As current developments indicate, most likely the next Mobility Revolution will take place on the road: And even though grand words like this should be used with caution, ‘revolution’ seems to be the right expression in this con-text. Because self-driving cars will deeply transform our habits, not only in traveling from A to B, but also in thinking about mobility.

And if the predictions of the renowned urban planner Konrad Rothfuchs are correct, this will even positively impact our urban landscapes. Mobile society, he says, should start already today to discuss the most promising new uses for the space that more efficient traffic flows will free up in our cities. As I see it, the cities also have no time to waste in defining their overall strategies for the era of automated driving: Today, municipal bodies still have the opportunity to actively steer the development. As soon as the technological change has arrived as hard facts on our roads, this will probably not be so easy anymore.

As always, I hope you’ll enjoy the read.

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Dear Reader,


Content

14The long arm of research

28“Enough space for personal choices“

18The third dimension

24Space for ideas


Content

Content

Per autopilot to the future 06 What will they be capable of? What

will they be allowed to do? And when will it all start? Questions regarding self-driving cars are among the most exciting of our time. Some can already be answered.

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06 “It’s all about safety and efficiency” Matthias Wissmann, former German Minister of

Transport and current President of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), on the primary objectives, the most important forthcoming decisions and the next hurdles to be overcome in automating road traffic.

14 The long arm of research In 2014, with the launch of the Application Platform

for Intelligent Mobility, the German Air and Space Center (DLR) turned the city of Braunschweig into a laboratory for research into automated driving, among other things. Now, new plans call for the addition of some 270 kilometers of freeway and major roads to the project.

18 The third dimension The users decide when and where they want to go,

and the vehicle autonomously finds its own way there. So far the allocation of competencies seems clear in the future era of automated and connected road traffic. But as the third party involved, what role does intelligent infrastructure actually play?

Invent

22 Race of the worlds Evolution or revolution? When it comes automated

driving, in principle both terms apply because traditional car manufacturers and newcomers from the IT sector are taking different approaches to developing self-driving cars.

30 Doing things the smart way “Intelligent” was yesterday’s yardstick – today,

“smart” is the new watchword when it comes to shaping the mobility of the future. The small but decisive differences come to light at the Siemens booth at the Intertraffic in Amsterdam.

Inspire

24 Space for ideas Experts fully agree that self-driving cars will

make more efficient use of the available traffic infrastructure. But who should be the one to profit from any freed-up capacities? Urban planner Konrad Rothfuchs has kicked off the debate on this question because he expects it to open up great chances for urban development.

28 “Enough space for personal choices“ Dr. Daniel Hobohm, Innovation Manager at Siemens

Mobility, on strategies for remotely controlling self-driving cars and the degree of maturity of our mobile society.

02 Editorial | 21 In the side-view mirror | 31 Directory | 31 Highlights | 31 Imprint

“ It’s all about safety and efficiency”

Interview ■ Matthias Wissmann, former German Minister of Transport and current President of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), on the primary objectives, the most important forthcoming decisions and the next hurdles to be overcome in automating road traffic.


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Personal backgroundSince 2007, Matthias Wissmann has been President of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), the joint interest group of the German automotive manufacturers and their suppliers. In 1993 he held the position of German Minister of Research and Technology, from 1993 to 1998 he was German Minister of Transport. For over 30 years, from his election in 1976 until his resignation on May 31, 2007, he was a member of the German Bundestag. His functions included, among others, that of economic- policy spokesman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group from 1983 to 1993.

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“ Intelligent infrastructure will play a major role”

Mr. Wissmann, back in 1996, the Deep Blue chess computer defeated Gary Kasparov, who at the time seemed unbeatable. This was often interpreted as the start of a duel between artificial and human intelligence. When will we see self-driving cars win a Formula 1 race?Of course, that is not the purpose of automating the motor car. We do not want to create a competitor for the driver, but first and foremost take some of the stress of driving away and offer assistance. We do not expect vehicles to be driving totally autonomously in the near future. Looking at our infrastructure, such a scenario is unrealistic, both from a legal and a technological point of view. In a few years’ time there will be vehicles avail-able that will allow the use of individual automated functions in specific application scenarios. When using semi-automated driving functions, drivers have the option to make phone calls, surf the net or read emails. But they must always be ready to take control again. Fully automated driving is more likely to arrive from around 2025 onwards.

In your opinion, what will the roadmap look like as we move from the current situation to one that can be described as fully automated driving?The German automotive industry will introduce auto-mated driving in evolutionary steps, from assisted driv-ing to partially automated and then highly automated driving, and finally to full automation. Even today there are many driver assistance systems that control the car’s speed, for example, or the distance from the vehicle in front, or that assist the driver during emergency braking or maneuvering. In a few years we will see the first vehi-cles equipped with the necessary sensors and informa-tion processing capability to enable the functionality required for high and full automation.

In this context, are there any significant differences between urban and interurban transport?Yes, there are. Initially, we expect the automated driving functions I have just described to only be used on motor-ways, in congested traffic and when parking. It will only

be in the more distant future that it will be increasingly possible to support journeys through the countryside and in urban settings.

There is one ethical issue that always comes up. How should a self-driving system react in an emergency? What approaches are there to define solutions for so-called dilemma scenarios?Technical systems are not suitable yet for dealing with complex critical situations that may require immediate decisions with potentially grave consequences. For example, the decision to risk a collision with another vehicle or coming off the road in order to prevent even greater damage arising from the alternative behavior. That is why highly automated driving will initially focus on clearly manageable situations such as traffic jams and freeway trips.

What role will be played by intelligent infrastructure in road transport in the future?A big one! Networked mobility means that cars will com-municate both with other road users and with the road-side infrastructure. For example, Car2X Communication enables the vehicle to collect relevant traffic information in fractions of a second, either from the vehicles in front or from traffic management systems, and process them immediately. Of course, to make such networks possible, the infrastructure needs to be adapted and expanded considerably. Questions must be answered, such as “What language should the traffic lights of the future speak, so all cars can understand them?”

How will the infrastructure and the vehicles them-selves interact with each other?Networking vehicles with each other and with the infra-structure will make traffic both safer and more efficient in future. An example of such Cooperative Systems in the city is the traffic light phase assistant, where communi-cation between the traffic lights and the vehicle enables the car to determine the ideal speed for profiting from a continued “green wave”. But the future is not only about networking cars with each other. It also involves networking between different modes of transport. For instance, mobility apps make it possible to select the best route and means of transport for a given situation, thus combining the various modes of transport in an opti-mum way. This means the transport system as a whole can be much more efficient.

So far, the car market has been firmly in the hands of traditional automotive brands. These days, IT giants such as Google and Apple are working on automotive projects that appeal to the public. How seriously are you taking this new competition?Big digital companies like Google and Apple are very interesting partners for the automotive industry and their suppliers. We are keenly interested in working together with them. There have already been a number of successful collaborations. We see these organizations

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as partners – not direct competitors. And we intend to stay firmly in the “driver’s seat” also in the area of digita-lization. That is why we are investing heavily in IT, in net-worked and automated driving. The automotive industry has always succeeded in integrating new technologies into its vehicles. A recent example is the acquisition of Here, a division of Nokia, by Audi, BMW and Daimler. Progressive digitalization and networking keep expand-ing the possibilities and capabilities of the motor car, but they do not replace the car itself.

