Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Transport and Communications
Issue No. 20 - Evidence - June 14, 2017
OTTAWA, Wednesday, June 14, 2017
The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met this day at 6:45 p.m., in public and in camera, for a public and in camera session to continue its study on the regulatory and technical issues related to the deployment of connected and automated vehicles.
Senator Dennis Dawson (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Honourable Senators, the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications is continuing its study on the regulatory and technical issues related to the deployment of connected and automated vehicles.
[English]
I'm pleased to introduce our witness. Mr. David Michelson is Co-Chair of the Intelligent Transportation Systems Society of Canada and also a professor at the University of British Columbia.
[Translation]
Thank you for being with us this evening. I invite you to make your presentation. Then senators will ask questions.
[English]
David Michelson, Co-Chair of the Intelligent Transportation Systems Society of Canada and Professor, University of British Columbia, as an individual: You are no doubt aware and have probably heard of Arthur C. Clarke's famous observation that every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. The first is it's completely impossible. The second is it's possible but it's not worth doing. Of course the third stage is, "I said it was a good idea all along.''Few would disagree that connected and automated vehicle technologies are passing through stage two and are firmly on their way toward stage three.
It's notable that it's fairly rare for emerging technologies of this sort to be greeted with as much interest and enthusiasm by such a broad cross section of society at such an early stage in their development. Perhaps it's a reflection of our collective frustration with existing modes of transportation, our faith in advanced technologies, the vast potential of connected and automated vehicle technologies to have significant impacts on an urban scale, and the ease with which the advantages of the technologies can be appreciated on a human scale. It's not difficult to imagine that Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs might both approve, although obviously for different reasons.
From your previous deliberations you're certainly familiar with the goals of connected and automated vehicle technologies, but I'll repeat them here. Simply put, we want to first of all improve road safety; second, reduce traffic congestion and minimize environmental impact; and third, enhance commercial vehicle efficiency.
But when we consider the relevant technical and regulatory challenges associated with implementing these technologies, we have to be very clear that the role of these technologies is not simply to collect, exchange or display information concerning the driving environment. It is not just about the sensors and the communications links. Instead, we can never forget their fundamental purpose is to support decision making by the driver, whether a person or a machine. Decisions can erode safety — whether to brake, steer right or left and even whether the decisions should be initiated by a man or a machine — must generally be made in fractions of a second and based on real-time data.
Decisions concerning the selection of driving routes in order to minimize trip time, tolls, fuel consumption or traffic congestion can be made over much longer time scales and in some cases based upon scant or even historical data. Even the data exchanges that comprise commercial vehicle operations ultimately revolve around decisions: Were the right data exchanged? Is the process complete?
The needs of the decision-making process ultimately set the requirements and specifications for the sensors, actuators, interfaces and communication devices that link connected and automated vehicles to their surroundings and to each other and ultimately set the technical and regulatory requirements. Both sides are important, challenging and, to this point in time, works in progress. Neither the technical side nor the decision-making side can be properly developed or indeed regulated without awareness of the limitations of the other.
While the challenges of developing products and infrastructure are quite different and must be accounted for, full appreciation of this interdependence between the technology and the decision-making processes would appear to be prerequisite for success in this field.
Are there important Canadian issues that remain to be addressed by these technologies? One example is that connected and automated vehicle technologies were originally conceived as a method for improving safety and reducing congestion on highways and freeways. But as the concepts have evolved over the last decade or so, their application to a greater range of driving scenarios throughout urban areas have increased. Yet, resource roads remain beyond the reach of conventional connected vehicle technology. In British Columbia alone, over 620,000 kilometres of resource roads serve the natural resources sector, remote communities and recreational sites. British Columbia is notable in that the resource roads are actually greater in extent than the conventional urban and public roads.
FPInnovations, the Canadian forest industry's national research and development organization, is embarking on an ambitious program to develop what they refer to as an intelligent forestry transportation system architecture for Canada that will build upon existing connected vehicle technologies but will reflect the realities of serving a low density of industrial users in a challenging physical environment. It's notable that unlike other groups in the natural resources sector, they are choosing to base their development on existing connected vehicle technologies rather than develop their own, which I believe is exactly the right course to take.
In addition to introducing several new service packages that reflect the data exchange and transfer needs of specific user scenarios, such systems will likely incorporate specialized networking protocols that will account for the low density of users and relative sparsity of links, as well as use dual-band radios that are compatible with urban systems but can also address the harsher propogation environment encountered in resource environments.
