Author: AUTOCRYPT

15 January, 2021 . 5 mins read

3 Ways of Testing Automotive Cybersecurity Management Systems

The future looks bright for connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) – in fact, analysts at McKinsey say that by 2030, 45% of new vehicles will be at SAE level 3 or higher, with market share value at 450 to 750 Billion USD. But as the market grows, so does the risk for cybercrime for new automotive technologies. This is precisely the reason that governments and manufacturers are on edge, implementing regulations like the 2020 WP.29 regulations mandating cybersecurity management systems be in place. In the next couple of years, manufacturers will have to ensure that their vehicle models meet the requirements to obtain type approval for cybersecurity measures. However, what many tend to forget is that implementation of cybersecurity management systems (CSMS) is not the end of the road. Testing is a major part of ensuring that the CSMS is fulfilling its duties. After all, there is really no point in implementing a system if you cannot be sure that it is working properly.

Here are the tests that will help make sure that the CSMS is really safeguarding your vehicle, defending your car and its systems from potential attacks.

1) Vulnerability Scanning

In any cybersecurity management system, assessing and mitigating any vulnerabilities is a key responsibility to ensuring that the product is functioning at the maximum secure level. Vulnerability scanning is not a one-stop check, but should be executed at each level of the product development process to allow for maximum mitigation and comprehensive analysis of additional threats.

Now, there are two specific testing analyses that should be taken note when vulnerability scanning, and both are just as important.

Software Static Testing

Software static testing is testing the source or object code without executing it to find and eliminate errors or ambiguities. It is usually done in the early stages of development. This step is crucial as it can uncover major issues like leaks, buffer overflows, and deviations from standards. Because testing is done at an early stage, it can ward against increased development timescales, and allow for fewer issues to be found at later stages of development, which can often be much more costly and time-consuming to fix.

Software Dynamic Testing

Static testing’s counterpart, dynamic testing tests with execution of code in order to find weak areas in runtime environments and in the behavior of dynamic variables. The main goal of dynamic testing is to make sure that the system is functioning properly without any flaws. Since the codes are actually executed, dynamic testing can take a bit longer than static testing and can increase the costs of the final product as the flaws that are found will take more resources to mitigate. However, dynamic testing will find the issues that were missed by static testing, usually finding more complex defects.

2) Fuzz Testing, or “Fuzzing”

The next step is “fuzzing” or fuzz testing. Fuzz testing is basically providing “fuzz” or invalid or random data into the application or software in order to monitor for crashes, potential memory leaks, or failed code. Generating this invalid or random data is usually done via an automatic program that generates the fuzz.
Fuzzing can be useful because it adds an element that cannot be generated by a human. However, there are limitations as it usually detects simple or basic threats, meaning it needs to be combined with other testing techniques to fully secure your security management system.

3) Penetration Testing

While fuzzing uses random or invalid data to test the system, penetration testing (also known as “pentesting”) utilizes known cyberattacks or vulnerabilities to initiate simulated attacks, identifying potential vulnerabilities and selecting countermeasures to mitigate those vulnerabilities. Think of pentesting as getting someone to act like a car thief to try to break into your car and gain access: through this “ploy” to take over, the manufacturer can learn a lot about how they can better secure their vehicle’s access systems.

Through pentesting and finding flaws within the cybersecurity infrastructure, manufacturers can upgrade their security systems to remediate any flaws in the system.

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Testing is a major part of CSMS; arguably, it is just as important as the CSMS itself. However, as seen through the many different techniques, there is no single test that will ensure that a cybersecurity management system is perfectly foolproof. By utilizing regular different testing techniques like fuzzing or pentesting, manufacturers can ensure comprehensive security. As technological developments are constantly being applied in a vehicle, the system will need to go through multiple rounds and various types of tests to ensure that the risk is as minimal as possible.

If working with a security solutions provider to implement your CSMS, ensure that they will be routinely testing and working with you as the client long-term. For more information about AUTOCRYPT’s testing services as part of our WP.29 solutions, click here or contact us here.

7 January, 2021 . 6 mins read

How Plug&Charge Might Make EV Charging a Lifesaver

Electric vehicle (EV) ownership has grown steadily over the past decade and has begun exponential growth in the past two years, with 2.1 million vehicles sold globally in 2019. By the end of 2019, there were an estimated 7.2 million EVs on the road.

