Distracted driving — the stats are alarming

I was driving to work the other day when I heard something on the radio that almost made me drop my smartphone. The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) announced that, for the first time, deaths attributable to driver distraction outnumber those caused by impaired driving. So far this year, on roads patrolled by the OPP, distraction has led to 47 deaths, while impaired driving has led to 32.

This stat drives home the need for dramatically better head-unit integration of services that drivers would otherwise use their phones to access. This isn't anything new to QNX. We've been working with our partners to provide all the necessary elements to enable this integration through technologies such as HTML5, Qt, iPod out, MirrorLink, and Bluetooth. All these technologies can help create systems that minimize driver distraction but they represent only part of the solution. Pushing buttons on your head unit, combined with smart HMI design, does help, but it's not a panacea.

To truly help drivers keep their eyes on the road we have to minimize the time they spend looking at the infotainment display. Multi-modal HMIs built from the ground up with the assumption that high-quality speech recognition and text-to-speech are available will drastically change the way drivers interact with their infotainment systems. For instance, such HMIs could read your texts and emails aloud to you; they could even let you dictate responses at the appropriate time. But really, the possibilities are endless. And on the topic of talking to your car, we're constantly working with our partners to enrich the speech capabilities of the QNX CAR Platform. But more on that in an upcoming post.

By the way, I wasn't really using my smartphone while I was driving. That's illegal here. Not to mention incredibly dumb.

Controlled openness

Paul Leroux

The title of this post sounds like a contradiction in terms. But you know what? It captures the predicament faced by every automaker today.

On the one hand, automakers need to convince mobile developers that it's worthwhile to create apps for the car. They also need to make the process of creating and monetizing car apps as easy and open as possible. Otherwise, why would a developer spend time developing a car app when a phone app could reach many more customers? (About 60 million cars shipped in 2012, compared to more than 545 million smartphones — and most of those cars can't host apps.)

On the other hand, apps can't run willy-nilly in the car. For safety's sake, automakers must impose control on when specific apps can be used, and the apps themselves must be designed or modified to minimize distraction, possibly in accordance with government-mandated rules and guidelines. That may sound like an imposition on developers, but not really. After all, developers want to create apps that will prove popular with consumers, and consumers will be far more interested in apps that can be used while the car is moving — apps that, for safety reasons, can be used only when the car is stopped will hold less appeal.

But enough from me. Recently, my colleague Andy Gryc caught up with Thilo Koslowski, VP Distinguished Analyst at Gartner, and they discussed the notion of controlled openness for the car — along with how HTML5 fits into the picture. The cameras were rolling, so grab some popcorn, dim the lights, and check it out:

C3 recap: The future of the connected car

UPDATE: CE Week has uploaded audio and video of the C3 panels that Derek covers in this post. To hear what experts from companies like AT&T, BMW, Delphi, GM, and QNX see on the horizon for the connected car, visit the Connected Car Conference website — Ed.

Derek Kuhn

“Automotive has always been a wellspring of technology and innovation.” Those ten words, spoken by Doug Newcomb, car technology consultant and conference chair — and occasional QNX blog contributor — brought the Connected Car Conference (C3) to a successful close. The conference, co-located with CEA’s CE Week in New York City, featured panels on issues and trends for the connected car: big data, the future of radio, driver distraction, and more.

I was honored to sit on a panel that included executives from General Motors, AT&T Emerging Devices, and Audiovox, and that tackled the question on the minds of everyone in the industry: how can cars keep pace with consumer electronics? Traditionally, the speed of car development has trailed consumer devices, but with consumers looking at their cars as another connected gadget, the industry is working to bring technology into the car faster, while still providing a safe, reliable experience. As GM’s Tim Nixon put it, “we want to make the car better from the day you drive it off the lot.”

Striking a balance
Tim’s comment touches on something we frequently discuss — the significance of over-the-air (OTA) updates in ensuring that a car always has the latest technology. In fact, my colleague, Tina Jeffrey, just wrote a blog post on the topic; it's worth a read. Another point that came up is the need to balance security with consumers’ desire for cutting-edge technology. As I pointed out, not all infotainment systems are created equal — security shouldn’t be an afterthought in the pursuit of the latest and greatest tech. Rather, it should be deeply engrained in each step of the software development process. At the same time, consumer choice also has to be balanced with what OEMs are comfortable with.