Whether Canadians will contribute to and benefit from connected automated vehicle technologies in some way is not in doubt. We will. Many government, industry and university groups across the country are pursuing development of various aspects of these technologies, often in collaboration with international partners, particularly in the United States. Organizations such as ITS Canada play a key role in bringing these groups together on neutral ground, where information can be exchanged seamlessly and easily. However, the full benefits of efforts in this field will only accrue to Canada if a coordinated national strategy is developed that will ensure that the best practices are shared, solutions appropriate to the Canadian condition are developed and deployed, and progress is swift.
The Chair: Thank you.
Compared to the U.S., how would you say we are progressing in being à l'avant-garde, in being ahead of the innovation?
Mr. Michelson: I would say we're catching up. It certainly is notable that the DSRC spectrum that has been allocated for use in the United States for over 10 years is not yet allocated in Canada. Anyone who wants to experiment with connected vehicle technology has to get a developmental licence from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. They can't just install the equipment and use it directly, as they would in the U.S. This is actually a bit of an impediment to development and innovation.
The Chair: It's done on a one-on-one basis. They have to individually ask. Because, in the States now, people apply the technology. Here, we have to apply for it.
Mr. Michelson: Yes, we have to apply for a special developmental licence. It's a fairly intensive application to prepare, and it takes a long time to approve. My colleagues at the University of Alberta applied for a developmental licence, and it took several months for them to get permission and approval, which was a bit of a surprise. So this is one regulatory issue that is holding things up. Of course, I said it's moving very quickly now to move towards allocating, not just reserving, the spectrum. Once that happens, things will be a lot easier. We certainly hope it will be sooner rather than later.
Senator Bovey: We have been really intrigued with all we have heard over these past months. Thank you for your contribution today. I was intrigued that you talk about a national strategy and best practices, and that ties in, of course, to regulations.
I have two questions. The first is: Who leads that? We've talked to various parts of the sector, and it seems to me that there are great minds working in many dimensions in the field. How does it come together as a national strategy rather than the pieces of the puzzle?
Mr. Michelson: Those are very good questions.
Within the federal government, there are three organizations that are striving to contribute and assume leadership. We know that the National Research Council, for example, just last week held a special meeting that brought together people from various government and other agencies to outline their strategy for trying to push for a unified effort within Canada.
Of course, our friends at Transport Canada have also been pushing forward in this area for a long time, although they did have an intelligent transportation systems group until a few years ago. That was disbanded. The ITS activity was then dispersed within the organization.
We're very glad to hear that our friends at Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, in spectrum management, are also pushing forward now. They've issued a couple of bulletins during the last several months indicating that they are moving forward with the process of coming up with regulations for technical specifications for vehicle-to-vehicle onboard units, et cetera. So many groups are working but the strategy seems to be very informal at this point. We'd certainly welcome a more formal strategy.
Senator Bovey: One part of it, of course, is infrastructure, right?
Mr. Michelson: Absolutely.
Senator Bovey: Where should the funding for infrastructure come from?
Mr. Michelson: That's a very good question. It's certainly what is holding things up.
It's notable that in the United States, the Department of Transportation purposely left out infrastructure in their initial forays into the strategy by focusing on vehicle-to-vehicle communications, where relatively inexpensive units, onboard units, or after-market safety devices could be deployed within vehicles and achieve most of their goals.
So the infrastructure costs are huge in terms of both the expense of the equipment and the expense of installing them and even the cost of the radio licences. If you're installing lots and lots of equipment, the cost of radio licences can add up quickly.
Senator Bovey: On the work you did with the City of Toronto, which I believe your organization did, I wonder if you could elaborate on the initiative you took there.
Mr. Michelson: I wasn't personally involved in the work with Toronto, so I can't comment on that, unfortunately.
Senator Bovey: Okay. Thank you.
Senator MacDonald: Thank you, Mr. Michelson, for being here.
You're with the University of British Columbia. On the website, it says that you've been working alongside a Vancouver-based startup, Moovee Innovations. Moovee Innovations suggests that ITS can offer a solution to traffic gridlock, a problem it believes will be magnified by retiring Baby Boomers' driving impairments. I wonder if you could elaborate on that, exactly what sort of work you have been doing with them and how you see it being applied in the next decade.