In this blog, we refer to EV as vehicles that need charging, such as battery electric vehicles (BEV) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV). Regular hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) and hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) are not included in the discussion because they do not need charging. To know more about the different types of EVs, see the following infographic: The Different Types of Electric Vehicles.

Speaking of EVs, the number one concern for most consumers is charging time and range. Presently, battery capacity for sedans range between 40 kWh (Nissan Leaf 2018) to 75 kWh (Tesla Model S 2019). As chargers continue to improve, a typical 43~50 kW rapid charger can add up to 160 km of range in 35 minutes and fill a Model S from empty to full in less than two hours. With 150 kW super rapid chargers rolling out in the market, charging would only take minutes.

However, for many EV owners, gaining access to the charging stations as well as paying for charging become a hassle as they need to sign up for memberships of different charging providers and always carry multiple charging cards. This is where Plug&Charge (PnC) technology comes in. PnC allows for the vehicle and the charger to communicate in real-time, so that the driver can simply plug, charge, and go.

What is Plug&Charge?

Plug&Charge (PnC) is a technological concept outlined in ISO 15118 – the international standard for vehicle-to-grid (V2G) communication interface. Currently applied at many EV charging stations across the globe, it is essentially a secure communication protocol that allows the vehicle to communicate seamlessly with the charging station and the electrical grid.

Generally, two pieces of information are exchanged in these communications – charging-related information and payment-related information. Charging-related information enables the charging station to self-determine how much electricity to fill (or take away), while payment-related information allows for automated financial transactions between the charging station and the driver’s car. This removes the hassle of having to sign up for memberships at different charging providers and having to carry multiple cards at all time. In fact, the driver does not even need to carry a payment card. All they need to do is to register a preferred payment method to their car ahead of time.

Another technical aspect of PnC technology is that it allows for bidirectional charging, so that electricity does not only flow from the charging station to the car, but also from the car back to the charging station and to the electrical grid. This allows for the perfect match between the supply capacity of the electrical grid and the demand from the EVs. We will discuss how later.

Nevertheless, manual charging and conventional identification and payment methods are still supported by charging stations adopting ISO 15118. These methods are referred to as “external identification means (EIM)”.

What Are the Benefits of Bidirectional Charging?

Automated charging and payment help make the EV charging process easier for the driver. But what does bidirectional charging do? With unidirectional chargers, electricity flows from the electrical grid to the vehicle. Bidirectional chargers enable electricity to flow both ways, allowing the vehicle to give electricity back to the grid. The bidirectional charging process between the vehicle and the electrical grid is called vehicle-to-grid (V2G).

Many might ask, why having electricity flow from the cars back to the grids? Indeed, at an individual level, this may seem useless. However, at a regional and national level, this can help balance the supply and demand of energy. The electricity stored in parked EVs is great enough to power a house for several hours. Since an average car is parked (i.e., not in use) for 90% of its lifespan, why not make use of that time to distribute electricity to those in need?

The idea is to have EVs charge during off-peak hours and give back to the grid during peak hours when the demand is high. In simple words, EV can be used like power banks to smartphones, so that parked vehicles can provide the necessary electricity to fill in the demands of peak regions. This would significantly stabilize the electrical grids. Take vehicle-to-home (V2H) for example, the vehicle would charge at night when electricity demand is low, and have the car charge the home during day times when electricity demand is at peak. Many countries are implementing incentives to do so by offering electricity at lower costs during off-peak hours, so that EV owners can save on their energy costs in the long run. In other circumstances, energy credits are offered for the EV owners who give back to the grid, so that EV owners can make some extra money when they are not using their cars.

How Does Plug&Charge Help Save Our World?

PnC will become a crucial component of the energy supply chain when the world transitions to 100% renewable energy. It is not that renewable energies are less reliable, but some types of renewable energies – such as wind and solar power – do not offer constant and steady supply. Natural disasters could also affect the supply of renewable energy. Thus, instead of using non-renewable energy to fill the shortage, these EVs can serve as emergency power banks to the electrical grid during occasional power shortages. As long as the system and infrastructure are managed properly, PnC can help many parts of the world get rid of fossil fuels entirely.

The Role of Cybersecurity in Plug&Charge

The electrical grid is a highly sensitive infrastructure that is critical to daily economic and social activities. This makes them one of the most attractive targets for cybercriminals. Hostile states could attack the grid to trigger power outages. Financially motivated threat actors could attack the grid to steal customers’ personal, financial, and billing data, as well as charging-related information. Therefore, every device that connects to the gird, including EVs and charging stations, must be authenticated in the first place, and authorized before each attempt to connect.