In parallel to advances in automation there is a trend towards the electrification of cars. In the long term this could lead to a loss of significance of the traditional manufacturers’ know-how in the field of engine technology. Does this mean that under certain circumstances the competitive landscape is going to undergo major shifts?Basically, we need to be aware that a sector that has such great potential as the automotive industry is bound to attract one or two interested newcomers who want to participate in its growth. However, the experience that we have collected in automotive engineering over the decades is very valuable – and our brands are even more so. There is no doubt, though, that we need to keep our eyes open. Without a constant willingness to innovate, none of the established automakers will be able to per-manently maintain their position at the top. That is why every year our companies invest around €34 billion in research and development. Over the next three to four years, the German car manufacturers and their suppliers plan to invest €16 to 18 billion in research and development efforts in the area of networked and automated driving alone. How does this compare to the predicted market volume for vehicles?In this area in particular it is almost impossible to make isolated projections. Overall, in 2015 the automotive industry has experienced a consistent upward trend. We have increased sales, revenue, production, export and employment. Never before the German automobile man-ufacturers have built as many cars around the world as

they have this year. The medium-term trend is also pointing upwards: Experts unanimously predict that by 2020 the global car market will have a volume of 88 mil-lion units. We have a global market share of around 20 percent. In the premium segment, where driver automa-tion is expected to make the fastest progress, it is even close to 80 percent even. Many experts believe that concepts involving highly automated driving will initially be seen in vehicles that cover especially high mileages, such as commer-cial vehicles and buses. Is that how you see it too? Digitalization will find its way into cars, trucks and buses. Thanks to ever-improving safety systems such as adaptive cruise control, distance warning, brake assist or lane departure warning, in relation to the distance traveled, modern trucks are just as safe as passenger cars. Our companies are systematically developing the existing assistance systems still further. The next step will be partly automated driving. The truck driver will be relieved of routine tasks and warned of dangers. This means less stress, and the number of accidents will fall even more because computer-controlled trucks do not get tired or distracted. The truck can “look far ahead” and thus perfectly adapt its speed to the traffic situation and the route profile. The driver can perform other tasks while on the road – taking on new contracts, for exam-ple, or processing existing ones.

To what extent do the various regions of the world differ from each other when it comes to the politi- cal and legal framework required for automated driving?Individual US states will probably be the first places in which automated driving will be regulated by law. In the states of Nevada, Florida and California, for example, automated driving in test mode is permitted. We are in a good position in Germany too. A test track for automated driving was recently established on the A9 motorway. And by 2019, the German federal government will have made available more than €40 million to support its “automated and networked driving strategy”. But it is important that changes in legislation that are relevant

“ Computer- controlled trucks do not get tired or distracted”

Automated research car designed by Mercedes-Benz:

“The experience of the German manufacturers is

very valuable“

VDA President Matthias Wissmann: “We see Google or Apple as very interesting partners – not competitors”

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Rinspeed-designed car concept XchangE: “For certain traffic situations, automated driving is simply more comfortable and safer”

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to automated driving will be implemented at both UN and national level. The German automotive industry is advocating the creation of internationally harmonized standards. It makes no sense to establish different rules in different European countries. The legal framework needs to be synchronized with the pace of technical development. Governments and industry must collabo-rate very closely in this area. And what is the level of acceptance of self-driving cars among potential users?People see improved safety and reduced congestion as the most important objectives. In August we carried out a study involving 1028 participants aged 16 to 64. The results showed that for 37 percent of respondents, the benefits of automated driving revolve mainly around greater safety and fewer accidents, together with less congestion and better traffic flow. Until around ten years ago, the so-called Vision Zero, a vision of traffic without any road deaths and seri-ous injuries, was still considered utopian. In view of the continually increasing level of automation, might this now become reality?Yes, definitely. Automated driving and the networking of vehicles mean that we move a lot closer to our long-term goal of accident-free traffic. Around 90 percent of acci-dents are caused by human error. In situations that are either too challenging or too boring for human drivers, assistance systems will provide effective support and bring about significant improvements. Here technology can make our lives better by offering networked and automated driving.

Accident research by insurers warns us that drivers may tend to pay less attention to the road as auto-mated systems are increasingly taking over also routine driving tasks. Do you share this concern?No, I don’t. We are confident that networked and auto-mated driving will reduce the risk of accidents still fur-ther, just as airbags, ESP and other protective devices have contributed to a massive reduction in accident numbers and consequences over the past 30 years. The vehicle of the future, for example, will be able to throw

a “virtual” look around the next curve, recognizing dangerous situations such as traffic jams, accidents and ice in advance. Automated driving comes into its own in situations that are either too challenging for the driver or placing insufficient demand on his attention. In the future, such accidents can be prevented. By the way, these on-board systems cause significantly less distrac-tion than, for example, looking at a mobile phone or, in particular, using a road atlas for “navigation” while driving, which is not permitted.

In addition to improving road safety, networked driving also promises an improvement in the flow of traffic and a reduction in emissions. How significant do you think the potential is in these areas?The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) in the UK has calculated that today, on average, every German motorist spends 118 hours per year stuck in con-gestion or trying to avoid and bypass a traffic jam. Net-worked driving could help prevent 20 percent of traffic jams in Germany. This would result in annual savings of 233 million liters of fuel, which corresponds to 600,000 tonnes of CO₂ and total costs of €5.2 billion.

Despite all the advantages, there are of course skep-tics who either have privacy concerns or point out the risk of hacker attacks on automated systems. How justified are these worries?We take these concerns very seriously. The issue of safety and security has been our top priority for many years. This also applies to IT security in vehicles. The German automotive industry has issued a strict code of privacy, including a strong data security culture in a networked vehicle. It is crucial that infotainment systems are clearly separated from safety-critical systems by a firewall in the vehicle electronics. We are the technological leader in this area. But it is also clear that there will always be a “technological race”. The automotive industry must – just like in other cases – always be two steps ahead of the hackers.

What are the arguments and emotional appeals that will help the automotive industry succeed in persuading their customers of the joy of being driven, rather than the joy of driving?The key is that the motorist will continue to have the choice. I love driving a car when, for example, I am trav-eling south on holiday through magnificent scenery. But for certain traffic situations, automated driving is simply more convenient, comfortable and safer. Who likes to drive in heavy traffic on the motorway, when the line of vehicles is barely moving forward? In such stop-and-go traffic situations, the automated driving function can take over and relieve me of the stress. But if the auto-matic system takes control of the steering wheel on an empty motorway, I would not find that so great. I think most people feel that way.

Mr. Wissmann, thank you very much for talking to us.

“ We take the concerns of skeptics very seriously”

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Lower Saxony testing ground ■ In 2014, with the launch of the Application Platform for Intelligent Mobility (AIM), the German Air and Space Center (DLR) turned the city of Braunschweig into a huge laboratory for, among other things, research into automated driving. Now, the latest plans call for some 270 kilometers of freeway and major roads to be added to the project.

The long arm of research

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efore the brand manufacturers position their new instant soup, a new deodorant or a new dairy

product on the supermarket shelf they often do market research in Hassloch. In this small town in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the Associa-tion for Consumer Research (GfK) runs a unique test market that is rep-resentative, in socio-demographic terms, of the German market as a whole. The people of Hassloch even get to watch TV advertisements that are not yet broadcasted anywhere else – and perhaps never will.