Driving big data

John Quain of the NYT hosts the big data panel.
Photo: Doug Newcomb

John Quain of the New York Times hosted a panel on big data, which was full of insights on how data is being used to connect drivers and their cars. In response to the question, “how can big data in automotive save lives?” Delphi’s Doug Welk commented that, while data on crashes was abundant and readily available, data on near misses — which is even more important to understanding how to prevent accidents — is scant. Telenav’s Niall Berkey pointed out something that my colleague Andrew Poliak often discusses: the importance of the car as a sensor. For instance, by using information on how a driver is behaving, a car could activate assisted-driving technologies to reduce the likelihood of an accident.

Dealing with distraction
During the “Dealing with Driver Distraction” panel, representatives from the Auto Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, Nuance, NVIDIA, and Pioneer spoke on how the industry is working to curb distraction. Gloria Bergquist of the Auto Alliance stated that the concern is nothing new; when car radios were first introduced in the middle of the last century, industry watchers claimed that drivers’ attention would be diverted by the novelty.

Gloria also drew from her organization’s recent report, which showed that most drivers overestimate how well they can handle distractions and think that it’s other drivers who can’t cope. Erik Clauson of Nuance discussed how voice recognition technologies — like the QNX intent framework — can play a large role in decreasing the cognitive load of drivers. Dave Anderson of NVIDIA defended skeumorphism — a design aesthetic that has received much criticism as of late — as a way to increase the intuitiveness of user interfaces and therefore decrease distraction. For example, digital instrument clusters that look like conventional (and familiar) analog instruments can enhance the driving experience.

Continuing the conversation
The day ended with a networking reception — a unique opportunity to pick the brains of the some of the industry’s thought leaders and observers. While I got to spend only a short time in New York for the event, I am look forward to next year when we can continue this conversation on the industry’s challenges and innovations.

UN agencies take major step towards international standards for driver distraction

June 27 marked a historic event in Geneva, Switzerland — an event that could ultimately lead to internationally harmonized vehicle regulations and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) standards to address driver distraction.

The event was a workshop titled "Intelligent transport systems in emerging markets — drivers for safe and sustainable growth". The title may sound innocuous, but don’t let that fool you. It only touches the surface of what was really going on.

So what, exactly, made this event so important? It was the first joint meeting of the United Nations (UN) agencies that deal with automotive regulations and ICT standards/radio spectrum allocation: the UNECE World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations (UNECE WP.29) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), respectively. During the opening of the workshop, Eva Molnar (director, UNECE Transport Division) and Malcolm Johnson (director, ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau) spoke about the historic significance of this event and how they hoped it would be the beginning of a close collaboration.

This is big news. The possibility of vehicle regulations by the UNECE WP.29 may force automakers to work with the ITU, which has been working to develop comprehensive, internationally agreed standards to address driver distraction caused by mobile devices and other ICTs. Previous attempts such as the ITU-T Focus Group on Driver Distraction (FG Distraction) have had only limited success at engaging the automotive industry. See the FG Distraction reports for more information on the current state of such comprehensive standards.

Not if, but when
Regulation of ICTs could also occur. Strictly speaking, ITU-T Recommendations are non-binding, but they can become mandatory if referenced in a regulation by a national authority such as the FCC in the US. Increasing pressure to regulate use of ICTs in vehicles and the likely harmonization of ITU-T Recommendations with UNECE WP.29 vehicle regulations make regulations based on ITU-T Recommendations a real possibility.

Regulation of automotive and ICT equipment used by drivers isn’t a question of "if", but of "when". That said, many paths could lead to such regulation, some better than others. For example, authorities could jump the gun and issue regulations before good solutions are in place — and actually make the situation worse. With that in mind, let's hope that the step taken on June 27 is the first of many down a path that leads us to internationally harmonized standards and regulations that truly address unsafe driver interaction with ICTs.

Reducing driver distraction with ICTs

Inappropriate use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), especially mobile phones, is a chief culprit behind driver distraction and road accidents, and with automobile manufacturers scrambling to develop a “connected” driving experience, the ICT and automotive industries are becoming ever more closely entwined.