Mr. Michelson: We're not doing as much work with them now. We were working with them about a year ago. So that information is slightly outdated, but Moovee continues to work on their concepts. Most of these automated- vehicle concepts are based on bringing together three technologies. Usually, one group will work on the drive train, the electric vehicle component. One group will work on the software that actually takes care of doing the routing and the assignment and the oversight, and then one group will work on the communications technology.
Moovee is pushing on the communication technology. Their founder has a great background in the Canadian telecommunications industry. It is basically providing transportation as a service on demand, and they believe that, by having the correct communications infrastructure and software in place, they can get vehicles to where they are needed quickly. That's really what Moovee's concept is all about, combining that with a lightweight, relatively inexpensive vehicle. It's dispatch services that Moovee is really pushing.
Senator MacDonald: Where do they get their capital? Where does the funding come from?
Mr. Michelson: The founder of Moovee Innovations spends a lot of his time looking for venture capital. He has been looking all over the world, not just within Canada. He has been looking in the United States and, in particular, in East Asia. That's mostly where he has been looking for his support.
Senator MacDonald: What is your assessment of their work and what they are doing? How do you assess their progress?
Mr. Michelson: I think it's inevitable that someone is going to succeed in this space. But there is a lot of competition, and locating funding and capital is a big challenge for all companies in this area because there are so many people going after the same funding.
Senator Beyak: I was struck by you talking about the 620,000 kilometres of access roads as opposed to regular highways in British Columbia. I live in a part of northwestern Ontario that is very remote as well. You mentioned that the only way it's going to work, urban and rural, is if there is a coordinated national strategy. I am wondering if you know of anyone who is putting together something like that at the federal level now, or if our committee could recommend some sort of an initiative. I think the urban-rural divide is going to be huge on this issue down the road.
Mr. Michelson: Absolutely. That was one of the reasons why, when FPInnovations approached me, I jumped at the opportunity because I see the same opportunity that you do. They have a very good relationship with Transport Canada, which is good.
We're hoping that once we get our proposal together — we're evaluating; we are also talking with ISED about some of the spectrum-management issues, allocation of spectrum at UHF. We're hoping this will work out. Everyone seems to be very receptive and has been very helpful, but encouragement from this committee would no doubt help, knowing that this is something that would be good for Canada.
Senator Eggleton: Thank you for your presentation. I was amused by the reference to Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs. I'm familiar with that reference and the battles pursued there.
Tonight we're introducing the phrase "intelligent transportation systems,'' IDS, which aside from being the name of your organization is also a system or systems. We have been using automated vehicles, EVs, or connected vehicles, CVs, and various derivatives of that in terms of vehicle-to-infrastructure and vehicle-to-vehicle. What is the difference between "intelligent transportation systems'' and those other terms?
Mr. Michelson: The concept came up about 20 years ago. It was originally called "intelligent vehicle and highway information systems.'' This is a U.S. Department of Transportation concept. Originally it was applied mostly to freeways and highways where it was felt there was a need to automate some of the processes required to reduce traffic congestion, et cetera, on freeways. We still see in some American cities traffic lights that limit access to on-ramps, et cetera, so they wanted to go to the next step forward and actually have wireless devices on vehicles as well.
So this evolved into a concept called "intelligent transportation systems,'' which they thought was broader. It was applied to more than just highways. It applied to all public roads, including urban areas. ITS basically refers to the entire urban system, which includes the infrastructure as well as the vehicles.
Within ITS, you have traffic management systems, communication and infrastructure systems, and vehicles. Those are the three major components.
Senator Eggleton: You made reference to costly infrastructure in answer to the previous question from Senator Bovey. We have also had people here who have said that the industry itself should be able to absorb the infrastructure costs. Do you not see that as a possibility? Is it going to be municipal or local government that will have to absorb infrastructure costs to accommodate automated and connected vehicles?
Mr. Michelson: The infrastructure costs associated with commercial vehicle operations can almost certainly be absorbed by existing budgets and processes. Basically it will replace a lot of systems currently used but probably much more inexpensively and effectively. There is a good case for commercial vehicle operations and there isn't a big funding issue. It's mostly a matter of managing the transition from existing RFID systems to the more capable DSRC based systems.
When it comes to safety in terms of vehicle-to-vehicle communications, the cost of deploying the equipment per vehicle is $150, so it's not very expensive. That can be absorbed into the cost of the vehicle very easily. Even for after- market devices, which they refer to as "after-market safety devices,'' the cost is quite reasonable.