Even though the comparison is somewhat lopsided, Braunschweig has basically become in terms of mobility research what Hassloch is for con-sumer research: a hands-on labora-tory for trialing and perfecting new concepts and strategies. Because this is where, in mid-2014, the German Air and Space Center (DLR) launched the Application Platform for Intelligent Mobility (AIM). The research infra-structure available here includes an intersection, a reference route equipped with communications systems, a whole range of driving simulators and various other systems and test beds.

“Our goal as researchers was and still is not merely to produce abstract PowerPoint slides but to test our ideas physically in rolling systems,” says Professor Dr. Frank Köster, Head of the Automotive Department at the DLR Institute for Transportation Systems. “Of course it is possible to develop a great deal theoretically and much can be tried out in the context of simula-tions. But practical implementation usually delivers a huge additional benefit in terms of insights – for instance into the interaction between individual road users, an especially important objective in our case.”

The spectrum of research fields handled by AIM includes topics such as the effects that dynamic coordi-nated green phases have on traffic, or the potential of driver assistance sys-tems to improve safety, and of course the conceptual opportunities around automated and networked driving. The latter is one of the topic areas that the institute has been focusing on since its foundation in 2001. Over the years the scientists have generated

numerous research- specific high-lights in this field that is so essential for the future of mobility.

A vehicle named Leonie: the first self-driving car in the urban traffic contextOne such highlight was the insti-tute’s role as a partner of “City Pilot”, a globally celebrated project in its day; the results of this first rollout of a self-driving vehicle in real urban traffic were presented in October 2010. The research vehicle “Leonie” was fully capable of maintaining lane position on the two-lane section of the Braunschweig ring road at speeds of up to 60 km/h, while nego-tiating intersections, going around obstacles and adapting distances and speeds to the current flow of traffic.

At the DLR Institute for Transpor-tation Systems, AIM is one of the tools used by the roughly 170 bright minds who are involved in research-ing further milestones in the devel-opment of automated driving. On the vehicle technology side, progress has been made to the point where a variety of fairly complex situations can be handled automatically to a degree where a driver is no longer required.

“On the freeway, the current state of the technology enables automatic operation at speeds of up to 130 km/h,” explains Professor Köster. “In spite of the relatively high speeds there, the driving conditions are manageable for an intelligent machine. In contrast, on public park-ing lots we encounter more complex traffic situations that a machine is not yet necessarily able to under-stand and to cope with – for instance unusual maneuvers by other motor-ists, which are sometimes outside of the norm. But of course the biggest challenge we face is in today’s urban traffic. At present, among other issues, we are working very hard on the question of autonomous left turns against oncoming traffic.”

A central object of research: the human-machine interfaceThe DLR researchers are also invest-ing a great deal of intellectual effort in the design of the human-machine

B

Dynamic driving simulator of the DLR: “Our goal as researchers is not to produce merely abstract PowerPoint slides but to test our ideas physically in rolling systems”

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The DLR at a glance

With a total workforce of about 8,000, the German Air and Space Center operates 33 institutes at 16 sites in Germany, as well as its own offices in Brussels, Paris, Tokyo and Washington D.C. In 2014, the budget for research and operations to-taled €871 million, of which 52 percent was funding obtained from third parties. In addition, the DLR managed a space research budget of over €1.3 billion.

Besides aeronautics, space flight, energy and security, transport is one of the DLR’s five research fields. In this segment there are three central institutes con-cerned with transport research, vehicle concepts and transportation systems. At the Institute for Transportation Systems based in Braunschweig and Berlin, a team of currently 170 scientists – engineers, psychologists and information scientists led by Professor Dr. Karsten Lemmer – is doing research and develop-ment for automotive and rail systems and for traffic management.

interface. How exactly should the machine inform the human being that it has taken over control and – much more decisive for the safety of such systems – what signals and what information will it have to send when the driver needs to retake con-trol? Interaction patterns of this kind will play a central role in the design of the automated cars of the future. “Especially after a lengthy period of automatic operation, it will just not be enough for the machine to say to the human: now it’s your turn again,” explains Professor Köster. “It will also have to tell the driver in as unmistakable terms as possible about the current traffic situation that he has to deal with.

As for the question of how, after the switch from autonomous to human operation, the driver should confirm that he is truly aware of his responsibility for controlling the vehicle, that is far from simple to answer: Will taking the steering wheel be sufficient? Or should the driver press a certain button? Or, for safety reasons, execute a whole set of actions? One thing is obvious to the researcher: “At all costs we have to prevent that this confirmation could also be brought about by a driver’s chance actions. The system must be absolutely certain that the driver has understood what it wishes to tell him.”

Tomorrow’s self-driving vehicles will be part of a communications

automated vehicles. The project partners aim to develop generally accepted and thoroughly evaluated methods and tools for testing the functions of highly automated vehi-cles by 2019. “It goes without saying that the systems must be better than the average human driver,” says Pro-fessor Köster. “But just how good is ‘better’? Up to now, no-one has come up with a definite answer to this question. Once we know how high the bar will be set, then the next question arises: How exactly will we test reliably whether a system genuinely exceeds the standard?”

The Lower Saxony testing ground: a platform for the exploration of synergiesThe advances made thanks to AIM are the basis for expanding the per-spective. An important element in this approach is the Lower Saxony testing ground, whose feasibility is currently under study. A grid of about 270 kilometers of motorways, major roads and trunk routes between Braunschweig, Hildesheim, Hannover and Wolfsburg looks to be a suitable location for its imple-mentation. The equipment installed is to be limited to what is reasonably required for the purpose. This means that, rather than for an area of seamless coverage, plans call for the targeted use of data capture and communications systems as well as

network. This is why the DLR experts are working also intensively on the design of background systems. A practical instance is the architecture of platforms that will enable functions like micro-rerouting, which will allow a car in autonomous mode to make smart changes to the precalculated route on the basis of the latest traffic data.

At the very top of the agenda is also the PEGASUS project, funded by the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy to the tune of €16.3 million and jointly coordinated by the DLR and Volkswagen AG. The PEGASUS project is about testing

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other technological components, for instance a section of about 10 to 20 kilometers that will be fully under the scrutiny of cameras, as well as a suitably extensive section equipped with Car2X infrastructure for testing the Cooperative Systems of the future. Olaf Lies, Minister for Economic Affairs, Labor and Transport in Lower Saxony, says: “The increasing net-working of vehicles is a decisive factor in keeping our automobiles and traffic systems competitive and ready for the challenges of the future. The position of Germany as innovation hotbed and global leader in developing automated driving technologies will be further strengthened by the progressive dig-italization trend.”

The DLR researchers explicitly regard the project as complementary to and in no way in competition with the testing ground “Digitales Test-feld Autobahn” that is being estab-lished on the A9 in Bavaria on the initiative of the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI). The research-ers coordinate their activities in this field with the BMVI, which is also responsible for synchronizing the wealth of contributions that the multiplicity of powerful players from the worlds of economy and science active in more northerly regions of the republic have already made or are able to make to the automation of highway transport.

In terms of its fundamental setup, the plans for the Lower Saxony testing ground follow the highly successful example of the AIM platform in Braunschweig, which had also been designed with the instrumental involvement of Professor Köster. As a result, it is not intended as a play-ground for a mixed assortment of applications to be implemented indi-vidually and in isolation from each other. “Our aim is rather to offer a platform for the integrated testing of a range of different functionalities and their interactions,” explains the DLR researcher. “This is the only approach that will give us the oppor-tunity to identify important syner-gies and to develop them further, where appropriate.”

