Research in Progress

Automated Vehicles Continuation: Data Privacy and Liability

Automated and connected vehicles promise many benefits for the US transportation system, but the data privacy implications are not well understood or defined. The work under this task continues the work from the previous fiscal year at defining the associated data privacy concerns and potential policy issues. The project will document how other states have managed data privacy in recent legislation for connected and automated vehicles; identify best practices from the literature; define the current data privacy environment for the State of Texas; and further identify, categorize, and describe the different types of information transmitted in and out of automated/connected vehicles that contains – or has the potential to contain – personally identifiable information. The project also includes a task for researching automated and connected vehicle liability issues, and potentially the administrative work associated with developing a workshop on the subject.

Disruptive Communications Technology and Transportation

Significant advances in transportation technology and the need for subsequent policy are often triggered by sudden disruptive changes in technological capabilities. Furthermore, the continued development of the “Internet of Things” (IOT), which will ultimately connect people, processes and data into wide-scale networks, is likely to alter how the State of Texas delivers transportation services. This study is identifying and evaluating imminent disruptive communications technologies, with the goal of assessing the implications of these developments on state transportation policy and associated implementation strategies.

Policy Implications of Sharing Transportation-Related Data

The research is identifying the various forms of data – both current and anticipated – that will require sharing across jurisdictions, and investigating shortcomings that may limit the sharing of that data to facilitate advanced transportation operations. Issues of particular interest are region-to-region sharing, state-to-state sharing, interstate agreements for data sharing, data exchanges, internal agreements, privacy, security, and liability. Other challenges that may emerge include limitations related to sharing data across international borders and facilitating agreements with third-party private sector data providers.

Implications of Automated Vehicle Crash Scenarios

This project explores possible policy questions under crash scenarios involving automated vehicles, and evaluates what the state should do to protect the public, ensure safe operation of vehicles, and develop data retrieval and data management protocols. The research may include a one-day workshop involving federal and state safety, law enforcement, and emergency response representatives.

Vehicle Telematics as a Platform for Road Use Fees

Vehicle telematics (i.e., in-vehicle computer and technology equipment) will continue to improve as they are developed and installed in passenger and commercial vehicles. Such applications are likely to be standard features in a growing number of new model vehicles. There is a strong potential for these systems to be leveraged to achieve transportation-related public policy goals and, in particular, revenue generation. This research will examine technologies and associated applications such as in-vehicle operating systems, GPS, on-board maps, wireless communication platforms, mobile device networking components and the various communication languages supporting these technologies to assess their potential to support future road user fee measurement and reporting.

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