Schematic above shows 8 vehicles in traffic, moving left => right, on 2 parallel ETO-enabled expressway lanes.
Rectangles are vehicles, colour emphasizing headway state: green = "ok", blue = "late", amber = "early".
Small dots are ETO signal/detector heads in the pavement, spaced 10 metres (32 feet) apart. When ETO is operating, but a signal light is not actively signaling, the signal light is steady on, with colour emphasizing current headway state.
Lower lane: all 4 drivers see "ok" headway signals, shown by black dots symbolizing momentary off-pulse of signal light.
Upper lane: (i) left-most driver sees 3 bright blue "late" headway signal hi-pulses, timed to motion driver ahead; (ii) next driver sees 3 bright amber "early" headway signal hi-pulses, timed to motion driver back. Diameter of hi-pulse circle in schematic, indicates pulse emission timing: larger diameter indicates pulse emitted earlier in time, smaller diameter indicates pulse emitted later in time. Thus the blue "late" headway signal hi-pulses appear to motion driver ahead, while the amber "early" headway signal hi-pulses appear to motion driver back. Right-most 2 drivers see "ok" signals.
How "Smart Road" ETO Works Its Simple Magic
§ ETO guides individual drivers in real-time to use speed and spacing currently appropriate for traffic conditions.
§ ETO emits visible luminous signals from pavement-embedded lights, spaced 10 metres (32 feet) apart along the centreline of each lane. ETO signaling normally operates, only as needed to maintain safe efficient clean traffic.
§ Ultra-simple ETO "early / ok / late" real-time luminous headway feedback signals: diminish with driver participation, intensify otherwise. You as a driver driver know at all times — you are either "early / ok / late" — it's as simple as that.
§ Your vehicle headway is your travel time at your current vehicle speed, to travel the distance from your front bumper to the front bumper of the next vehicle ahead of you. Standard driver reaction headway is 1.8 seconds => traffic flow 2000 vehicles/hour/lane. 1.8 seconds gives drivers enough time to react safely in changing traffic.
§ The designed traffic flow capacity of a highway lane = 2000 vehicles/hour @ 1.8 seconds average vehicle headway. ( 60 [secs/min] x 60 [mins/hr] => 3600 [secs/hr] / 1.8 [secs/veh] => 2000 [veh/hr] ). Inappropriate vehicle headways are a major cause of traffic congestion, particularly in merging traffic. During episodes of severe congestion, such as chronically experienced without ETO on many expressways in the world, traffic flow rates plunge to as low as 300 to 400 vehicles/hour/lane. ETO is designed to prevent all drops in traffic efficiency, including such huge 1600 to 1700 vehicles/hour/lane losses of effective capacity. ETO keeps traffic moving steadily everywhere in all lanes, as near as possible to the 2000 vehicles/hour/lane rate, to extract maximum safe performance from our controlled access highway assets, while reducing emissions generated, to a minimum.
§ ETO signals are driver-specific yet also public. They are unambiguously directed at a specific driver, yet drivers can gain useful information, from seeing signals directed at other drivers.
§ ETO coordinates its signals, orchestrating smooth overall traffic. Even 20 percent driver participation can significantly ease congestion and improve traffic performance.
§ Especially where traffic has to merge, e.g. on-ramps, e.g. two expressway routes merging into one, e.g. collector/express transfers, ETO ensures that drivers have sufficient space to merge smoothly, without braking. ETO does not try to manage the details of the merging operations; rather ETO simply creates enough space between vehicles on average, and leaves the details of the merging operations under the control the drivers themselves.
§ ETO prevents tailback queues ("accordioning"). ETO guides drivers to pace themselves smoothly, when they are approaching a zone of slower traffic ahead. ETO's traffic guidance algorithm will work to minimize braking, and to use vehicle coasting as much as possible, as the preferred method of reducing vehicle speeds, although under some circumstances, ETO will intentionally use vehicle braking, to permit use of higher vehicle speeds.
§ Most of the time, ETO-guided traffic runs steadily in convoys with little or no braking, and drivers face occasional and unobtrusive "ok" signals. Most "early / late" signals are, not due to driver inattention, but simply ETO adjusting traffic.
§ The timing of ETO signal emission is synchronized with vehicle motion, relative to signal/detector head position, so that drivers can anticipate when and where their signals will appear. For example, if you are following sufficiently close to the next vehicle ahead in your lane, your next signal will appear when a signal/detector head becomes visible underneath/behind that next vehicle ahead. If the next vehicle ahead is far away, your next signal will be synchronized with the passage of a signal/detector head under the front of your vehicle, although the signal itself will be emitted from a head(s) further ahead. Signal repetition, e.g. occasional "ok" signals, is rhythm-paced to specific head counts.