The Lower Saxony testing ground will also be able to benefit signifi-cantly from AIM in other respects: On the one hand, the concepts applied there will support the implementation of strict data privacy standards. On the other hand, there is a logical prefer-ence for components that have already proven their fitness for purpose on the urban application platform, as this will speed up the rollout of applications on motorways and major roads. The DLR server for example is already host to a substantial set of highly accurate maps that could be provided very rap-idly for use on the new testing ground.

The generation of such high- precision maps based on satellite data and the results of multiple fly-overs is certainly a core competence of the DLR. Still, Professor Köster sees the question of how precise the maps for automated driving really have to be as open for discussion. “The need for accuracy depends, first and foremost, on how powerful the detection equipment in the vehicles is going to be. If it is capable not only of recognizing but of identifying the objects in its surroundings, if it man-ages to read lane markings and road signs, then perhaps there really is no need to measure the world’s trans-port routes down to the last millime-ter and to invest massive efforts in keeping it all up to date. After all, human drivers also know where they need to turn, without knowledge of any geodata details.”

Communication and positioning systems on a car roof: “The biggest challenge we face is in today’s urban traffic”

“ The increasing networking of vehicles is a decisive factor in keeping our automobiles and traffic systems competitive and ready for the challenges of the future. The position of Germany as innovation hotbed and global leader in developing automated driving technologies will be further strengthened by the progressive digitalization trend.”

Olaf Lies, Minister for Economic Affairs, Labor and Transport in Lower Saxony

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The third dimensionTransport infrastructure ■ The users decide when and where they want to go, and the vehicle autonomously finds its own way there. So far the allocation of competencies seems clear when it comes to the automated and networked road traffic of the future. But as the third party involved, what role does intelligent infrastructure actually play?

he ‘chicken or the egg’ prob-lem may have a funny name, but in reality it is anything but

funny. In the field of electric mobil-ity, for example, conflicting perspec-tives of supply and demand mean that this problem has truly settled in: Investing in a seamless charging infrastructure network is only worth-while when there are enough users. But there will only be enough users if and when a well-developed charging infrastructure is available.

In the development of automated and networked driving, mobile soci-ety may be spared a similar predica-ment. At least that is what certain developments suggest: All and any of the strategies of the automakers are strongly aimed at developing systems that will allow the vehicles to move along the road using their own sen-sors and intelligence. “Anything else would not really be constructive,” says Siemens Innovation Manager, Dr. Daniel Hobohm (see also inter-view page 28). “If autonomous driv-ing functions were primarily depen-dent on the infrastructure deployed, it would probably take decades before the new technology could be used right across the world.”

But even if self-driving cars will fundamentally be able to get from A

T to B, there remain a lot of new tasks to be solved to prepare the infrastruc-ture for the automated road traffic of the future. Because the right kind of external intelligence does not only further increase safety and energy efficiency in traffic and the comfort of the road users, but it also offers cities the opportunity to actively shape the mobility of tomorrow instead of merely responding to changing requirements.

“A bird’s eye view undoubt-edly brings significant benefits”So-called Cooperative Systems will be responsible for the optimization of comfort levels and energy effi-ciency in particular. If traffic signals can ‘tell’ vehicles how fast they need to drive to benefit from coordinated green phases, this will definitely make for better traffic flow and con-sequently for lower fuel consump-tion and reduced emissions. But Car2X Communication can some-times play also a role in the field of safety. Unlike the sensors in the cars themselves, external detectors can, as it were, look around the corner. This means that they will already have identified the obstacle around the next bend that presents an

accident hazard for the upcoming vehicle even before the latter has come into sighting distance.

“The infrastructure simply sees traffic from a higher vantage point. And undoubtedly, this bird’s eye view will still bring significant benefits when someday all private transport will be running in a completely auto-mated way,” predicts Dr. Hobohm. “Not least because there will always be road users such as pedestrians and cyclists who are traveling without computer control. And of course, the municipality is responsible for their safety, too.”

Naturally, apart from Car2X Com-munication, there are still a number of additional options with which cities can automate road traffic for a better and easier way to meet their official

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for example by their emission classes or any other criteria,” explains Dr. Daniel Hobohm. “Here we are talking about a digital policeman, who would be able on hot days, for instance, to automatically stop huge trucks from entering the inner city. The drivers of smaller vehicles would not even notice this ban.”

In addition to these issues, some of which are very tangible, we need to consider also the potential devel-opments on a higher level as we start out on the next Mobility Revolution by automating road traffic. The greater the progress made by car makers in developing the new technology, the more urgent it becomes for cities to reflect on the role they wish to play in shaping the future of transport. If they leave it all to chance, two

responsibilities. If self-driving cars are integrated into the central urban traffic management system, the authorities can influence the traffic flows even more effectively than with just traffic lights or static and dynamic speed limits.

“The digital policeman can directly address specific groups of vehicles”Instead of trusting motorists to adhere to the instructions from light signals, signs or displays, in the era of automated and networked driving you can transmit the appropriate commands to the individual cars directly and in real time. “For exam-ple, it will be absolutely no problem anymore to individually address spe-cific categories of vehicles defined

Intelligent urban infrastructure: Road traffic automation offers cities new options for a better and easier way to meet their official responsibilities

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things are likely to happen after the introduction of autonomous cars, both of which will have extremely dis-advantageous outcomes for the cities.

Firstly, the volume of motorized private traffic is likely to rise signifi-cantly compared to today. One reason for this is that the saving in staff costs would turn the provision of auto-mated taxis into a highly lucrative business model – and suddenly using a car will be an option for countless people who hitherto have not done so for various reasons. This in turn would result in a dramatic decline in the demand for public transport (PT) systems, presenting their operators with economic problems that would be very hard to solve.

Software can now resolve a lot of issues that used to require hardware solutions An effective solution to these prob-lems could be self-driving urban bus fleets, which need to be based on a fundamentally different design and service concept in order to make them as attractive as possible for passengers. Since a large proportion of staff costs would be saved, many small buses could be used instead of just a few large ones that are barely

this shift is the desire to make the infrastructure as affordable as possi-ble for the municipalities – in terms of the initial investment as well as regarding long-term operating costs. Another objective is to leverage more and more of the benefits offered by the ever-increasing amounts of data that can now be easily generated, through the ever closer integration of the different systems.”

Safety-critical systems such as traffic lights remain untouchableFor Dr. Hobohm, it is no question that safety-critical systems such as traffic lights must and will remain untouchable for a very long time – also and in particular because traffic will be mixed for an extended period of time and the need for pedestrian and cyclist signals remains. In many other areas, however, the pace of change is already very clear to see – for example in the maintenance and repair of traffic systems. In the new digital world, many tasks that previ-ously required the presence of a technician on site can now be carried out remotely via a central Siemens platform. And the Sitraffic smart-Guard virtual traffic control center

“ A bird’s eye view undoubtedly brings significant benefits”Dr. Daniel Hobohm, Innovation Manager for Siemens

Virtual coach: Car2X communication

promises to bring substantial benefits

in terms of efficiency and safety

occupied outside the rush hours. The operation of small buses would not only allow much greater fre-quency, but also much higher flexibility.