AutoCrypt PnC (formerly known as AutoCrypt V2G) is a mobility security solution that utilizes authentication, authorization, and encryption technologies to establish secured communications between every player involved in the grid, protecting the personal and financial information of the EV owners from leakage, ensuring the proper functioning of the charging and transaction processes by guaranteeing data integrity, and protecting all energy users by safeguarding the power grids from intrusions.

To keep informed with the latest news on mobility tech and automotive cybersecurity, subscribe to AUTOCRYPT’s monthly newsletter.

31 December, 2020 . 6 mins read

Top 5 Driverless Mobility Services in 2021

The automotive industry and the tech industry have spent the past five years developing and testing technologies for autonomous driving. As automakers (OEMs) focus on applying autonomous driving technology into our daily cars, tech startups are focusing more on leveraging the technology to provide driverless mobility services. Despite using the same set of technologies, their target markets are quite different because they serve different purposes.

Note that full automation does not necessarily mean driverless. In the consumer car market, the demand for eliminating the driver’s seat and steering wheel is low because the driver is most likely the car owner, and that the car owner would still likely want to take control and enjoy driving from time to time. As such, autonomous driving technologies are mostly used to assist the driver, not to replace them. However, this could change soon as people slowly adapt to the trend.

On the other hand, eliminating the driver’s seat and steering wheels brings significant benefits to the mobility services market because it allows the vehicle to carry more passengers and goods while saving on the cost of hiring drivers.

In 2021, the mobility service industry is expecting to see an initial wave of fully autonomous (SAE automation level 4 and 5), driverless vehicles hitting the road. Most of them are used to provide ride-hailing, ridesharing, and delivery services.

In this blog, we will take a closer look at a list of some of the early pioneers in driverless mobility services, along with their current standings in 2021.

Zoox (subsidiary of Amazon) – United States

Zoox is an autonomous driving technology startup founded in 2014 and sold to Amazon in June 2020. After six years of R&D along with prototype testing, it has finally put its robotaxis into production and revealed them on San Francisco streets in December 2020.

The newly introduced robotaxi is designed to provide ride-hailing services, tailored for crowded city streets. Looking at the specs, it is an all-electric four-wheeler with a maximum capacity of four passengers, equipped with eight LiDAR systems all around the car. The main features that set Zoox apart from its competitors is four-wheel steering and bidirectional driving. Built with four-wheel steering, the vehicle’s front wheels and rear wheels move in opposite directions to maximize turning angle, so that U-turns can be done on two-lane streets that would normally need a three-point turn. Additionally, the vehicle is bidirectional so that pickups and drop-offs can be done seamlessly.

Zoox also claims that its vehicle can travel at a top speed of 120 km/h, currently the fastest in the industry. Presently at its final testing stage, the company is preparing to launch a mobile-based ride-hailing service starting out in San Francisco and Las Vegas.

Waymo (subsidiary of Google) – United States

Beginning as the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, Waymo has gone through intensive research and testing over the past decade. On October 8, 2020 – after 30 million kilometers of road testing, including tens of thousands of kilometers of driverless testing – Waymo finally introduced its first driverless ride-hailing service to the public in Phoenix, Arizona. Its mobile app is available for anyone to download, allowing anyone under its service area to enjoy driverless rides.

Instead of manufacturing their own vehicles, Waymo collaborates with several automakers to develop customized vehicles for their services. The company is currently on its way to expand the coverage of its ride-hailing service to other US cities soon. As of the end of 2020, Waymo is the only driverless passenger vehicle in the world that is under full commercial operation.

Nuro (backed by SoftBank) – United States

Founded by two of the founding engineers of Waymo, Nuro offers delivery services using driverless, all-electric vehicles. Less than two years after the initial launch of model R1 in December 2018, model R2 was finally released in 2020, and became the first autonomous vehicle to receive an approved exemption issued by the US Department of Transportation (DOT) and the National Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). This means that Nuro can now expand its coverage to a greater number of US cities.

Model R1 has completed various driverless delivery services by teaming up with Walmart and Domino’s to deliver grocery and pizza to customers in Houston, Texas. Today, Nuro’s R2 is currently operating in three US states – California, Texas, and Arizona. It has been delivering food and medical supplies to patients and doctors during the COVID-19 crisis.

