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It is highly
recommended to learn the basic principles of the ATS
by viewing our Flash presentation before reading this page.
To view our slide show please
click here
Please feel free to send your
questions using the
form below.
Questions
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I’ve heard that in ports and
large warehouses similar systems are used to automatically convey
trucks. What is new about ATS ? Answer
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How is it possible for the system to
manage millions of vehicles, each individually when they are
spread out over such large distances in areas as large as entire
continents? It doesn’t seem possible that an existing computer
technology is powerful enough to undertake such a task. Also the
communication system might be very complicated and unreliable.
Answer
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Can any vehicle be integrated
into the system? What is required for a vehicle not adapted to
the ATS to use the system? Answer
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If the system knows the
location of every vehicle at every moment, could this not violate
the privacy of individual users? Answer
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In addition to the patents that
the invention has received in twelve countries, has it also
received support from experts in any of the fields of transport,
communication, computers, robotics and the like?
Answer
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Has the invention been applied
somewhere? Answer
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What about redundancy and
reliability? What happens to those individual vehicles when the
segment they are in goes down?
Answer
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What happens when one of the
controllers goes down? Answer
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What makes the ATS different
from other driverless transportation projects?
Answer
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What about pedestrians and
cyclists? Answer
Answers
It’s true that similar systems are used in small,
contained areas with a limited number of vehicles. With the ATS,
the situation is completely different. The system is designed to
manage, in real-time millions of vehicles spread over huge areas
such a countries and even continents. The truly remarkable feature
is that despite controlling millions of vehicles, the system also
deals with each vehicle individually and in real-time. It responds
instantly to the instructions of the passenger, including, changes
in destination, rest requests and requests for information. It also
responds in real-time to the needs of the vehicle, for example,
mechanical conditions, safety and petrol.
The system is able to carry out this huge task very simply because
of its hierarchical structure and
decentralized computerization. There is no central computer which
might become overloaded. Each level of the hierarchy is self
contained and does not require powerful computing resources. It
manages its subordinate level based on data received from the
adjacent levels (directly above and below). As such the total
integrated computational power of the system increases in lock-step
with the system’s growth, while every individual part of the system
is performing very limited and simple computational job. Similar
phenomena are observed in communications. Though the total
integrated communication volume of the system is huge, the volume
of traffic between adjacent levels of the hierarchy is low and the
distances are relatively short. These features make the system's
production, installation and maintenance very simple and
cost-effective.
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The system can be used directly by vehicles
manufactured or refitted to its specifications. All others can use
the system via special, single or multiple-vehicle “ferry”
platforms which are part of the system. The passenger sits in his
own car which is mounted on the platform and transfers instructions
to the platform using the platform's on-board, integrated keyboard.
please refer also to question 10
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An individual wishing to protect his or her privacy
while using his or her own car may use the “ferry” described in the
answer to question three, above. The system “knows” only the
details of the “ferry” while the conveyed vehicle remains
anonymous.
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YES The invention was presented to top Israeli
scientists, several of whom are international leaders in their
fields. They included the President of the National Academy of
Sciences, the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Transportation and
the Head of the Department of Transportation Research of the
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. All were encouraging and
several were very enthusiastic about bringing the project to
fruition. For example, the Shmuel Ne’eman Institute at the Technion
attempted to secure funding within the Institute’s framework in
order to advance the subject.
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Not yet.
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7. What about
redundancy and reliability? What happens to those individual
vehicles when the segment they are in goes down?
Reliability and safety are of utmost importance in a
transportation system. In nowadays transportation systems the
weakest link in the safety chain is the human factor, which is
responsible for 80% - 90% of the accidents. Therefore, a
driverless, automated transport system that removes the human
driver from the control loop is a step in the right direction.
Naturally we want to maximize reliability, i.e. best materials,
thorough controlled production lines, top quality control,
redundancy techniques and so on. But all of these enhancements cost
money. Hence, the reliability objectives of the system should be a
trade off between the present reliability standard (which is very
poor) and our maximal wishes.
From the production, installation and maintenance point of view,
the ATS has a very good start; it is made of very few different
hardware components, i.e. the Intelligent Cable with its Road Units
and identical Controllers on all hierarchical levels. In mass
production terms, this feature enables to achieve a higher degree
of components’ reliability with lower prices.
Another aspect of reliability is the ability of the system to
detect malfunctions and respond to them in real time, when the goal
is, of course, to minimize accidents and traffic jams.
Real time malfunctions’ detection is an integral feature of the
ATS. It stems from the fact that every component has a certain
level of autonomy in its domain. It has an intelligence to initiate
actions, analyze the results and make decisions. Every component,
whether it is a vehicle traveling on the road, or a Road Unit, or a
Controller located somewhere in the hierarchical structure, sends
frequent messages to all its adjacent components and expects
specific answers during a specific time window. If some component
breaks down and stops responding properly, the system detects it
immediately through its neighbors and responds accordingly.
For example, it is possible to install 2 Intelligent Cables
(instead of one) under the road, each in a different pipe. Only one
of them is active, while the other serves as a backup. If the
active cable breaks down, the system detects it instantly and
immediately replaces it with the backup cable. Then it calls a
maintenance team that replaces the nonoperative cable with a new
one, without interfering with the smooth traffic flow.