The technological know-how required to create the high-perfor-mance infrastructure needed for such innovative concepts is already available today – including efficient systems for prioritizing the fleet buses in city traffic. Today, innovative software can resolve many issues that used to require complex hardware solutions. An example that illustrates this is Sitraffic Stream, a prioritiza-tion system in which the vehicles are located by GPS and report their posi-tions no longer to the traffic lights they are approaching, but directly to the central traffic computer via GPRS. This eliminates the need for a retrofit of the traffic signals as well as for the installation of expensive roadside components and the associated cabling or antenna systems.

“The paradigm shift from hard-ware towards software in traffic engi-neering has already begun,” says Dr. Daniel Hobohm, who as Innovation Manager for Siemens Mobility always has his finger on the pulse of devel-opments. “Certainly, a key driver for

Focus


allows the responsible municipal authorities to manage, control and monitor their traffic-related equip-ment using mobile devices, even if they have no traffic computer of their own. In this scenario, the hard-ware is hosted at the Siemens service center in Munich, where it is con-stantly maintained and kept up to date with the latest technology.

Moreover, Siemens has already clearly defined the next steps on its agenda for developing transport infrastructure. In the area of detec-tors, more research efforts will go into finding solutions for the detec-tion of road users that hitherto have hardly been networked at all, such as cyclists and pedestrians. The next generation of traffic lights will score in particular with further optimized energy efficiency. And in traffic management, the Cloud will play an increasingly important role in the future. Here it is not only the increas-ing shift of functions into the virtual data cloud that is an issue, but also the option of using other information stored there for one’s own applica-tions. “Currently, access to the detec-tors that are connected to the urban traffic computer is limited,” explains Dr. Daniel Hobohm. “But if I have a centrally-hosted system, I can, for example, upload the weather data for the region and thus improve road safety significantly.”

In the end, this could lead to another technological revolution: In combination with ever more powerful systems, the ever larger volumes of data provided by detectors, various other data sources and vehicles will enable even smarter control of traffic. “It is impressive to see the progress of artificial intelligence in the area of neural machines. The victory of AlphaGo over Go world champion Lee Sedol, or the object recognition capa-bility of self-driving Google cars are two of many examples for this. Who knows, maybe we are going to develop traffic-optimization systems that keep learning about urban traffic situations and continue to improve their own algorithms.”

Pimp my robo-car!Autonomous driving is sure to come, as everybody agrees. In terms of efficiency and safety, we will defi-nitely benefit – but what about the fun of driving?

Self-driving cars are a good thing, especially when, in a more or less far future, our streets and roads will be used exclusively by electric robo-cars. When people will know accelerators and steering wheels from history books only, and traffic will be flowing smoothly everywhere in the world. This is what we call real progress!

Some movie fans, however, have to prepare for hard times. For action films strangely lacking those heaps of smashed-up cars marking the trail of the “Bluesbrothers” Jake and Elmwood en route to Chicago “on behalf of the Lord”. For thrillers with-out road races and wild chases in pimped-up cars à la Mad Max, James Bond and Co. In the future, get-away cars and police vehicles will autonomously slow down to walking pace when entering traffic-calmed areas, no matter how much this may exasperate the super-agent in the “passenger” seat. Definitely no way to impress one’s adversary!

In the end, a car is much more than a means of transport. A set of wheels is also a perfect medium for expressing one’s status or chosen lifestyle – also and in particular in the context of the current multimodality trend. This has been confirmed by a recent “zeitgeist” study commissioned by the automotive company Ford: For one out of five of the young respondents it is important what other people think about his or her car.

What can you do then? Amble through the nightlife district in your Google car on a Saturday night? Who are you going to impress with that?

There is only one solution: Pimp your robo-car till it looks like a muscle car! Well-stocked retailers of tuning accessories will soon cater to this new demand and offer not only extra-hard shock absorbers and extra-wide tires, but also supersized tail pipes for electric vehicles, self-fluttering foxtails on endless mock aerials, and rear spoilers equipped with photovoltaic cells.

The most important tuning accessory, however, will be downloadable: the deep rumbling of a big-block V8 and the sound of squealing tires – as a simple mp3 sound file.

It would just be too bad if nobody looked because they didn’t hear you drive up.

In the side-view mirror

by Eberhard Buhl


Development ■ Evolution or Revolution? When it comes to the technological implementation of self-driving cars, in principle both terms apply. Traditional car manufacturers keep on adding to their assistance systems until eventually there will be no need for a driver anymore. In contrast, the newcomers from the IT industry are taking one big step towards full automation, rather than many small steps.

Race of the worlds

he coming years will definitely be turbulent times for the multi-billion dollar automotive

industry. How turbulent they will be can be easily pictured by looking more closely at who is on the start-ing grid in the race for market shares on the threshold to the era of auto-mated driving.

Of course, the traditional German manufacturers want to defend their pole position, just as their Japanese competitors do. Their US colleagues sense the chance of making contact with the leading group again after the setbacks of the recent past.

alone will be investing €16 to 18 billion in research and development cover-ing automated and networked driving (see also page 6). Toyota has announced plans to invest one billion US dollars. And in the United States, Transport Minister Anthony Foxx is planning a subsidy package worth four billion dollars, mainly for pilot projects on public roads.

Meanwhile, hardly a week goes by without major media reports about what is today’s most important issue for the future of our mobile society. For example, after the premiere of their self-driving Future Truck 2025

T Meanwhile in Silicon Valley, several new competitors from the IT indus-try are also reported to be licking their lips. Google apparently does not want to build their own car, pre-ferring rather to enter into partner-ships with the automakers. Not too much is known yet about Apple’s plans, but the rumor mill is dili-gently turning out news about a MacCar designed to use a ground-breaking operating concept.

The effort that the various players are putting into this is quite remark-able. In the next three to four years, the German automotive industry


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on the A8 motorway in Germany, Mercedes proudly announced that their E-Class was the first production car in the world to receive a trial license for autonomous driving, in this case in the US state of Nevada. Audi reported on the high-speed performance deployment of their RS7 Piloted Driving Concept, which achieved better lap times than many sports drivers on one of the most demanding circuits in the world. General Motors is preparing to become a pioneer in self-driving taxis. And Volvo surprised the indus-try recently with the statement that they will be accepting full liability for any accidents caused by self-driving cars manufactured by the company.

But the perceived leader in terms of presence in high-coverage media is an Internet company: “The Google car is probably the vehicle that is best known to the general public,” says Siemens Innovation Manager Dr. Daniel Hobohm, “but then when you ask who is most trusted to carry out the technical implementation, at the end of the day you hear the names of established car manufacturers such as Daimler.” This assessment has been positively confirmed in a sur-vey by the Boston Consulting Group. According to this survey, 46 percent of consumers would like a self-driv-ing car from a traditional car maker, while only 16 percent would prefer such a vehicle to be provided by a large technology company.

That probably has to do, among other things, with the different approaches of the leading OEMs and the newcomers. The IT giants are approaching the subject in an essen-tially disruptive manner. That is to say, they do not rely on existing tech-nologies that are already used in driver-controlled cars, but rather start from scratch and immediately develop new systems specifically designed for automated vehicles. “We engineers always believe that everyone will be delighted when we introduce an ingenious solution that has never been seen before,” said Oliver Gräbner, who represents Siemens AG on various industry bodies covering the subject of auto-mated driving. “But sometimes we

may scare people that way.” This not only applies to potential customers, but also to government agencies, as demonstrated by a recent decision by the California Department of Transportation, which prohibited Google bringing a car to the market unless it has a steering wheel and pedals.

