Biden’s $1.2 Trillion Infrastructure Bill Hastens Beacon Wearing For Bicyclists And Pedestrians To Enable Detection By Connected Cars

Beaconization—or equipping bicycles and pedestrians with transponder beacons that can be spotted automatically by sensor-equipped cars—has been given the official seal of approval in the U.S. after the House of Representatives passed a $1+ trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill on November 5, sending it to President Biden’s desk.

The measure passed in a 228-206 vote, with support from thirteen Republicans. Six Democrats voted against it, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Biden could sign the bill within days.

Biden said the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will “modernize our infrastructure, our roads, our bridges, our broadband, a range of things turning the climate crisis into an opportunity, and a put us on a path to win the economic competition of the 21st century that we face with China and other large countries in the rest of the world.”

Alongside the rebuilding of bridges, the construction of new highways, and more money for protected bicycling infrastructure, the act, when signed, also formalizes the acceptance of so-called “vehicle to everything” (V2X) technology that, on the face of it, promises enhanced safety on the roads for pedestrians and cyclists.

However, experts warn there are critical downsides to the deployment of such technology.

VRUs

Tucked away in the mammoth bill is a section on “research on connected vehicle technology,” which states that the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in collaboration with the head of the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office and the Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, shall “expand vehicle-to-pedestrian research efforts focused on incorporating bicyclists and other vulnerable road users into the safe deployment of connected vehicle systems; and not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this Act, submit to Congress a report describing the findings of the research efforts including an analysis of the extent to which applications supporting vulnerable road users can be accommodated within existing spectrum allocations for connected vehicle systems.”

Vehicles to everything

Millions of posts, poles, and signs have already been equipped with low-power transponders so they can be detected by today’s sensor-equipped cars and tomorrow’s AVs. The chipping of every item of road furniture is a key part of a burgeoning new sector: “intelligent transport systems” (ITS). The deployment of these infrastructure-to-vehicle beacons has been consequence-free so far—the posts and poles have no say in the matter—but ITS isn’t so intelligent when pesky humans are added to the mix.

The auto and telecommunications industries have worked with bicycle makers for years on “bicycle-to-vehicle” (B2V) sensors.

In 2018 the World Bicycle Industry Association said it was in favor of beaconization, with general manager Manuel Marsilio telling attendees at the 2018 Geneva Motor Show’s Future Networked Car symposium that “bicycles will definitely have to communicate with other vehicles.”

That bicycle makers have long been working with the “connected car” industry to discover which V2X sensor technology works best is seen as a sensible collaboration by many. Finally, cyclists will be safe on the roads; what’s not to like? For tech companies and affluent cyclists, the future will be rosy—connected cars will know exactly where on the highway beacon-equipped bicycles are located, and smashes will, therefore, be avoided. Vision Zero made a reality, not through behavior change but technology.

An alternative, and for historian Peter Norton, the more likely version of this future is deeply dystopian. Only the beacon-equipped will be spotted. Those choosing—say, for economic or privacy reasons—not to fit bicycle-to-vehicle beacons will be blamed for being hit by sensor-equipped cars, said Norton, author of the new book Autonorama which details the potential threat to pedestrians and cyclists from driverless vehicles.

“I have a hard time picturing how we get automated driving systems that reliably detect bicycles that are not equipped with anything,” said Norton, who is associate professor of history in the Department of Engineering and Society at the University of Virginia.

“We know from research that detecting cyclists is one of the hardest things that autonomous vehicle developers and automated driving systems developers have had to face. So I don’t see how these systems protect bicyclists. And I think they may indeed increase the risk for cyclists because if they give drivers the message that the car is watching out for the cyclists for them, but the car is actually not doing that particularly well then we actually make the situation for cyclists more dangerous, not less dangerous.”

Chips with that?

If bicyclists must ride with Radio Frequency Identification beacons, the logical next step is for pedestrians also to sport RFID technology, or similar, warn detractors of B2V technologies.

ITS companies say most people are already carrying such technologies because smartphones signal their presence. However, not everybody’s got a smartphone. And what about when a smartphone battery runs out? A cyclist or pedestrian then chooses not to ride or walk because they are no longer “protected” by a “forcefield” app?

Or perhaps you turned off your Bluetooth or forgot to turn off airplane mode? Smash: you’re dead, say critics on the technology, and then it would be your fault for assuming, wrongly, that you were protected.

The auto industry is interested in getting pedestrians and cyclists to transmit real-time location information because it’s perhaps the only way autonomous vehicles (AVs) could operate in cities. Lidar, 360-degree cameras, and other “smart” technologies cannot yet give warning of the child running out from behind parked cars.

Should any transponder be placed in an item of clothing? What if the child ran outside without wearing their beaconized baseball cap? If the beacon always needed to be on the person, logically, that means it would have to be embedded in the body: are we ready for chipping all humans?

“The cooperative element enabled by digital connectivity will significantly improve road safety and traffic efficiency by helping cyclists and the other road users to take the right decision and adapt to the traffic situations,” the World Bicycle Industry Association’s Marsilio told the Future Networked Car.

He stressed: “The bicycle industry deems that the proper deployment of harmonized connected services is key to this objective and agrees that interoperability is a must. It is unacceptable that road users nowadays could die on roads because vehicles cannot communicate with each other due to non-inter-operable communication technologies.”

Marsilio added: “Boosting user uptake requires an appropriate regulatory environment.”

Regulatory environment? Fines for those choosing to ride—or walk—beacon-free? It’s worth pointing out that the “crime” of jaywalking didn’t exist until the motor industry invented it in the 1920s.

“Road safety” has often meant “get out of the way of cars” and, historically, it led to people retreating from the street.

B2V

One of the U.S. companies working on bicycle-to-vehicle technologies is Tome Software of Detroit, Michigan, founded in 2014. It has more than 20 bicycle companies on its advisory board, including high-end brands such as Trek, Specialized, Giant, and companies that make bicycles for big-box retailers.

Tome has also worked with Give Me Green, a system that involves equipping stoplights with bicyclist recognition technology which turns the lights green for cyclists. As well as equipping bicycles with beacons, Tome is also working on technologies that won’t need Bluetooth bursts or other kinds of proximity pulses.

However, warns Norton, “if the tech turns out to actually make cyclist cycling safer for those who have it, but more dangerous for those who don’t, does that become grounds in policy for requiring all cyclists to have the necessary equipment for cars to detect them? If that does, then we now have problems about access to cycling among those with budgets, or deterring cycling in a society where we need more, not less for lots of reasons, including sustainability and public health.”

Norton added: “We are not protecting these unequipped cyclists when we have equipped cyclists, and we are into some degree making their situation more serious as drivers come to expect cyclists to be equipped. And eventually, even road designers and road authorities will start to assume that cyclists should be equipped, perhaps even the law may begin to expect this.”