§ Pavement-embedded ETO signal/detector heads all use both LED (Light-Emitting Diode) and strobe light sources, for reliable visibility under adverse conditions e.g. bright sunlight, fog, rain, snow, dirt, etc. The ETO feasibility investigation will determine whether signal lights require a self-cleaning function. Vehicles create shaded areas on pavement under their bodies, and ETO can use these shaded areas to improve ETO signal visibility, by contrast.
§ The ETO signaling protocol works with monochromatic or colour light. Optional coloured ETO signal light enhances message effectiveness, but the ETO protocol messages are 100% complete in monochromatic light. Drivers with special colour-perception vision limits, are fully ETO-capable. Drivers susceptible to epileptic episode caused by flashing lights, can use a cell phone to disable their ETO luminous signals, and receive audible signals instead.
The Many Benefits and Advantages of ETO
§ Democratic ETO needs no special vehicle equipment, guides every driver, regardless of vehicle type, year or price. Including buses, taxis and other high-occupancy vehicles. Including trucks and motorcycles.
§ ETO benefits all drivers: Safely maximizes traffic efficiency, preventing traffic congestion while minimizing: travel time, braking, tailgating, lane changing, driver stress, fuel consumption, pollution, accidents and vehicle wear.
§ ETO puts safety first, by locating its signals on the pavement outside vehicles, in convenient direct and peripheral view of drivers, looking forward through their windshields. ETO actively encourages drivers to pay attention to the road and traffic ahead, avoiding the hazardous attention distraction problems, of in-vehicle ITS communication with drivers.
§ ETO benefits all neighbours of expressways: (i) ETO brings a massive reduction in the amount of emissions generated by expressway traffic, reducing emissions to as low as 11% of congested traffic emissions, and (ii) ETO encourages through traffic drivers to stay on expressways, no longer flooding onto local roads, out of frustration.
§ ETO benefits commercial users of expressways: (i) bus / taxi / limousine operators confidently use ETO-optimized expressways to provide faster service, and (ii) shippers and truck and courier operators enjoy reliable delivery times.
§ ETO ensures taxpayers that their huge financial investments in controlled-access highway infrastructure, operate 24/7/365 at maximum possible safe sustained effective capacity, with less wear and tear on pavement, and fewer accidents.
§ ETO is a kind of computerized driver training system. Drivers tend to carry the good driving habits and headway insights they learn on ETO-enabled expressways, with them to the other roads they use.
Why We Need ETO — Environmental Emissions — The Role Of The Automobile
Here are quotes (emphasis added) from a 28 October 2006 Toronto Star article "Clearing the air on Clean Air Act", by writer Gerry Malloy. Although Malloy cites Canadian facts and figures, his article has wider relevance:
"... Environment Canada's own figures: on-road cars and light-duty trucks are responsible for less than 10 per cent of all smog-forming emissions in Canada ... new vehicles, each year, represent only one-tenth of 1 per cent of that total. In terms of greenhouse-gas emissions, on-road cars and light-duty trucks contribute only 12 per cent of the Canadian total ... new vehicles represent only 1 per cent of that total ... emissions from one 1987 model-year vehicle, which was already dramatically cleaner than its predecessors, are equal to those from 37 vehicles from the 2006 model year [Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association] ... In some cases where ambient air pollution is particularly high, the exhaust coming out the tailpipe of a new car or truck can be cleaner than the air going into the engine ... Simply by maintaining the regulatory status quo, smog-forming emissions from light-duty vehicles are projected to drop from just under 10 per cent of the Canadian total currently to just 4.1 per cent by 2020 ... rather than being the villain in the scene, as it is routinely portrayed, the auto industry is actually at the forefront of efforts to reduce the problem ... Nowhere in North America is CO2 production from automobiles directly regulated. But it is indirectly regulated in the United States through Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards ... Any form of combustion is a source of CO2 production ... Burn less fuel and you will generate proportionately less CO2 ... Canadian auto companies have voluntarily complied with the U.S. CAFE standards for more than 20 years ... the Canadian vehicle fleet substantially betters those minimum requirements ... Even if all new cars were immediately made emissions-free, GM's Paterson says, 99 per cent of Canada's smog and greenhouse gas emissions would remain ... more than 1 million 1987 and older vehicles [are] still in service in a total vehicle population of 18 million, and new vehicles are added at a rate of just over 1.5 million per year. In terms of smog reduction, removing just those 20-year-old and older vehicles would immediately accomplish what it will take 24 years to do by focusing only on new vehicles ... Unmentioned in most of the discussion concerning both air pollution and greenhouse gas production is the significant role of traffic congestion ... The only token effort to address that problem from any level of government seems to be increased support for public transit ... even improved public transit is only a feasible alternative for a very small proportion of those people on the roads ... There is no single solution to the problems of air pollution and climate change ... will take a multi-faceted approach that goes well beyond further regulation of new-vehicle emissions to significantly improve either situation."