The leading car manufacturers, on the other hand, do not rely on revolution, but rather evolution. In a sense, they have been taking their clients on a technological step-by-step journey towards the self-driving car. “Most of them intro-duce one automated driving func-tion after another, and if they do this long enough, at some point there will no longer be a need for a driver,” said Oliver Gräbner. “This has the advantage that the customers can get used to ever more driver assistance functions, but there is also a prob-lem here: Systems such as Brake Assist are now designed so that they only engage in an emergency, and

that’s not necessarily what you need for automated driving.”

From today’s perspective, it can be difficult to predict which of these top-notch companies will have their noses in front. When looking for a basis for making the relevant assess-ments, media group Thomson Reu-ters came up with the more or less expedient idea of counting the num-ber of patents that have been filed for inventions relating to automated driving. At the top of the rankings is Toyota with 1,800 registered patents, well ahead of Japanese supplier Denso with about 800 registrations. Bosch (third place) and Daimler (eighth) are the only two German companies among the top ten. Google only achieved 19th place.

The “Automated Vehicle Index” compiled by the consulting firm Roland Berger and the automotive research company fka Forschungs-gesellschaft Kraftfahrwesen shows a very different picture. It provides a regional ranking of the most import-ant countries in terms of develop-ment and market introduction of partial and highly automated driving functions. For the first quarter of 2016, Germany remains at number one, followed by the USA and Sweden. In the development of prototype vehicles, Germany and the US are both at the top, sharing a similar level.

Of course, there are always discus-sions about when the use of fully automated vehicles will reach the general population. Industry associ-ation BITKOM surveyed managers and board members from companies active in the automotive sector. The result? We may get there by 2030. “You always have to keep in mind one thing,” warns Dr. Daniel Hobohm: “Exponential trends are extremely difficult to forecast.” An illustration of what he means can be seen in the example of e-car maker Tesla, who in the fall of 2015 presented the drivers of their Model S with a number of autopilot functions available via download. “A year ago, very few tra-ditional manufacturers would have thought that such a thing would be feasible so soon.”

From today’s perspective it is quite difficult to predict which of these top-notch companies will have their noses in front


Urban planning ■ Experts fully agree that self-driving cars will make more efficient use of the available traffic infrastructure. But who should be the one to profit from the space that is going to be freed up? Konrad Rothfuchs, urban planner in Hamburg, has kicked off the debate on this question, because he expects it to open up great opportunities for urban development.

Space for ideas


Inspire

S ome aphorisms are of such universal appeal that at some point of time their true origin

tends to be forgotten. “Prediction is difficult, especially about the future” certainly belongs in this category of sayings. Yet, whoever was the first to utter this sentence, the Nobel laure-ate Niels Bohr or the writer Mark Twain or maybe even the German comedian Karl Valentin, it is and remains true.

So we should keep this cautionary idea in mind when we look at predic-tions regarding the changes that tomorrow’s automated driving tech-nologies will bring to the traffic on our streets and roads. There are those who expect traffic volumes to rise because, among other things, automated driving will enable also those people to travel by car who cannot or do not want to take the wheel for a variety of reasons. On the other side, there are those who pre-dict a significant reduction in traffic pressure because the potential rise in demand will be more than coun-terbalanced by a substantial increase in efficiency of our traffic systems.

On the latter aspect at least there is widespread consensus among experts: Self-driving cars are making much better use of the available traf-fic space than driver-controlled ones. The German Minister of Transport Alexander Dobrindt, for example, puts the expected capacity increase of the existing infrastructure at 40 percent in urban areas and at an impressive 80 percent on motor-ways. His statement is on the same line as the findings of Professor Dr. Bernhard Friedrich of Braunschweig Technical University, who has inves-tigated the impact that the use of autonomous vehicles will have on road traffic.

Personal backgroundKonrad Rothfuchs is manager of the traffic and urban planning office ARGUS Verkehrs- und Stadtplanung in Hamburg and Vice President of the BSVI, the Confederation of German Highway and Traffic Engineers’ Associations. His company has been involved in a wide variety of trend-setting urban transport projects, for instance the bike path network for Hamburg’s HafenCity quarter, a transport demand model for Göttingen, or the master plan for the Tempelhofer Freiheit urban development area in Berlin.

In his book on the technical, legal and social aspects of autonomous driving, which has been published under the title “Autonomes Fahren – Technische, rechtliche und gesell- schaftliche Aspekte” by the scientific publishing house Springer, the researcher names reduced time gaps between vehicles and uniform speed of vehicle platoons as the most important effects. And he concludes that the “specific average speed in different traffic settings” is the key reason for the big difference between the potential efficiency gains in urban and interurban traffic.

Capacity on US highways to increase by 273 percent? Even more impressive by far are the results that Patcharinee Tientrakool from Columbia University in New York presents in her doctoral thesis, which analyzes the potential benefit that self-driving cars could generate for the capacity of the 75,376 high-way kilometers of the US interstate network. Her calculations: If the vehicles synchronize nothing but their speed, highway capacity will rise by 43 percent. But if they fully coordinate all travel parameters such as speed, distance, lane use, braking processes etc., the achiev-able increase in capacity will reach an unbelievable 273 percent.

Also the international consulting company McKinsey has contributed some interesting numbers to the debate. As their studies have shown, the availability of self-driving cars could change people’s mobility hab-its to such an extent that in the US alone, the demand for parking space would drop by a total of 5.7 billion square meters. In other words: One out of four existing parking spaces would not be needed for its original purpose anymore.

Mobility experts who are taking a wider perspective include in their projections that in the automated road traffic of the future, people will spend much less time driving around in search for a parking space. Today, up to 40 percent of inner city traffic is parking-related, and that on perfectly ordinary days. On Satur-days, especially before Christmas,

Photo composition of a picture taken in the downtown of Beijing: “It would make sense to ‘freeze’ the infrastructure capacity reserved for MPT on today’s level“


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this proportion may reach 90 percent.

For Konrad Rothfuchs, manager of the transport and urban planning office ARGUS Verkehrs- und Stadt-planung in Hamburg, it is not overly important at the time being if the expected gain in efficiency is com-puted at 40, 80 or 273 percent. And the question if fully automatic driv-ing will become the rule on our roads in 20, 30 or 50 years is only of minor interest to him. Much more important are the uses that we are going to find for this windfall of newly available space.

“We should start soon to think about what we want to do with the freed-up capacity““I believe that we should start as soon as possible to think about how

optimized traffic flow and reduced pollutant emissions: “Just take a look at the changes that our inner cities have undergone over the past decades. Many buildings seem to turn their backs on the main traffic arteries: no cafés or shops there, no life – and understandably so!”

Yet, as manager of a company that successfully addresses practical issues of traffic and urban planning, Konrad Rothfuchs is certainly not inclined to utopian thinking. The fundamental strategy that he pro-poses is correspondingly very realis-tic: “In my eyes it would make sense to ‘freeze’ the infrastructure capacity reserved for MPT on today’s level and then put any future efficiency gains to other uses. In what ways this should be done will have to be the subject of intensive discussion in our society.”