AutoX (backed by Alibaba and SAIC Motor) – China and United States

As the only Chinese firm on the list, AutoX is backed up with investments from Alibaba and SAIC Motor. In December 2020, the company deployed 25 driverless robotaxis on the roads of Shenzhen, China, for final stage testing, making it the first driverless vehicle to go on Chinese streets without the safety driver.

Chinese autonomous driving tech hubs like Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Wuhan are rapidly putting up 5G infrastructure and offering subsidies to welcome robotaxi companies to set up their services. This is part of the Chinese effort to compete with Silicon Valley. Nevertheless, AutoX also obtained permits from California in December 2020 to test its robotaxis on American roads.

Like Waymo, AutoX’s vehicles look just like a regular passenger car from the outside. AutoX has not announced when these vehicles would be ready for public use, but Chinese consumers should expect driverless mobility services in the very near future.

Cruise (subsidiary of General Motors) – United States

Cruise is another autonomous driving startup owned by General Motors. Following Waymo, Zoox, Nuro, and AutoX, Cruise became the fifth company to receive a permit from the State of California for driverless vehicle testing without the safety driver. In December 2020, the company also started testing its driverless vehicles in San Francisco. Cruise expects to slowly increase the number of vehicles on the road over 2021 while preparing them for commercial use.

The Role of Security in Driverless Mobility

Safety is the number one priority in the development of driverless vehicles. Not only must these vehicles function properly, but they also need to withstand cyberattacks. This is why all V2X communications must be secured with the security credential management system (SCMS). By issuing enrolment certificates to each member of the V2X network, as well as authorization certificates for each communication message, AUTOCRYPT V2X takes charge of the security aspect of all autonomous vehicles.

To keep informed with the latest news on mobility tech and automotive cybersecurity, subscribe to AUTOCRYPT’s monthly newsletter.

27 December, 2020 . 4 mins read

Functions and Challenges of Fleet Management

Fleet management refers to basic systems that provide vehicle surveillance which help manage and operate modern vehicle fleets. There are two main categories in a fleet management system (FMS): off-line and on-line FMS. An off-line FMS takes care of data that are recorded inside the vehicle, then processed and subsequently evaluated. On the other hand, an on-line FMS handles real-time information and data evaluation that happens when all the vehicles are connected on-line to a computer server. Generally, FMS covers the practices of overseeing, organizing, and recording all aspects of the fleet with commanding tasks such as vehicle maintenance and acquisition, driver and fuel management, health and safety management, and vehicle tracking and diagnostics. Because this needs quite a bit of oversight, in every fleet management system, there are fleet managers who carry out the logistics in the transportation industry.

Let’s look more closely at the challenges that fleet managers face and the functions an FMS has to offer.

Vehicle Maintenance and Acquisition

The role of fleet managers in vehicle acquisition might include, but are not limited to, evaluating changes to vehicle legislation, determining purpose and sustainability of vehicles, negotiating deals with vehicle manufacturers, and balancing fuel consumption, tax, and insurance costs, in addition to regulating employee expectations and safety. On top of that, it is necessary that the managers consider the re-sell value of vehicles that need to be unloaded. Budget allocation and keeping up to date with legislations are constant struggles for fleet managers.

Driver Management

While the FMS in the past were used mainly by the motor-carrier industry, such as trucking and shipping companies, it is now widely used by taxis and transportation services for people with disabilities, making fleet driver management essential for fleet management companies (FMCs). Through effective driver training, FMCs not only reduce costs while maintaining the same level of service, but also ensure the safety for both the transportation service provider and customer. Additionally, as fleet management has become more passenger-centric, dealing with disputes, differences of opinion, and managing conflicts have been newly added to the long list of responsibilities of a fleet manager.

Fuel Management

One of the biggest reasons that companies implement an FMS is to boost productivity and grow business. Fleet management achieves this by establishing fleet performance, keeping overall costs low, monitoring maintenance, and carrying out optimal operations for companies. Now, for most fleets, fuel consumption is the highest cost variable, and in a time when fuel prices are ever-increasing, a fleet manager’s role of balancing fuel cost is paramount to their job. It is their responsibility to evaluate and level out the types of fuel when adding new vehicles to the fleet, while working on fuel savings management.