Four Powerful ETO Options
§ Carpool HOT (High Occupancy Toll) lanes. Greater Toronto Area (GTA) expressway drivers are getting familiar with carpool HOV lanes on Highway 403 and Highway 404. HOV lanes are reserved for private vehicles carrying passengers, and for buses, taxis and limousines. The purpose of HOV lanes is to remove traffic by encouraging carpooling. Traffic capacity underutilization is sometimes an issue with carpool HOV lanes. When an HOV lane does not carry its designed load of 2000 vehicles per hour, this represents a waste of precious vehicle-carrying highway capacity that is all too obvious to frustrated drivers stuck in congestion in neighbouring general-purpose lanes. The carpool HOT lane is an established and effective variation on the carpool HOV lane, that permits solo drivers of cars and light trucks to use the HOV lane, by paying a toll via automated toll collection ITS technology. Thus otherwise wasted highway vehicle-carrying capacity is put to good use and earns revenues. When a carpool HOV lane is ETO-enabled, HOT toll collection technology can be integrated with the ETO system. (See below Parallel HOV/HOT...)
§ Ramp metering: ETO adds the "missing link" of mainline lane flow guidance, to ramp metering. Ramp metering is an established and effective ITS method, which prevents highway traffic overload by regulating the flow of vehicles entering the highway at selected locations. GTA expressway drivers who drive eastbound on the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) through Mississauga, are familiar with ramp metering. Ramp metering uses a quick-cycling public luminous signal, releasing with each green light phase, one or two vehicles onto the highway mainline lanes, from the head of a queue of vehicles waiting at the on-ramp. When ramp metering is used without ETO, vehicles upstream of a metered ramp can unfairly monopolize the mainline lanes, leaving insufficient gaps in mainline traffic to accommodate drivers entering via the on-ramp. In this case, the ramp metering system will slow down the rate at which vehicles are being released from the on-ramp queue, and the length of the queue will grow, as will queue wait times. When ramp metering is used with ETO, ETO creates space in mainline lane traffic, to provide a more fair allocation of expressway capacity to the drivers waiting in the on-ramp queue. When used with ETO, more sophisticated forms of ramp metering will actually attempt to synchronize the release of individual vehicles, with specific ETO-made gaps in mainline traffic.
§ Parallel HOV/HOT carpool metered ramp queue: Selected metered on-ramp locations can have a second parallel, separately-metered priority HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) queue, so carpoolers, taxis, limousines, buses and emergency vehicles get priority access to the highway. Democratic 1:1 alternation between the (normally longer) general-purpose queue and the (normally shorter) HOV queue, ensures that the general-purpose queue keeps moving, albeit at a slower rate, even when there is constant HOV demand. Because the HOV queue will normally be shorter than the general-purpose queue, HOVehicles will spend less time waiting in their queue, than will vehicles waiting in the general-purpose queue. The HOT (High Occupancy Toll) feature is a congestion charging option for the HOV ramp queue, to earn revenues and enable solo drivers of cars and light trucks to pay a toll to get priority access to the expressway. When ETO is used with parallel HOV/HOT metered ramp queues, the important benefits of increased passenger occupancy in vehicles, can be achieved while all lanes of the highway operate at their maximum traffic-carrying capacity of 2000 [veh/hr]. This can change the business case for dedicated HOV highway lanes, which are sometimes underutilized in the absence of sufficient HOV traffic demand. (See above Carpool HOT (High Occupancy Toll) lanes.)
