Connected vs. Automated Vehicles as Generators of Useful Data

Full Description:

This report summarizes the types of data that may be available from the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) connected vehicle effort, as well as data from advanced automated vehicle systems. The USDOT connected vehicle program emphasizes the creation of transportation-related data that will be available and usable by public transportation agencies for many applications. By contrast, advanced automated vehicle systems are generally being developed and deployed without consideration of data creation for public use. This report concludes that the emergence of automated vehicle systems represents an opportunity to obtain useful data from these vehicles. To some extent, these data may depend on connected vehicle technology for transmission beyond the vehicle. Importantly, automated systems have the potential to capture both vehicle-centric and infrastructure-oriented data, while connected vehicle technology is more amenable to capturing vehicle-centric data.