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Hello all

Traffic Safety Incorporated a not for profit organization conducted Social acceptance automated vehicles road trials In the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Australia,

The social acceptance trials were conducted at Various locations

We presented a level 5 Automated vehicle to the members of the public, offering members of the public, a lift to a local destination from a Sunday market where we believed members of the public would be most relaxed.

Steering wheel was removed, and pedals, Our prototype is nothing spectacular just a plain modified ford Mondeo, Manufactured in Valencia Spain for the Australian Market.

To our astonishment only 33% of the public offered accepted the challenge, and when asked how they felt about it, Well most people did not like the fact of having 0 control of the vehicle.

We returned to the drawing board, And Installed  voice recognition to the vehicle, We disabled all our vehicle guidance systems, and only kept voice commands and of course crash collision system and lane departure warning system. and Modified Adaptive cruise control. ( navigation maps with spoken instructions were not permitted but visual navigational aid were permitted) The navigation app could inadvertently interfere with the traveler instructions

At a later date we returned to the same location that we had visited previously visited with a fully automated vehicle and offered a fully voice driven vehicle. Acceptance of our challenge increased to a 57%. and travelers expressed more joy in the test drive.

Our conclusion on those social road trials were, a bit of a focus changer to our research and development, While we were researching full automation,  We concluded that taking all control from the passengers would be a long process, At our general annual meeting We decided  to limit our vehicle Automation to a compromise between voice commands and CAV , Passengers must be able at all times to override the system via a least some safety orientated voice commands.

So at the moment our research will be redirected at developing a compromise between CAV and the Traveler.

Being a Non profit organization we are quite happy  to listen to your contribution,  and would love to hear what you have to say.

[traffic-safety-things-blog]

Retrotek Australia Automated vehicles road trial looking for testers

Retrotek Australia Automated vehicles road trial looking for testers

Retrotek Australia Automated vehicles road trial looking for testers

  Please contact us for details

[traffic-safety-things-blog]

Retrotek Australia Is a Company dedicated to measuring Road Markings Retro-reflectivity on State roads, For the purpose of monitoring state of Road markings, And reporting to the relevant Authorities. We Currently have 2 systems in place Retro-reflectivty Measuring and Advanced driver assisted systems road Certification.

Retrotek Australia are the developers of an automated vehicles guidance system called Advanced Road data Systems called ARDS Where the vehicle is guided purely by line markings. In simple terms Lane keeping technology on steroids. Speed limits are changed via a simple device proprietary to us , stop instructions, red lights status , slow down, stop , turn left , turn right, anyway not going into how we do that, We currently are running a vehicle Fully automated with very promising Results. Operates from a standard Sat Nav System.

Retrotek Australia is trying and researching into minimizing the connectivity for Automated Vehicles , We see the Connected feature as an invasion of privacy (possible) where on a connected vehicle conversation can be listened to. Passengers can be video recorded, Identified via facial recognition. ( we are not talking about automated public transport systems)

The ARDS sytem can navigate on roads with no line markings but the road requires to be ARDS compatible The System can detect human , Kangaroos , Wombat and rabbits ( the last 2 the system has missed a few times ) wombats and rabbits have gone to the bottom of priorities.

Retrotek Australia is staying away from connectivity for the following reasons 1) all connected vehicles are based on visual data acquisition, Every thing that the cameras and sensors record or detect are entered into a computer or hardware that is directly connected to a mainframe, 2) Consequently Face recognition software could be added meaning that every connected vehicle is recording you. 3) Imagine going to the city and being photographed 1000 times a day every step you make, How will you privacy be protected ? 4) We at Retrotek Australia do not agree with Connected Vehicle Automation Except in the public Transport field. 5) Our System operates within existing Infrastructure ( Minor Adjustment) and limited to road having being certified for our system ( One part is the certification of line markings, Road Studs, and standards compatible with the current lane keeping Technology.and of course the ARDS system)

Retrotek Australia is quite happy to share how our Prototype guides itself without a driver to the right People. But at the moment the project is at a stand still, since certification of the roads is to slow without the Available Automation equipment available from Overseas ( We can’t Afford it ) so spending days analyzing road data manually, a tedious task.

So far our prototype has Traveled the east link in Melbourne, the peninsula Freeway, the Monash freeway , Domain tunnel, Westgate freeway to Geelong and a few of the major roads. The only problem we encountered was the color of the lighting in the Tunnel affected the Lane keeping technology and the ARDS system forcing us to take control of the vehicle remotely whilst in colored light tunnel, The Bolte Bridge lighting also affected the ARDS system, We will keep testing our prototype MR PINGER, It would be nice if the Victorian supported us but so far no luck With The minister of transport, So MR PINGER has now taken third place after family, work, Mr PINGER but we love MR PINGER. So if you see it around HONK at it showing your support For an Australian Endeavor, We have an Automated vehicles Australian made (By the way MR PINGER is a modified Mercedes Smart car.)

Contact us

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[traffic-safety-things-blog]

(via autonomous Vehicles Victoria)

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5 posts!

[traffic-safety-things-blog]

Just a quick query ,  Road safety Technology developers. What kind of membership is granted to them . We have been testing Vehicle automation for 3 years, Our system is accredited to CEN EN1436,

  retroreflective (RL) data in ‘Real Driving Dry and Wet Conditions” at night. Acquires the retroreflective values (RL) for single and double, broken and continuous road markings. Measures simultaneously…