What Rothfuchs himself has in mind is a kind of phased plan: In a first step, the time saved by the reduction of the MPT green phases made possible by self-driving cars should be added to the green phases for pedestrians and cyclists. As soon as the efficiency gains have reached a certain level, we could think about reconverting certain parts of the traffic infrastructure: “At first such a reconversion may simply involve the space needed for planting a few trees. Not a very big gain in terms of physical space, but a huge step for-ward on the psychological level. At some point of time, when more and more space has been relieved of its traffic load over the years, we may even be able to do away with entire stretches of road – but here we are of course far beyond the horizons for which sound predictions are possible.”

Current trends point in the same direction as the urban planner’s ideasA particular source of frustration for the urban planner are those arterial roads that divide entire urban quar-ters lengthwise or crosswise, conse-quently preventing their harmoni-ous and coordinated development. A typical example, says Rothfuchs, is Hamburg’s Ludwig-Erhard-Straße, simply called “East-West street” by

Increased efficiency widens the planners’ creative scope: “At some point of time we may even be able to do away with entire stretches of road“

to use the freed-up capacity – prefer-ably today,” he says. “If we don’t do that there is a risk that all this extra capacity will simply be given over to motorized private transport (MPT) again, thoughtlessly wasting a big chance for innovative urban plan-ning. Because later, any attempts to take the additional capacity away from the car users again would be rather hard to enforce on the politi-cal level.”

A huge chance for urban planning – that is exactly what Rothfuchs sees in the self-driving vehicles that, sooner or later, will be traveling on our roads in increasing numbers. In his value system, this aspect ranks about as high as the three effects that are most often cited as the key benefits of automated and net-worked driving: enhanced safety,


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the inhabitants, which separates the HafenCity quarter from the city cen-ter. “While it is usually not very diffi-cult to cross such big arterial roads, they often constitute a formidable thought barrier.”

But he also points out that in the end, every city will have to define for itself how it wants to use the new space for ideas because such deci-sions cannot be dictated by a central agency. In his eyes, the essential is to start thinking about this question in good time and define a fundamental strategy that will allow the relatively quick development of a coherent concept as soon as the change in conditions calls for it.

Current trends in our mobile soci-ety point in the same direction as Rothfuchs’ ideas. As thorough stud-ies have shown, more and more young urban dwellers in particular do not need a car of their own to meet their mobility needs. According

to a McKinsey report, the number of car-sharing vehicles has grown by more than 30 percent over the past five years, while the number of car-sharing users has risen by 41 percent. Especially in metropolitan areas, the car is gradually losing its status symbol function: “Today I can drive to the office in my little Smart and nobody will think that ARGUS is about to go bust,” says Rothfuchs.

In parallel, he has identified trends that indicate the citizens’ wish to reconquer urban spaces for them-selves. “Even here in Hamburg, despite our famously bad weather, more and more cafés, restaurants and pubs have begun to place tables and chairs outside in the last 10 to 15 years. And people obviously love to sit outside. So I am convinced that they will know what to do with the space that will not be needed for traffic anymore since self-driving cars make more efficient use of our infrastructure.”

At the moment, Konrad Rothfuchs still feels more or less like a lonely voice in the wilderness. Admittedly, he regularly receives invitations to speak before audiences of various kinds, which shows that his passion-ate appeals don’t go completely unheard. But as soon as his ideas are reported in the media, he is attacked in the related discussion forums, and sometimes quite fiercely. “The kinder sort of comments tends to dismiss me as an enemy of automo-tive travel, which I am definitely not. In fact, I don’t want to take anything away from MPT, I just don’t want to give it even more space. In the end, you simply have to weather such shit storms if you insist on advancing ideas that do not conform to the mainstream opinion.”

Skyline of Shenzhen, China: In the end, every city will have to define for itself how it wants to use the new space for ideas


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Dr. Hobohm, in today’s urban traf-fic with its increasingly efficient detection and control systems, motorists can no longer choose their own course of action all the time, but rather are moving as part of an intelligent swarm. Are the boundaries between individ-ual and collective mobility going to shift even further in the dawn-ing era of automated driving?That mainly depends on how you define the boundaries. I don’t really think that the municipalities want complete remote control of auto-mated vehicles used for personal travel. I am convinced that the new technological possibilities to directly influence self-driving cars should primarily be used to improve road safety and increase the acceptance of public transport. And if that is the way that things actually develop, on the bottom line there will still plenty of scope for individual decisions to be made.

So in the future will the users still be permitted, for example, to freely choose their route even if their choice is not really the best one to promote the efficiency of the road network at that particu-lar moment? I assume that this will be the case. When there is a traffic jam, drivers will certainly receive recommenda-tions for alternative routes. Usually, they will accept these suggestions as this allows them to reach their

I cannot imagine that there would be any truly serious protests about this. What is really new is that you will simply no longer be able to violate certain limits and prohibitions. Whether the prohibitions themselves are useful is essentially an entirely different discussion. But so far nobody has questioned the principle of having road traffic regulations. And that is not likely to change much in the future. Anyone who has ever been to India, for example, was prob-ably very happy to return to the well-regulated traffic in their home country – with clear rules that are complied with in most cases.

In international comparison, is the development of infrastructure for automated and connected driving moving forward more aggressively in some countries than in others? It is a subject that is on the agenda in every major nation. From my obser-vation, no region has taken a signifi-cant lead yet in this field. If you really must differentiate, I would say that perhaps the established indus-trial nations have not made quite as much progress with their plans as anticipated because of the greater number of official bodies involved. However, as a rule, we are working on the further digitalization of all our systems because this will enable much more global use and help increase the transparency of traffic in general. This is where we continue

Interview ■ Dr. Daniel Hobohm, Innovation Manager at Siemens Mobility, on strategies for remotely controlling self-driving cars, the degree of maturity of our mobile society, and the lead his company has in terms of know-how thanks to experience gained from automated rail transport.

“ Enough space for personal choices”

destinations more quickly. But if a motorist really wants to stay on his original route, perhaps to go and visit his mother-in-law on the way, presumably nobody is going to stop him. Of course, things look different when there are temporary road clo-sures due to construction work or events. The corresponding routes will simply be unavailable to the navigation system in an automated vehicle. Yet, this is basically not very different to current practice, just that we would have digital rather than physical barriers.

But there will probably be not much personal freedom anymore in terms of choosing one’s own speed. The digital policeman will always be with you ... Yes, but I do not see that as being neg-ative, even if some people may feel patronized. This will make road traffic substantially safer for the general public and therefore provide a real benefit. Today, cities put up conven-tional speed limit signs – “hardware”, so to speak – and hope that the road users will adhere to them. Tomorrow they can use electronic means to make sure that cars on the relevant stretches of road are not in a position to drive faster than permitted.

As a mobile society, have we already come so far that, for the sake of the common good, we will accept such a degree of interfer-ence in our personal freedom?


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approach to the design of the infra-structure systems and include a wide range of different applications in the planning process. Whether these involve the prioritization of public transport, the creation of digital environmental zones or the intelli-gent management of street lighting – the more use cases can be imple-mented with a smart overall solution, the more favorable the cost-benefit ratio for the investment.