The main cost is if you're talking about putting all the DSRC equipment on things like traffic lights, pedestrian push buttons and the various ITS equipment associated with traffic signalling. That's where the real expense is going to be. That's why people have backed off a bit in terms of recommending all the stuff be deployed.
It's hard to see that the only group that is going to be able to absorb that will be municipal government or at least pay for that directly. They would probably need assistance from federal government and elsewhere.
Senator Eggleton: There is also a timing aspect to this. You give the reasons, which we have heard before, of improved road safety, reduced traffic congestion, minimized environmental impact and enhanced commercial vehicle efficiency. But that's not all going to happen suddenly. It's going to happen over two or three decades maybe. There is going to be a lot of co-existence between more automated vehicles and existing kinds of vehicles on the road, so at what stage does government have to look at infrastructure needs and make those kinds of changes? Making changes for just a few vehicles, which might be the case in the early stages that are requiring that kind of infrastructure, would be rather expensive and not seem to be very popular, if in fact there are very few vehicles in the early stages that would require it.
Mr. Michelson: In my personal opinion, I think that if we focused on commercial vehicle operations because there are not as many vehicles used for transfer of freight and goods — they are mostly involved in things like intermodal transport points, freight terminals and border crossings — that would be the logical place to deploy stuff first. There are already budgets in place to absorb the cost of infrastructure. There is a definite commercial advantage because it would speed up processes and the checking of freight manifests at these sites and would be a good place to get some early experience.
That's what I would tend to recommend, although it's interesting that the U.S. Department of Transportation is taking the opposite route. They are wanting to focus on V2V and road safety. That's a little bit harder in some ways because, as you say, so many vehicles have to be equipped. It's taking Robert Metcalfe's observation of the value of a network is a proportional number of nodes and networks squared. I think in this case it's probably a far higher exponent than that, so it would have to be universally mandated.
You could approach it from either side. I think the commercial vehicle operation side is one that needs to be looked at a lot more seriously. I have heard from people who actually operate this equipment that existing, active RFID systems are not as reliable or easy to maintain as people would like. I think there is enough dissatisfaction with existing systems that people might look for a more capable universal system, but it would have to be one that both the U.S. and Canada would have to agree to be used as the standard for intermodal transfers and border crossings and such.
Senator Eggleton: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Thank you for your presentation. I would like to make a remark, and you can tell me if I'm mistaken. Forecasters are telling us that automated vehicles will solve all sorts of problems, particularly those related to traffic. We know that Montreal has many traffic jams on the week-end.
Isn't this all a bit fanciful? In the 1970s, we said that in the year 2000 no one would have to work and we would live in a leisure society. We even thought that cars would fly. So when you say that automated vehicles will reduce road traffic, isn't this a bit of a stretch of the imagination, in your opinion?
[English]
Mr. Michelson: It's actually very interesting. When one looks at how technology evolves, it doesn't happen in a straight line. People often have an idea about something that could be possible and will try it out. They will run into problems and have to back off. Then sometime later, new technology will come along and simplify things.
A classic example would be the case of Telidon, which many people in this room may remember from the early 1980s. The Government of Canada put a lot of money into it. It was developed right here in Ottawa in the communications research centre. It was a commercial failure. It didn't work out. It was too expensive. People were not willing to pay for dedicated communications links and the terminals themselves were not quite adequate, but it was a good idea. The technologies didn't exist at that time to push through the idea. I know many of the people who worked in Telidon were disappointed 15 years later when all of a sudden the World Wide Web became popular. They said, "Why is everyone so excited about this? We were working on it 15 years ago.'' What had happened was that the Internet had been developed and this was a layer on top of the Internet, and that made it commercially viable.
I suspect the same thing here. The idea for Telidon was good, but it was just that the underlying supporting technologies had not quite been developed. I think many people are sensing now that the underlying technologies that were needed were not available in 1970s, 1980s or 1990s. But they may become available now and I think that's why people are hopeful. It may be, as you say, that we won't see this in the next 10 years. There may be a road block and people may say, "This is as far as we can go and we may have to wait for 10 or 20 years.'' But I think most people regard this as inevitable. Will it happen necessarily in the next 10 years? I don't know. Your objections and concerns are quite valid. But it will happen inevitably, and it could happen sooner than we think.
Another classic example is what happened in the 1980s with cellphones and personal computers.
