Project: #20 Sharing Connected Vehicle Infrastructure for Safety Applications, Smart City and Internet Access Progress Report - Reporting Period Ending: March 31, 2018 Principal Investigator: Jon Peha Status: Active Start Date: Jan. 1, 2017 End Date: Aug. 31, 2018 Research Type: Advanced Grant Type: Research Grant Program: MAP-21 Grant Cycle: 2017 TSET UTC Progress Report (Last Updated: March 18, 2018, 8:28 a.m.) % Project Completed to Date: 50 % Grant Award Expended: 50 % Match Expended & Document: 50 USDOT Requirements Accomplishments We have published papers in two peer-reviewed conferences this year, one on infrastructure sharing issues and one on spectrum sharing issues. In addition, two of our papers have been accepted in high-quality IEEE journals for publication in 2018. The PI was also the keynote speaker at a conference in Harrisburg PA for senior municipal officials, where he spoke for an hour about emerging wireless technology, and how this technology can help meet community needs such as transportation. The PI also spoke on this topic at an IEEE conference, and the Ph.D. student on this project spoke at two research conferences. Probably most importantly, the PI has met with various senior government officials, including the Chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and many staff experts, to present our results and discuss the opportunities and challenges in vehicular networks. Impacts The PI of this project has been invited to serve as an (unpaid) advisor to the City of Pittsburgh on deployment of wireless technology for smart city applications such as transportation. In this way, the PI is putting research results and concepts to work for the benefit of Pittsburgh and its citziens. Based on results presented for the first time at the IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference in June 2017, we find that federal, state and local governments could save on the order of 20% of the estimated $4 billion cost of deploying the roadside infrastructure that is required under the plan proposed by the U.S. Department of Transportation by working with commercial actors in entirely new ways. Should those proposed plans continue to move forward, we hope that our work will lead to consideration of public-private partnerships which save federal, state and local Departments of Transportation large sums of tax-payer money, and as a result make it possible to deploy connected vehicle infrastructure in regions where this might not otherwise be possible. Our work to date has also shown that there are benefits to sharing some (but not all) of the spectrum allocation for intelligent transportation systems (ITS) with unlicensed devices, and that those who want better performance for ITS might do better by asking for more ITS spectrum that is shared rather than asking that the ITS spectrum that they have not be shared. However, our results are preliminary, and only apply in a limited range of scenarios. We need further research to determine whether these results are true more generally. If so, then this could be the basis for a different decision on ITS spectrum from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). We have presented our work to date to FCC staff, and will continue to do so as the research continues. Other None New Partners None Issues Much of our analysis has presumed that the U.S. Department of Transportation will follow through on its proposed plans to mandate wireless (DSRC) devices in all cars. However, there is a new administration, which might mean a new policy. The general concepts in our research are just as important under a new policy, but we would need to analyze scenarios that we have thus far put aside. Thus, new and somewhat different work might be needed in the coming years.