Back in 2008, your company intro-duced one of the world’s first computer-controlled subway sys-tems in Nuremberg. Now there are driverless metros in cities like Barcelona, Paris and Budapest as well. To what extent does the experience of your rail colleagues bring benefits to the digital net-working of road traffic?Of course, the requirements on the rail track are not the same as on the road. Nevertheless, we at Siemens

ITS always benefit from the knowl-edge gained by our rail colleagues, who actually have a certain headstart in automation compared to us – among other things with regard to the optimum interaction of the sys-tems installed in the vehicles with those belonging to the infrastruc-ture. The transfer of interdisciplin-ary know-how between the compa-ny’s different fields of activity is one of our unique strengths. Knowledge exchange works also in the inverse direction: Due to the huge number of players and the lower level of reg-ulation, the world of road mobility as a whole is clearly more innovative. These days, as traffic engineering has embarked on the paradigm shift from hardware towards software, our experience is of substantial value for rail transport technology, too.

Dr. Hobohm, thank you very much for the interview.

Personal background• 1998: High-school graduation from

the ‘Schloss Salem’ private school • 1999–2003: M.Sc. in biochemistry

from Cambridge University• 2003–2005: M.A. in International

Relations from John Hopkins University in Washington D.C. and in Bologna, Italy

• 2005–2009: PhD in Business Economics and Master in Business Research from LMU Munich and Harvard University

• 2009–2010: Trainee in the scope of the Finance Excellence Program of Siemens Financial Services

• 2010–2011: Head of Strategic M&A for Smart Grid Applications at Siemens in Erlangen

• 2011–2013: Head of Strategic M&A at Siemens Mobility in Munich

• Since 2013: Global Head of Product Lifecycle Management for Intelligent Traffic Systems at Siemens Mobility in Munich

to develop, together with the cus-tomers, the right digital solutions to meet the requirements.

What strategic advice regarding suitable system design and tech-nical equipment would you give to the authorities in order to set them on the right path? In practical terms, as always, such questions can only be answered for each specific case, following a precise analysis of the particular requirements and objectives of the individual city, country or region. Nevertheless, a general recommen-dation can still be made. It is proba-bly not worth developing the infra-structure exclusively for automated and connected driving. That will not even be necessary, because these days software can go a long way when it comes to deploying func-tions that would previously have required expensive hardware. So you can take an even more holistic


lobal megatrends such as urbanization, climate change and resource exploitation

have been among the key concerns of municipal and regional transport and traffic departments for a long time. Now, on top of all that, rapid technological progress in the area of automated driving has started to turn the road into the epicenter of the next Mobility Revolution. Logi-cal consequence: a multitude of new questions that require new answers.

Some of these answers will be pre-sented by the Siemens experts at the Intertraffic trade fair in Amsterdam on April 5 to 8, 2016, under the slo-gan of “Smart Systems. Smart Traf-fic.” In this context, “smart” is much more than a synonym for “intelli-gent”. Here the word stands for the ability to master ever more complex situations and make ever more com-plicated tasks feasible. Thankfully, the future is not only going to pro-duce growing challenges, but also additional opportunities. Smart soft-ware solutions, for example, make it possible already today to implement applications that would have been unthinkable only yesterday.

G The Siemens booth in Hall 11 of the RAI Exhibition and Convention Center will showcase the first instances of this. Highlights at the booth include:• Sitraffic Stream, the first prioriti-

zation system for urban buses and emergency vehicles that does not require any special roadside infra-structure

• Sitraffic smartGuard, the virtual traffic control center that allows municipalities to control and mon-itor their traffic infrastructure via the Cloud – even if they do not have a traffic computer of their own

• SiBike, the Smartphone app for pro-viding coordinated green phases and priority to cyclists – nominated for the Intertraffic Innovation Award

Other solutions on show are state-of-the-art enforcement und detection systems, the latest generation of components for Car2X Communica-tion – and a true global first: Sitraffic One, Siemens’ groundbreaking 1-to-2-Watt technology that takes intersection equipment, including signal heads and controllers, to hith-erto unheard-off levels of energy efficiency.

Sitraffic smartGuard: The virtual traffic control center allows municipal authorities to manage and monitor traffic flows via the Cloud – using mobile devices instead of expensive hardware

Intertraffic Amsterdam on April 5 to 8, 2016 ■ “Intelligent” was yesterday’s yardstick – today, “smart” is the new watchword when it comes to shaping the mobility of the future. The small but decisive differences will be demonstrated at the Siemens booth in Hall 1 of the RAI Exhibition and Convention Center.

Doing things the smart way


Highlights

Directory ImprintAmple additional information on the different topics presented in this issue is available on the Internet, for instance here:

p. 08: “It’s all about safety and efficiency”➢ ➢ www.vda.de/en/topics/innovation-and-technology/

automated-driving/automated-driving

p. 16: The long arm of research➢ ➢ www.dlr.de/ts/en/Portaldata/16/Resources/institut/DLR_

Institute_of_Transportation_Systems_Imageflyer2014.pdf

p. 20: The third dimension➢ ➢ www.siemens.com/innovation/en/home/

pictures-of-the-future/mobility-and-motors/ urban-mobility-telematic-systems.html

p. 26: Space for ideas➢ ➢ http://www.zdnet.com/article/

the-highway-of-the-future-is-273-more-efficient/

HighlightsHow to keep abreast of developments? Simply stay tuned to our constantly updated online customer magazine at

www.siemens.com/magazine/mobility/its

The online magazine will soon feature new and exciting reports on the following topics:

Automated drivingMore stories and reports on various aspects of the next Mobility Revo-lution: What does the roadmap for the introduction of self-driving cars look like? What legal hurdles still have to be overcome? And last but not least: What is it like to be traveling in a fully automated vehicle?

Mobility of the mindHow does the demand for increasing flexibility of our transport systems impact the development of innovative solutions? What technological trends will be most prominent at the Intertraffic Amsterdam in April 2016?

The shared carWhat new attitude towards mobility keeps driving the enormous growth rates of modern carsharing schemes? And what changes could the shared-car concept provoke in our current transport systems?

The Magazine for Intelligent Traffic Systems

Publisher: Siemens AG · Mobility Division · Mobility Management · Otto-Hahn-Ring 6 · D-81739 Munich · [email protected]

Editors: Stephan Allgöwer (responsible editor), Karin Kaindl, Roland Michali: Siemens AG, Communications and Governmental Affairs

Coordination: Roland Michali: Siemens AG, Communications and Governmental Affairs

Copywriting: Peter Rosenberger, Philip Wessa: www.bfw-tailormade.de

Photographs: Rinspeed pages 1, 12 · Daimler pages 6/7, 11 top · picture alliance/dpa pages 8, 11 bottom · DLR/Ernsting page 14 · DLR (CC-BY 3.0) page 16 · Lower Saxony Ministry of Economic Affairs, Labor and Transport page 17 · Testfeld Telematik/ Reinhard Mayr page 20 · Eberhard Buhl page 21 · iStock.com pages 22, 24, 27, 30 · Google page 23 · Konrad Rothfuchs page 25

All other photographs: Siemens AG

English translation: Dr. Barbara Gutermann Sprachendienste GmbH, Biberach

Concept & Layout: Agentur Feedback, Munich · www.agentur-feedback.de

Printing: G. Peschke Druckerei, Munich

Copyright: © 2016 by Siemens AG

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used without express prior permission. Subject to technical modifications.

Printed in Germany.

www.siemens.com/traffic

ISSN 2190-0302

Order No. MOMM-M10114-00-7600

Dispo No. 22300

313702 IF 03162.00

Trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of Siemens AG, its affiliates, or their respective owners. Subject to change without prior notice. The information in this docu-ment contains general descriptions of the technical options available, which may not apply in all cases. The required tech-nical options should therefore be specified in the contract.

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