§ Speed-choice parallel lanes e.g. 130 / 110 / 90 [km/h] (75 / 65 / 55 [mph]). An important cause of congestion and accidents, in mixed-speed expressway traffic, is the frequent lane changing, braking and tailgating by faster drivers as they try to weave their way past slower vehicles. ETO offers the "laminar flow" option of separating drivers into different lanes by speed choice. Separating traffic into different lanes by speed, reduces traffic turbulence, accidents and driver stress. Higher speeds also yield more trips completed per hour. A more sophisticated version of ETO speed-choice lanes, will also operate the lanes at different headways e.g. 130 / 110 / 90 [km/h] @ 1.4 / 1.6 / 1.8 [secs] headways. Thus faster drivers will "pay" for the opportunity to drive faster, by accepting the responsibility of a shorter headway time. These shorter-headway drivers contribute directly to significantly increased traffic flow efficiency, benefiting all drivers by improving the effective capacity of the highway (3600 [secs/hr] / 1.6 [secs/veh] => 2250 [veh/hr], 3600 [secs/hr] / 1.4 [secs/veh] => 2570 [veh/hr]). The ETO speed-choice option is intended for use during times when the highway is not so heavily loaded, that all lanes must run slowly e.g. 70 / 70 / 70 [km/h] (40 / 40 / 40 [mph]) to accommodate very large numbers of vehicles simultaneously using the expressway. Some vehicle models on the market today come with an optional Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) unit that automatically maintains a driver-selected vehicle headway time, in addition to a driver-selected vehicle speed. These ACC-equipped vehicles will be especially well suited to the e.g. 130 [km/h] @ 1.4 [secs] headway operation. Of course vehicle makers must be able to supply ACC units permitting drivers to use these tighter headway settings. Eventually, automakers will offer ETO-enabled ACC units that communicate automatically with the ETO signal/detector heads in the pavement.
Ontario Provincial Government — ETO Political Situation — City of Toronto
Discussions with engineers at the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) have encouraged the inventor of ETO to continue with his efforts to recruit MTO support for the ETO project.
First informed of ETO on 30 April 2004, a too-cautious MTO has consistently officially declined since 20 January 2005 to fund the necessary $500,000 (maximum) detailed multi-disciplinary ETO feasibility investigation, although MTO "... commends Mr. Petrie on his [ETO] work ..." in a letter dated 1 February 2006 from previous MTO Minister, the Honourable Harinder Takhar.
Current MTO Minister the Honourable Donna Cansfield, confirmed in writing on 18 July 2006, MTO's continued hesitance to fund ETO investigation, pushing back onto the inventor all responsibility for producing feasibility information.
Ontario Premier the Honourable Dalton McGuinty and his colleagues in cabinet took the initiative to invest $100,000,000 of public monies to construct on Highways 403 and 404, experimental carpool HOV lanes to study their potential to ease highway traffic congestion. Hopefully Premier McGuinty and MTO Minister Cansfield will soon be ready to commit 0.5% of that $100,000,000 amount, to study and experiment with ETO.
The City of Toronto under Mayor David Miller, declines to allocate City resources to investigate the potential for ETO to reduce traffic congestion on City expressways: Gardiner Expressway, Don Valley Parkway and Allen Expressway. The City's Official Plan explicitly seeks to reduce the presence of the private automobile. The Mayor hopes that people driving private cars on congested City expressways, will abandon their cars and take public transit. It appears that instead of ETO, the anti-car environmentalist Mayor Miller, chooses three evils from ETO-preventable City expressway traffic congestion: (i) commuters and tourists suffering in preventable traffic congestion, and (ii) neighbours of City expressways breathing smog, from preventable traffic congestion and (iii) massive preventable production of carbon dioxide.
Expressway Worlds Deserve Answers — ETO Feasibility Investigation — Four Key Issues
ETO development is at the detailed conceptual design stage, and is a method as yet unproven on highways. The next major step in the development of ETO is a detailed multidisciplinary ETO feasibility investigation, estimated maximum cost $500,000, to provide credible and quantified answers to the following four key ETO feasibility issues:
§ Will sufficient numbers of expressway drivers successfully participate in ETO headway guidance?
§ What is the expected impact on traffic performance and emissions, of driver participation in ETO signaling?
§ Predicted cost, reliability & longevity of pavement-embedded ETO signal/detector equipment?
§ How will the development, manufacture, installation, operation and maintenance of ETO be funded?
Research done to date by the inventor has yielded encouraging answers to the above questions.
Most expressway drivers the inventor has asked, say that they will gladly participate in ETO signal guidance to save time, use less fuel and achieve a smooth, stress-free trip. The first ETO demonstration on the GTA expressway system, will be introduced at a carefully-chosen site, and be preceded by an intensive driver education media / Internet campaign.
The inventor is confident that once drivers on an expressway system get used to participating in ETO's ultra-simple "early / ok / late" headway guidance signaling, traffic will mostly flow in smooth-running convoys, with much less tailgating, braking and lane-changing. When traffic in all lanes is moving steadily, drivers have little incentive to resort to aggressive driving practises such as tailgating and frequent lane changes. Drivers will be clamouring for "more ETO".