Health and Safety Management

The annual accident rate for commercial fleets is around 20%. The rate gets even higher for industries such as pharmaceuticals because of the incomparable number of miles their fleet drivers must travel per year. Therefore, safety is one of the toughest challenges that fleet managers face, for both the driver and the vehicle. The fleet safety program that fleet managers govern establishes policies and plans that are necessary to help ensure a safe work environment for employees and protect against liability from vehicle accidents.

Vehicle Tracking and Diagnostics

In most modern vehicle fleets, an Automatic Vehicle Locator (AVL), also known as a vehicle tracking device, is embedded to send the positioning information on-line to a central computer server. Fleet managers receive vehicle technical information such as fuel tank level, engine revolution, amount of fuel use, etc. to keep track of the vehicle condition and ultimately ensure safety of both the driver and vehicle.

In the past, fleet management was implemented mostly by industrial sectors such as trucking companies and fleet managers documented everything using pen and paper; however, the possibilities and role of technology has been evolving at an exponential pace, and have made it possible for fleets to generate even more data, expanding the role of fleet managers. Moreover, due to the increased accessibility of transportation that has now become an essential part of public life, fleet management has developed to become more passenger-focused. The implementation of FMS in day-to-day taxi fleets and transportation services for people with disabilities or mobility challenges are examples of the fast-changing automotive landscape.

Therefore, it is crucial for businesses with vehicle fleets to incorporate a software-based fleet management system that can help managers oversee the growing amount of data, resulting in reduced interruption and improved productivity.

Learn more about AUTOCRYPT’s fleet management solutions here.

10 December, 2020 . 5 mins read

The Automotive Industry – What We Can Expect in 2021

2020 has thrown the world for a loop. Unsurprisingly, most people are looking forward to 2021, and this includes the automotive industry. What trends can we expect next year, and are they necessarily going to be good ones?

1. More autonomy, less driving
2020 saw more vehicle manufacturers touting their autonomous driving technologies, and 2021 will be no different. In fact, autonomous vehicles categorized as SAE level 3 may be much more prevalent on the market. This means that more vehicles will be driven by the vehicle’s systems, though the human driver is still required to be on alert at all times.

While Tesla notably put its Full Self-Driving beta mode in the steering wheels of willing drivers, other vehicle manufacturers may not be too far behind as companies like Nissan, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Toyota are also putting in maximum effort to stay in the autonomous-driving game.

2. Further improvements on infotainment software
With a visible increase in models equipped with more advanced autonomous-driving or assisted-driving technologies, the industry may also get major changes in the type of infotainment software applications available in-vehicle.

Earlier models of connected vehicles saw focuses on data-based infotainment like location-services and GPS navigation, but we are likely to see a shift towards actual “entertainment,” as drivers will look for more interactive elements of the vehicle besides manually driving.

In fact, software providers and OEMs may be battling it out for precious infotainment real estate, as OEMs have been developing their own operating systems with built-in infotainment services. Advertisement agencies may also become increasingly involved as information delivery expands into these platforms.

3. Electric vehicles & BEVs become the norm
Electric Vehicles (EVs) are nothing new, but also this trend is not really a trend at all. Electric Vehicles look like they will soon become the norm, as more nations are committing to significantly reducing or completely eliminating traditional International Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicle within the next decade.

The United Kingdom announced in November 2020 that as part of a green industrial revolution, it would stop the sale of gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2035, with plans for significant reduction starting in 2030. As the automotive industry tends to plan for regulation changes with designs of new vehicle models well ahead of time, we are likely to see more vehicle manufacturers committing to design and manufacture of battery electric vehicles (BEVs). In fact, Bentley, luxury vehicle maker, announced that it would stop making ICE vehicles by 2030, with an added commitment to be carbon neutral at the same time.

These types of proclamations by nations and vehicle manufacturers are likely to continue as the pressure to go electric by regulations as well as the environment continue to grow.

4. Resurgence of Mobility-as-a-Service
COVID-19 threw a wrench in some mobility services like ride-sharing, but services have been quick to adjust their business models. For example, several delivery services have hopped on the bandwagon, providing contactless, robot or autonomous delivery pods to ensure that businesses and consumers can safely exchange goods. As cities and nations scramble for transport alternatives alongside the hopes for a widely-distributed vaccine, Mobility-as-a-Service solutions are likely to make a resurgence in 2021. Analysts report that MaaS business models are set to exceed 52 billion USD by 2027, even with the aftereffects of 2020.