I will use cellphones as an example. How did people like Craig McCaw become so wealthy in the United States? Because nobody wanted cellphone licences. AT&T in 1984 or 1985 received advice from one of the largest consulting firms of the United States, McKinsey, who told them that AT&T had the opportunity to become the second carrier for cellphone service in the entire United States. They gave up that possibility because they were advised that there was only a limited number of people who would want to use cellphones, which were expensive at that time.
They said, "This is size of the market,'' and AT&T said, "There's no point in our investing in this; we can't deal with a market this small.'' Twelve years later, AT&T spent $12 billion buying out McCaw Cellular in order to get into the cellphone business.
Our limited imagination can sometimes mean we just don't see the possibilities until it's too late. That was half the reason we had the tech revolution in the 1990s. Nobody wanted to get left behind again after watching the personal computer revolution. But why didn't Hewlett-Packard want to invest in what Steve Wozniak was doing? They looked at these microcomputers he was working on and said, "These things are toys. They will not satisfy our customers.''
They were right. They were toys. They were not capable of satisfying the requirements of their enduring customers. But they didn't realize these were disruptive technologies. They were going to improve so fast that they would overtake existing technologies.
That's really the question that has to be asked here: How fast can these technologies improve? That's what will make them disruptive. There are a lot of indications that now we've reached a critical point where sensor, software, and communications technology has reached a point where things that were not viable before may be viable now. It's certainly worth looking at.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: My next question has to do with the social aspect of the situation. Over the past 20 years, we have witnessed the widespread integration of technology in production processes. As a result, many workers have found themselves joining the ranks of the structurally unemployed. For lack of education and training, they have been unable to adapt to the technological industrial development which evolved at such a phenomenal rate.
Automated vehicles will overtake manually driven ones, that is undeniable; might that not mean that people who do not have the capacity to understand the vehicle's operating system and technological programming will be left behind? Until fairly recently, you put you key in the ignition and started driving. Nowadays, the owner's manual is very thick and one must spend several evenings studying it to understand how the car works. Will this phenomenon not leave out a certain category of citizens, whether because of their age or their education? Is that a risk?
[English]
Mr. Michelson: It's interesting, because there are many stages or levels of vehicle automation. The level you're describing is the absolute top level, where everything is totally automated. But there are many other levels in between. Probably the biggest thing that vehicle automation will do is make vehicles safer. So even though the driver will still have an awful lot of control over the vehicle, they won't be responsible for the instantaneous decisions required to ensure that the driving is safe.
During the next 15 to 20 years, my prediction is that the biggest impact automated vehicles will have is on road safety. It means that the many people who are killed in road accidents each year will not be killed, because the software on board the vehicle will be able to avoid accident situations in a way that a human driver cannot because of their ability to react in split seconds and make good decisions. I would say that the lowest levels of vehicle automation are the ones that initially will be the most important, and they will have a direct impact on people's lives.
There are certain applications where total automation is required, perhaps where people are in unfamiliar places. It could be in situations like airports or in industrial settings where we'll probably see more of the higher levels of automation. I think the higher levels of automation will intrude very slowly into this space. But the safety aspects are the ones that I think are most important and the ones I'm looking forward to the most.
Senator Galvez: Mr. Michelson, I'm so sorry I couldn't make it for the beginning of your testimony, but I'm very interested in this topic and I hope you can answer my question.
As I understand it, as we go towards the electrification of transport, it seems electric cars are much simpler and have a smaller number of parts. I heard that a mechanical car has 2,000 parts compared with an electric car that will have only 200 parts. The mechanics are much simpler in electric cars. I just want you to confirm if this is true or not.
You are talking about intelligent transportation systems. We've been hearing that electrification and automation of cars will solve, as my colleague said, the congestion and the environmental pollution. I believe that to get to that point, the key thing is the communication: vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure. If that works, by trial and error, as you just mentioned, we will get to this intelligent, smart and efficient transport.
My second question is this: To have this efficient communication, will it be controlled centrally, like for airports and planes? There is one central station that controls everything. Or do you imagine that several stations will control the traffic and the circulation of the multiple users of the road? As you said, there will be a transition, but there are also cyclists and pedestrians. There is common transport and tracks. How do you see the future? How are we going to get to this efficient point?
Mr. Michelson: That's a very good question.
Ultimately, I think it's going to be a distributed system. It will start, for example, with something like where there's an accident on a street that's blocking traffic, a sensor will detect that there has been an accident and the traffic is blocked, and it can send a message to all vehicles. It wouldn't be that much more complicated than the Garmin and Tom Tom devices that many people currently use.