The preferred political approach for ETO success, is voluntary driver participation in ETO signaling, with 100% anonymous vehicles and drivers. ETO is unlike punitive-focused methods such as carpool HOV lanes and congestion charging, that require police and/or automated enforcement to achieve driver compliance. ETO gives every driver a direct incentive to participate in ETO signal guidance. 100% driver participation is not required for ETO success. Even 20 percent driver participation can significantly ease congestion and improve traffic performance. Certain expressway communities may choose, through their political processes, to implement enforcement of regulations requiring some degree of driver conformance with ETO signaling. ETO can be implemented with facilities to support this enforcement.
Complementarity — Other Gridlock Solutions — All Work Better With ETO
§ Public Transit — Efficient public transit is absolutely vital to the success of every urban region. Naive transit idealists blithely ignore the economic damage to the auto industry of their anti-car ideology, while they hope to persuade millions of car drivers out of cars and onto public transit. ETO welcomes buses to fast-running ETO-optimized expressways. ETO is an exciting win-win ideologically-neutral technology, that defends both environmental rights and transportation rights, and also confounds anti-car ideologues, by defeating their "more highways = more congestion" mantra.
§ In-vehicle Intelligent Transportation Systems — The automaker fantasy: futuristic hands-off self-driving vehicles will communicate with each other and with a central system, by wireless technologies that are insecure, unreliable and exposed to terrorist hack. Some hungry automobile manufacturers teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, dream of selling millions of new self-driving vehicles to naive car buyers. Prediction: the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) will adopt a robust ETO "smart road" technology foundation, that uses highly reliable and secure fibre-optic communication and that works with every vehicle on the road today. Ultimately, clever automakers and after-marketers will sell in-vehicle ETO-enabled ITS options, synergistically integrated with ETO "smart road" foundation technology. Cell phone and other mobile communication providers, will find strong demand for ETO-enabled offerings.
§ Carpool HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) Lanes — Carpooling, by increasing the number of passengers carried per vehicle, adds a powerful efficiency multiplier effect, boosting ETO benefits. The carpool HOV lane without ETO is a purely low-tech social-engineering palliative approach to improving traffic efficiency, by coercively increasing the number of occupants in vehicles. Unlike ETO technology which actively maximizes the effective vehicle-carrying capacity of the highway, HOV lanes merely seek to reduce traffic loads to the point where unoptimized traffic will flow with less congestion. Simply eliminating vehicles from the road, HOV lanes do not inherently extract the maximum possible vehicle-carrying capacity from highway assets. Carpool HOV lanes without ETO can reduce traffic safety due to the often large difference in vehicle speeds, between a slow congested general-purpose lane beside a fast lightly-used carpool HOV lane, where the lanes are not separated by a physical barrier. ETO will optimize the traffic flowing on every expressway lane, including carpool HOV lanes. ETO will also prevent the problem of congestion that often occurs where a carpool HOV lane ends and carpool HOV traffic merges into general-purpose traffic flow. See Priority parallel HOV/HOT carpool metered ramp queue, above.
Ontario's 2007 Election Is Coming
§ ETO technology is a potent political rallying-cause for inspiring expressway drivers and neighbours. The inventor of ETO is working to incorporate the ITS-ETO Co-operative - GTA, and use Internet "viral marketing" to recruit 100,000s of co-op members @ $10 per member per year, from both: (i) the 500,000+ fed-up gridlocked GTA expressway user community: commuters, other travellers, commercial fleets & drivers, shippers, and (ii) the GTA community of expressway neighbours, mobilizing these ETO beneficiaries into an effective polity to fight for their transportation rights and environmental rights, to see their taxes pay for investigation and rollout of ETO.
§ Using the power of exponentially explosive Internet "viral marketing" to ramp up co-op membership, the ITS-ETO Co-operative - GTA web site will feature "Highway 121", a dramatic 15-second computer-animated movie of vehicles on an expressway responding to ETO luminous headway guidance signaling. (Precursor: the graphic above.)
§ Recruitment of a large paid-up ITS-ETO Co-operative - GTA membership will: (i) answer the key feasibility question of driver participation in ETO signaling, and (ii) raise funds for ETO lobbying and development.
§ Ten Percent ($1) of each co-op membership fee paid, will flow to the Citizens' Transportation Alliance (CTA) http://www.gettorontomoving.ca to support the CTA's balanced transit + roads + technology plan for gridlock relief.
ETO was invented by Ontario professional engineer A. Stephen (Steve) Petrie, P.Eng., apetrie@attglobal.net working full-time on ETO since June 2002. Many contributions have been made to the ETO project, by many other people graciously investing their time, ideas and moral support.
(22 February 2007)
Copyright © 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 Steve Petrie, P.Eng.
ITS-ETO - CTA Web Site - ETO Content - v3 - 20070222.pdf