This rebound will not only jumpstart the competition in the MaaS industry, but it also pressures connectivity providers to ensure that networks are ready to support the sheer quantity of connections. Lost or delayed connections not only mean a deficit in revenue, but while on the road connectivity is key to ensuring safety for all of those involved.

5. More (attempted) attacks, more security
As the aforementioned trends continue to see growth, it is highly probably that there will be more attempted attacks. No vehicle is exempt, as even Tesla’s Model X was hacked in 2020 using a new key fob hack. Fortunately, the flaw was found by white hat hackers and Tesla rolled out a fix with an over-the-air (OTA) update—but unfortunately, this does not mean that it won’t happen again. Malicious hackers will always find new and innovative technology to prey on, putting manufacturers, service providers, and end-users at risk.

Thankfully, defenses will probably improve due to the regulation changes coming our way next year. In June 2020, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) working party WP.29 passed two new regulations mandating cybersecurity management systems for all new vehicles, going into force in 2021. Countries will be able to implement these regulations into national legislation, and manufacturers will then have until July 2022 to obtain system type approval for cybersecurity for all new vehicle types. By July 2024, all vehicles regardless of launch date will have to be fully compliant. Implementation can be complex but following guidelines by cybersecurity firms can be a great place to begin. For example, AUTOCRYPT has a free resource on how to begin structuring a cybersecurity management system along with consultation services on impelementation.

Because of the relatively short time spans of implementation, we will likely begin to see cybersecurity management by vehicle manufacturers prioritized and implemented, as well as government pressure to do so swiftly.

Counting down to 2021
While many of the trends of 2020 will continue in 2021, there is no doubt that the automotive industry will be forced to re-strategize business operations in order to acclimate to a post-pandemic world, whether in terms of embedded technology, software, or security—2021 will be a big year.

For more information on automotive tech and automotive cybersecurity, subscribe to our monthly newsletter at www.autocrypt.io/subscribe.

4 December, 2020 . 7 mins read

How Autonomous Vehicles Solve Urban Space Shortage

With more than half of the global population living in cities, space shortage is becoming an increasingly urgent problem for urban planners and developers. The two major challenges that impact urban residents the most are housing shortage and parking space shortage.

Housing shortage can be partially resolved by utilizing vertical space. Indeed, the number of skyscrapers built for residential use is quickly overtaking that of office buildings in major cities across the world from Toronto and Vancouver to Sydney and Melbourne. Yet even doing so is not enough to cool down the housing shortage as non-resident investors drive up demand.

In this blog, we focus on discussing the second challenge. In fact, parking space shortage and traffic congestion are much more difficult to deal with than housing shortage. As one can imagine, building upwards is not an option because it would be ridiculously expensive and inefficient to have a 30-storey parkade. Also, most cities do not have enough public funding to build elevated highways and tunnels at a large scale.

Like it or not, this urban movement is set to continue as the UN projects global urban population to reach 68% by 2050. Just as urban researchers are seeking new creative ways to solve space shortage, an unexpected potential solution has gained popularity both in theory and in practice — autonomous vehicles. Self-driving cars are expected to solve urban space shortage in three different ways: 1) by reducing the need for parking space, 2) by reducing traffic congestion, and 3) by increasing vehicle occupancy rate.


How Do Autonomous Vehicles Reduce the Need for Parking Space?

The idea is to have cars park themselves in the parking lot so that drivers can get off the car at the entrance and let the car do the rest of the job, just like having an automated valet parking system. So how and why does this system reduce the need for parking space?

First of all, each single parking slot for autonomous vehicles can be made much smaller than a conventional parking slot. This is because a conventional parking slot has to leave enough space for the car doors to open on both sides so that passengers can get off. When it comes to autonomous vehicles, the driver and passengers can get off the car ahead of time before the car enters the slot, so that no extra space is needed on the sides of the car.

Another reason is a reduction in the need for driveways. In a conventional parking lot, the driveways take up about half of the total land area (see Figure 1a). Civil engineering researchers at the University of Toronto have shown through their work that autonomous vehicles could potentially decrease the need for parking space by an average of 62% and a maximum of 87% (Nourinehjad, Bahrami, and Roorda 2018)*. The reason is that instead of having a driveway between every two rows of parked vehicles, a parking lot that is fully dedicated to autonomous vehicles only needs a driveway between every four rows of parked vehicles. In other words, there can be up to four rows of vehicles parked together without any driveways in between (see Figure 1b). When a “landlocked” vehicle needs to get out, the vehicle in front of it would automatically move out to free its way.