Many of these channels already exist through various wireless systems that are often transmitted as FM sub-carriers. They can say that there's an accident here, and the device can make a decision to take a detour. If they transmit back what they're doing, then the central system can send messages out saying other vehicles are going over here and let people know where the congestion is. I think a distributed system is likely what will happen.
To me, as an engineer, the frustrating part is we're almost there in so many ways. We're so near the tipping point, but we're not quite there yet. I think when it all of a sudden happens, when it reaches a certain critical mass, I think it will be exciting. But we're closer than you might think.
Senator Galvez: Who will be in control of this? Tom Tom?
Mr. Michelson: That's one of the questions right now. Most of the traffic congestion information is provided by cell carriers like TELUS and Rogers. That is provided to places like Google, Nokia and various other companies that then supply this data through to Tom Tom. There are many players involved, but a lot of this stuff happens as commercial transactions. It isn't as visible and open as some of the more open protocols.
Some of this already exists, but it's all done as proprietary solutions that are supplied to individual companies. If these were things were more open, many of us think that would be nice. Of course, the companies themselves like the current situation.
[Translation]
Senator Saint-Germain: Good evening.
I am interested in the public infrastructure that will be required for us to fully benefit from autonomous vehicles. I am talking about completely automated vehicles, which should arrive on the market around 2030. Do you believe that in Canada, all the necessary infrastructure — whether telecommunications or roadway infrastructure — will be ready in time so that the full capacity of autonomous vehicles is not delayed? That is the first part of my question.
Secondly, with respect to funding this public infrastructure, have you already thought of the financial arrangements that will be necessary to develop and fund this necessary public infrastructure?
[English]
Mr. Michelson: I think we'll probably find that the infrastructure and funding will happen in layers and stages. I don't think automated vehicles initially will be used everywhere. We may, for example, have dedicated lanes on freeways that are used by automated vehicles, at which point you can then operate in fully automated mode; and then, when you go off the freeway, you will have to go back to a role in which the driver has more control.
This will happen in stages and layers, because we're not going to turn our infrastructure inside out, every square kilometre of our city completely set up for automated vehicles. It will happen in stages. We have to be very selective about which areas we're going to make automated- ready, and then which layers we will gradually add on.
History has shown us that most technology advances in stages and layers. It's very difficult to make an abrupt transition. I think we'll see that, instead of having HOV lanes on freeways, we'll have automated vehicle lanes. Then we'll gradually see more and more stretches where, if congestion is a particular issue, this is where automated vehicles will be allowed to go to full level 5, for example. It will happen in stages, step by step.
[Translation]
Senator Saint-Germain: When it comes to funding public infrastructure, do you think there are possibilities for partnerships, among others, with users who would be user-payers, with industry and with public transit? Should government alone be responsible for infrastructure-related costs, for upgrading and developing infrastructure, especially telecommunications infrastructure? You can give us your personal opinion, if you have not studied that specific aspect.
[English]
Mr. Michelson: It's something that often comes up, the cost of the infrastructure and how this will be paid for. Of course, some people advocate public-private partnerships, which then imply there will be tolls charged, so there will be a return on investment. This can be very challenging in some ways. People do not like paying tolls, so this will be a real impediment to adoption.
In British Columbia we just had a provincial election where one of the key platforms was considering bridge tolls, and the results of the election proved what the electorate thought. The current party in power has acknowledged that this was probably not the best platform to run on.
Yes, it's tempting to talk about using tolls and partnerships of this sort. Ultimately, I think our challenge as engineers, and what I always tell people, is to make these systems scalable and relatively inexpensive. We have to acknowledge the fact that we're going to have to deploy a lot of devices. If cost were no object, our job would be over tomorrow, but cost is an object. Therefore, the challenge is up to us in the technical community to make the infrastructure inexpensive so that it doesn't become an overwhelming problem. That's our challenge and one that I hope our community is willing to accept.
If we go in layers and stages, I don't think replacing HOV lanes with automated vehicle lanes on freeways will incur a lot of cost. The way to do it is to always take the path of least cost, or at least try to reduce our costs. Then I think we'll probably find that it will happen seamlessly. That's my personal opinion.
Senator Saint-Germain: I hope that if we have tolls, we'll have access to electronic payment.
Mr. Michelson: Absolutely.
Senator Saint-Germain: It would be great.