However, this integration of cars and ICTs need not come at the expense of driver safety, and there are strong grounds on which to argue that ICTs have great potential to enhance rather than diminish vehicle safety systems.

Under the banner of intelligent transport systems (ITS) the automotive and ICT communities are working towards a convergence of automobiles and ICTs that prioritizes drivers’ safety and broad consensus has it that international standards are the tools through which this will be achieved.

Over the past two years, as chairman of the ITU-T Focus Group on Driver Distraction, I have had the pleasure of leading a group tasked with laying the foundations for driver-distraction standardization work in ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T).

Established in February 2011, the Focus Group reached the end of its study period in March 2013 and has been instrumental in raising awareness around ITU-T activity on driver distraction and the scale of this workload, as well as in providing clear direction to ITU-T’s driver-distraction work plan. The group has also been successful in opening lines of communication with key organizations and drawing new expertise into the ITU-T standardization process.

The Focus Group’s final deliverables take the form of five technical reports that describe:

• use cases and user interface requirements for automotive applications 
• system capabilities for improving the safety of driver interaction with applications and services (situational awareness management) 
• approaches that enable external applications to communicate with a vehicle

The reports are freely available here.

The conclusions put forward by the reports are being taken up by the two groups leading ITU-T’s standardization work on driver distraction, Study Group 12 (Performance, QoS and QoE) and Study Group 16 (Multimedia). New related work items calling for external coordination and collaboration may also be addressed by the Collaboration on ITS Communication Standards, a forum working to create an internationally harmonized set of ITS communication standards to enable the deployment of fully interoperable ITS products and services in the global marketplace.

Safe interaction with applications and services
The Focus Group’s work is just the beginning of an international standards effort to help drivers interact safely with applications and services — and not just apps on phones, but apps running in the cloud, in roadside infrastructure systems, and in the car itself, to name just a few locations.

The Focus Group’s Use Cases report details the use cases and user scenarios being targeted by this standards effort, but for now let’s look at Use Case 2, Scenario A (arbitration of external message), which illustrates how ITU-T is working towards a comprehensive framework for managing distraction and workload.

Keeping priorities straight
In this user scenario, a navigation maneuver is given priority over a social media ‘status update’ message. The blue call-out boxes indicate where the ITU-T Recommendations under development can enable safe interaction between the driver and applications. For instance, ITU-T Recommendation G.SAM will define mechanisms for prioritizing navigation, G.V2A will define the communications interface between the app and the driver-vehicle interface (DVI), and P.UIA will recommend characteristics of the auditory social media message.

Remember that the focus here is not on how to implement social media in the car, but rather on how best to manage workload and distraction.



Giving a navigation maneuver priority over a social media status update message

In for the long haul
Speaking from our perspective at QNX Software Systems, a subsidiary of BlackBerry, the work of the Focus Group marks the beginning of a long road ahead. Within ITU-T, QNX will continue to:

1. Work with the relevant parties to identify solutions to the problem of technology-related driver distraction and workload. These parties include automotive, telecommunications, and consumer electronics organizations; standards development groups; academia; and government agencies.
2. Determine which aspects of the solution should be standardized, and help drive this standardization.
3. Align QNX product roadmaps as solutions develop.

Certainly this is a long-term strategy that will take years to realize, factoring in the rigour of ITU-T’s standards process as well as the significant amount of time needed to deploy technologies in vehicles on a meaningful scale.

Join the discussion
A workshop hosted by ITU and UNECE at ITU headquarters in Geneva, 27 June 2013, will address “Intelligent transport systems in emerging markets – drivers for safe and sustainable growth” with a view to analyzing recent advances in ITS with emphasis on improving road safety in developing countries.

This workshop includes a session dedicated to driver distraction in which I will present the outcomes outlined by the Focus Group’s technical reports to spur discussion on the likely course of corresponding ITU-T standardization work.

The workshop is free of charge and open to all interested parties, including non-members of ITU, and online ‘remote participation’ will be available to all those unable to travel to Geneva. Please join us for what will certainly be a richly informative and interactive event!

This post originally appeared on the ITU Blog.