Figure 1. a) Conventional Parking Lot vs. b) Autonomous Vehicle Parking Lot
(Nourinehjad, Bahrami, and Roorda 2018)*

Nourinejad, M., Bahrami, S., & Roorda, M. J. (2018). Designing parking facilities for autonomous vehicles. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 109, 110-127.

How Do Autonomous Vehicles Reduce Traffic Congestion?

A common misconception is that autonomous vehicles are nothing more than cars with sensors that detect surrounding environments. In reality, SAE Level 4 and Level 5 autonomous vehicles are much more sophisticated than that. These vehicles are able to communicate with other vehicles on the road, with pedestrians and cyclists, with traffic lights, and with the entire transportation infrastructure, all through the internet. All the communications are enabled by V2X (vehicle-to-everything) technology embedded into the vehicles, and end up forming a massive smart transportation network. This brings us to the question: how does V2X technology reduce traffic congestion?

Surprisingly, the main cause of traffic congestion is not having too many cars on the road, but the delays caused by each driver’s reaction time. When a traffic light turns green, for example, it takes a second or two for the driver at the front row to notice the signal change and another 0.5 second before pressing the pedal, the driver behind starts pressing the pedal 0.5 second after the first car moves forward, and this 0.5 second delay stacks up for every car behind, accumulating to a significant latency — this is assuming that everyone pays full attention to the road. (We all know that one bad driver who is just too busy on their phone to pay attention to the signal change.)

With V2X technology, all cars waiting in line would be notified of the signal change with near-zero latency, so that all cars can start accelerating at the same time and move forward at the same speed. This would significantly reduce traffic jams. A research team from the Delft University of Technology discovered through their virtual experiment that under a particular traffic jam which lasted an average of 41.7 minutes with an average speed of 11.7 km/h, if only 10% of all vehicles had V2X technology, the average lasting time would be reduced to 3.6 minutes with the average speed increased to 41 km/h. This huge improvement is made possible by all vehicles being able to accelerate and brake at the same time (Wang, Daamen, Hoogendoorn, and Bart van Arem 2015)*.

* Wang, M., Daamen, W., Hoogendoorn, S. P., & van Arem, B. (2015). Cooperative Car-Following Control: Distributed Algorithm and Impact on Moving Jam Features. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 17(5), 1459-1471.

How Do Autonomous Vehicles Increase Occupancy Rate?

According to the National Household Travel Survey conducted by the US Department of Transportation, the average occupancy rate of vehicles on American roads dropped from 1.59 in 1995 to 1.54 in 2007. This means that not only are we having more cars on the road, each car is carrying less people, with a majority of cars on the road occupied by only one person. This low occupancy rate is largely due to the inconvenience of the public transit system of North American cities.

As SAE Level-5 autonomous vehicles start to go into their testing phase, traditional car manufacturers are starting to seek potential in the ridesharing market. Take General Motors’ subsidiary firm Cruise for example, the company recently developed Origin, a line of electric shuttle vans that are specifically designed for ridesharing. Without any driver’s seat and steering wheel, the vehicle is expected to travel fully autonomously on designated city streets, making ridesharing much easier and comfortable. As autonomous ridesharing becomes increasingly convenient to use, vehicle occupancy rates in cities are expected to increase, reducing the burden of city roads.

AUTOCRYPT’s Role in Autonomous Driving

AUTOCRYPT is a total cybersecurity solutions provider for automobiles, providing all the security software components that are necessary (and soon mandatory) to keep autonomous vehicles safe on the road. With two decades of experience in authentication and data encryption technologies, AUTOCRYPT’s solutions ensure the legitimacy of all parties involved in V2X communications and the integrity of all data being transmitted. Recognized as the best automotive cybersecurity product/service by the prestigious TU-Automotive Awards, and one of the top 5 global market leaders for V2X cybersecurity by Markets and Markets, AUTOCRYPT is the foundation for the future of autonomous driving, ridesharing, and everything mobility.

Watch this video to see a brief introduction of AUTOCRYPT.

To learn more details about AUTOCRYPT’s solutions and services, click here.

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