Is The Answer Technology?

Will emergency vehicles, regular traffic, cyclists, and peds all be connected wireless someday?

In my series on the gravel scene posted last week, (and which can be accessed now on its own page link under the header here), I mentioned how that paved road riding by cyclists and distracted driving were things not likely to get sorted anytime soon. Well, the Consumer Electronics Show, (CES) is happening now and developments are being shared which point to a possible future where all road users might be connected wirelessly. In one story we can learn about how radio connectivity between emergency and mass transit is going to sync with traffic lights. This is something that is happening in many cities but this story is about Madison, Wisconsin's efforts to test a system which will allow traffic lights to sync with ambulance/fire/police vehicles and also allow busses to stay on schedule, as examples.

Another example is Trek who is working with a company called Tome and also with Ford Motor Company to start down the path of putting technology to work in vehicles and on bicycles so that cars, in the future probably autonomous/driverless cars, will be made "aware of" the presence of cyclists, and probably at some point, pedestrians.

You may have heard about how driverless cars are having issues "detecting" the movements of more random road users like cyclists and peds. Well, if each ped and cyclist has a "beacon" which signals these autonomous vehicles, the theory is that the vehicles could better recognize when and how to avoid these more mobile urban users. You can check out that story here. This sounds plausible, but wait! There is a possible downside here:

Maybe this is more "number of the beast" than "future urban utopia"? From a recent Twitter thread.

Obviously not everyone will be wanting to, or will buy into this, but one could imagine a scenario where insurance and licensing gets tied into a system like this making it virtually impossible to get around without becoming a part of the plan.

Also, this stuff, according to the stories I've seen, is at least a couple of decades off, but Trek states it is pressing for "in the field studies now". It's also worth noting that the Madison experiment is set to go off this year, with results garnered from the trial test soon as well. Given that Trek is based nearby in Waterloo, Wisconsin, it is reasonable to assume they will also be watching that study closely. Trek promises to publish the results of their findings when they are available.

So, what does it all mean? Likely that technologies to use AI and other user interfaces on autos and bicycles will be trialed and tested in urban areas in the very near future. How this will look in the future, I don't think anyone quite understands just yet. I would be interested to know how much of our liberties in freedom of movement would have to be ceded over to make this all functional. Hopefully that would be considered in any solutions chosen and implemented.

At any rate, it all bears watching, and at least in metropolitan areas, it looks as if some sort of wireless communication between all urban transportation users/vehicles is set to happen at some point.