If a vehicle breaks down, its wrong behavior will be detected
instantly by the system through the Road Units and/or by the
obstacle detectors of the adjacent vehicles, and/or by the
vehicle’s onboard sensors. In such cases the system usually
initiates “emergency breaking” procedure in the Segment.
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8. What happens
when one of the controllers goes down?
In order to enhance the system reliability, it is possible to
install 2 Controllers (instead of one) in each hierarchical level.
Only one is active, while the other serves as a backup. If the
active Controller breaks down, the system instantly detects it
through its adjacent Controllers (see the above answer) and
immediately replaces it with the backup Controller. Then it calls a
maintenance team that replaces the nonoperative Controller with a
new one. All these operations are done without disturbing the
smooth traffic flow.
But let us examine what happens, if in spite of all the reliability
enhancements, both Controllers break down at the same time (rare,
but might happened). In every hierarchical
level the responsibility of a (parent) Controller is to coordinate
the traffic flow in the junction points between the domains of its
subordinate (child) Controllers. Thus, all vehicles that have
entered the “child” domains, prior to the failure of the “parent”
Controller, will continue to move smoothly, even between the
“child” domains. This is because all their trip instructions are
waiting for them, stored in the memories of the “child” Controllers
and the Road-Units. The “child” Controllers will continue to handle
the traffic in their domains autonomously, e.g. respond to changes
or accept new vehicles, if the route is inside their domain, but
will reject changes or demands for new routes which have to cross
“child” domains.
For example, if the top level Controller of USA breaks down, it
will not hamper the smooth flow of the traffic in each state
(assuming that the geographical region of each state belongs to a
distinct Controller), but new requirements to cross states’ borders
will be rejected until the problem is repaired.
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9. What makes the ATS
different from other driverless transportation projects?
Driverless, is only one aspect of the ATS. Another very important
feature of the system is its universality. It could be applied in
the same ease for all types of vehicles (from the smallest urban
cars to the largest trucks), for all types of paved roads and
intersections (urban, multi-lane highways, theme-parks, airports,
large warehouses etc.) and for a large variety of applications
(private cars, commercial vehicle fleets, mass transport etc.) and
its geographical expansion is practically unlimited.
The meaning of the mentioned above is that there is no need to
develop different approaches and systems for different
applications. In the ATS concept the infrastructure building blocks
and the vehicles control apparatus might be the same everywhere.
The vehicle’s behavioral mode is controlled only through the
software. It is very easy to set different modes of behavior in
different settings (in cities, free-ways, airports, theme parks
etc.) and to reset them over and again whenever it is needed.
On top of all that, the ATS has a unique and far reaching advantage
– all its components (including millions of vehicles), in whatever
geographical expansion (city, country or continent), are
functioning as one integrated whole, while the requirements of each
individual vehicle are attended to in real time. There is an
underlying intelligence that coordinates the smooth functioning of
each vehicle relative to additional millions of vehicles that are
driving in the system at the same time. In my humble opinion, this
advantage is incomparable. An automated or dual-mode driving system
which does not have this ability is prone to suffer from many
weaknesses and almost the same overall chaotic behavior as in
nowadays transportation systems.
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10. What about
pedestrians and cyclists?
In order to maximize safety and efficiency, pedestrians and
cyclists should not be on the system’s lanes. They could cross the
system’s lanes in special crossings which are integrated in the
system, i.e. the crossings lights or gates will be controlled by the system
in full accord with the traffic flow.
But in many places, especially in town centers and residential
areas pedestrians cross the roads away from designated crossing
points. If we give higher priority to the convenience of the
pedestrians and allow them to cross virtually everywhere, the ATS
will not function in its peak safety and efficiency. But the good
news is that in spite of that, the ATS will increase substantially
the overall safety of the urban transportation system, compared to
the present situation. The reason for that stems from the fact that
in most cases, due to the vehicles’ onboard Obstacle Detector the
system is more sensitive and its reaction to emergency situations
is faster and more effective than the human driver, especially in
poor sight conditions. When pedestrians cross the
system’s lanes in arbitrary places, there might be a few
situations:
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Very safe – the vehicles are far away and do not detect the
“human obstacle”. In this case there will be no change in the
system behavior.
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Safe – the vehicles are in a safety distance from the
pedestrians relative to their speed and reaction time. They detect
the “human obstacle” and start to decelerate in order to be in zero
speed before they reach the obstacle. When the pedestrians have
completed crossing the road, the obstacle disappears and the
vehicles accelerate back to the normal speed.
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Dangerous – the vehicles are too close to the pedestrians. Even
if they detect the obstacle, they might not succeed to stop in
time.
It is important to note that the ATS is capable of functioning
together, on the same lanes, with the ordinary traffic (i.e.
driverless vehicles together with human-driver vehicles +
cyclists). Though this setup has a lot of inherent benefits, it is
far from being ideal. The ATS will not able to coordinate all its
components (i.e. human-driver vehicles + cyclists). The overall
transportation system performance will be much better than the
nowadays system, but it inevitably suffer from many of the present
weaknesses. If we really want to dramatically improve our
transportation system, we should aim at implementing the “purest”
ATS wherever it is possible and increase its “purity” gradually
according to the circumstances in each place.
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Please feel free
to send your questions using the form below.
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