WHEN VICE PRESIDENT Al Gore visited Silicon Valley on his latest campaign swing through northern California, he made a special stop at the headquarters of Metrix2 in Menlo Park. The candidate, who has made urban sprawl and increased access to information technologies key elements of his campaign platform, used the engagement to lead the press corps on a tour of Metrix2's latest project.
"Imagine bringing life back to our cities, rejuvenating downtown districts, and solving traffic gridlock all with one technology," the enthusiastic presidential candidate mused to a crowd of reporters and high-tech business leaders. Posing in the front seat of a "smart car," Gore announced, "that dream may well be possible thanks to innovations like IVMS."
IVMS, short for Intelligent Vehicle Metro System, is an offshoot of the "smart highway" technologies which already enable commuters to pay tolls electronically and receive detailed driving directions from a computer. But unlike the systems which monitor and control the movement of cars on freeways, IVMS promises to synchronize traffic on congested city streets.
"We're seeing a tremendous increase in urban traffic," explains Metrix2 spokesperson Bill Barran, "and with this shift comes a greater demand for technologies that allow drivers to get more out of their cars in cities."
According to Barran, cars equipped with Metrix2's IVMS technology could practically drive themselves in the low-speed, high-density traffic typical of cities.
Existing prototypes of IVMS use a combination of digital maps, a global positioning system, radar, vehicle speed sensing, and onboard gyroscopes to maneuver cars through an urban grid. Its designers claim that this new technology could free drivers to talk on the phone, work at a computer, or simply rest while an onboard computer handles the steering wheel. In the near future a smart car with IVMS could even drive around the block while the human driver steps out to run a brief errand.
While such convenient features may make IVMS attractive to consumers, some critics argue that it would worsen rather than improve traffic conditions in urban centers. Bill Vaughn, a traffic management specialist with the Massachusetts Executive Office of Transportation and Construction, believes IVMS is "a very big step in the wrong direction." Vaughn contends that unless every single car in a city is equipped with an identical version of a system like IVMS, automated vehicles will be unable to cope with other drivers, resulting in continuous gridlock.
"We just don't have the computing power to steer a car through city traffic," says Vaughn, who adds that urban centers are also filled with pedestrians and other potential "roadblocks." He also points out that while many large cities are trying to reduce automobile traffic, IVMS would produce the opposite effect by encouraging motorists to drive downtown rather than using mass transit.
Barran dismisses these criticisms as "outdated" and "provincial" and warns that most urban areas will not survive if they cannot adapt to the needs of the suburban motorist. Moreover, according to Barran, cities are precisely where automated driving is most desirable because of their inherently congested roads.
Boasts Barran, "We see most cities embracing IVMS as a more affordable and consumer-friendly alternative to public transportation."
The South to the Future World Wide Wire Service is a weekly feed of technology and media news commentary and satire published by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Quotations attributed to public figures who are satirized are often true, but sometimes invented. Some fictional statements may, in fact, be true. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental.
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