Mr. Michelson: It's noteworthy that all this current connected vehicle technology has actually evolved from the original electronic toll collection concept, the 5.9 gigahertz band that is used for DSRC, which was originally allocated for electronic toll collection. In Europe and Asia, it was used exclusively for that. It was only in North America that it became a full connected vehicle band. ETC is still the basis for all of these technologies that are used.
Senator Bovey: When you talked about tolls being electronic, of course the congestion charge zones in London are all electronic, just by scanning licence plates.
We talked a bit about urban and rural. Of course, Canada has other challenges, too, and they are called the climate and the environment. I wonder what you see as some of the challenges in making all this technology available for minus 40 to plus whatever, and ice and snow. What do you see in terms of your challenges ahead as you plan for environmental conditions? You talked about it rolling out in layers and stages. Will those layers and stages be geographical?
Mr. Michelson: Yes. Probably our largest centres that have urban traffic congestion problems are the ones that will be used first. I think we'll find a lot of this is going to be used in industrial settings far before they're used in civil settings. We're already seeing in the mining industry, for example, that a lot of proprietary automated vehicle solutions are being used, simply because they can afford it and because the safety issues are serious enough that it makes sense to use it.
Senator Bovey: Is it working in northern British Columbia?
Mr. Michelson: And in northern Alberta, a place like Syncrude, where they've been experimenting with automated vehicle technology for use in the open-pit mines there. It seems to be working pretty well. They seem to be happy with it.
These are being used in limited areas, under controlled conditions. People think it's wonderful that Google went out and started to put all this automated vehicle technology on open roadways and such, but I think the reality is that the widespread deployment will happen in industrial settings first, and then they will gradually find their way into civil settings.
Senator Eggleton: Picking up on that and on your opening comments, I didn't realize there were 620,000 kilometres of resource roads in British Columbia. Is that not an opportunity to be able to demonstrate these vehicles? Building public confidence is important as well. Before many people will get into a vehicle, either a level 4 or certainly a level 5, there has to be some confidence that this can manoeuvre within urban traffic and all the challenges that are faced there. Isn't this resource road possibility a good opportunity to demonstrate the technology, particularly under rough terrain and rough weather conditions?
Mr. Michelson: I totally agree with that. It's a tremendous opportunity.
Regarding resource roads, they rely exclusively on VHF voice radios. In B.C., for example, the ministry of forests has worked with the spectrum management people from ISED to come up with a fairly complicated scheme of radio channels and various procedures. But they would really like to look into doing something that places less of a requirement on the operator, so there is the idea of using automated vehicle technologies and advanced connected vehicle technologies to reduce some of these risks.
Unfortunately, these resource roads in some cases are one and a half lanes wide. They have to know where everybody is going, and making good decisions is important. I've talked to people who have had close calls, and they say, "We really wish we had a more automated system to make sure we don't run into that situation.''
I totally agree; it's a tremendous opportunity for Canada, from coast to coast. B.C. has more resource roads than we do regular urban roads. But even in Quebec and Ontario, there are a lot of resource roads. Yes, it's a tremendous opportunity.
Senator Eggleton: Following up on that, is the forestry industry they getting involved in trying to develop those possibilities?
Mr. Michelson: FPInnovations is the forestry industry's national research and development arm, and they are in the early stages of pushing this through. Of course, if there was interest and support from the government, this would make their job much easier. They're certainly interested in pursuing this.
The Chair: Colleagues, before we go in camera, I'd like to thank Mr. Michelson for his presentation.
I'd also like to pay homage to our colleague Senator Runciman, who is participating in his last Transport and Communications meeting. As you know, we will not be meeting next week, and by the time we come back in September, Senator Runciman, after 35-odd years in politics, will have retired to do something else.
I've been working with Senator Runciman for nine years. We didn't always agree, obviously. That's not that obvious, but trust me, it happened a few times. I want to pay homage. Thirty-five years of dedication to the Canadian public and to the people of Ontario is something that deserves to be recognized. I'm sure it will be recognized elsewhere, but as chairman of this committee, I am taking the privilege of being probably the first one.
Hon. Senators: Hear, hear!
Senator Runciman: I want to briefly return the compliments. I sat in on this committee on a number of occasions when you were the chair and was impressed with the way you handled this committee and the chairmanship and the guidance you provide. I asked to be on this committee specifically because of how impressed I was with you, Mr. Chair.
The Chair: You're very kind.
(The committee continued in camera.)