For more than two decades, the federal government has set aside a slice of the communications spectrum for the auto industry in the hopes that carmakers could deploy connected-vehicle technology that prevented crashes and saved lives.
That hasn't happened. At least in widespread fashion.
Frustrated by the pace of progress, the Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote Wednesday, Nov. 18, on a proposal that would strip the auto industry of more than half its allocated bandwidth. Critics say that would squander billions in R&D investments and jeopardize the industry's ability to transmit these communications — known as vehicle to everything, or V2X — that could warn motorists of imminent dangers.
"This is the ultimate abandonment of public safety by the FCC," said Shailen Bhatt, CEO of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that works to advance R&D of technologies that improve road safety and sustainable transportation.
"Every voice in transportation has said this is the wrong thing to do," he said. "I can't believe the FCC is willfully disregarding the experts on safety. It's just stunning."
Organizations from the National Sheriffs' Association to the League of American Bicyclists have voiced opposition to the proposal, which industry experts expect will pass. Even U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said altering the spectrum would put safety efforts "in peril" and said the proposal "is not grounded in data or sound science" in comments submitted to the FCC.
At the heart of the proposal is a yearslong dispute over two methods for sending the potential safety messages.
Starting with the bandwith allocation in 1999, researchers began transmitting them via Dedicated Short Range Communications, or DSRC, on the 5.9-gigahertz spectrum. The FCC plan would end these types of transmissions and reduce the industry's overall spectrum allocation by 45 megahertz. Alternately, it would reserve a 30-MHz portion of the spectrum for a newer way of transmitting safety messages using cellular technology, a method car companies such as Ford Motor Co. and Audi have tested in pilot projects in recent years. Audi is using it to test effectiveness in addressing crashes in construction and school zones.
"Here's the plain truth: DSRC has done virtually nothing over the past 21 years to improve automotive safety," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai wrote in remarks supporting cellular-based V2X and the shift of 45 MHz of the spectrum to the Wi-Fi industry.
Exactly why DSRC has never been deployed at scale remains a contentious subject. Toyota Motor Corp. initially announced plans to deploy DSRC across its lineup by the mid-2020s, a step hailed in the industry. But the automaker scuttled those plans in April 2019 amid regulatory uncertainty.
In multiple documents spanning two administrations, the U.S. Department of Transportation said the government should not pick the winning technology. The FCC has no such qualms.
"If we want to lead the world in automotive communications safety technology, the answer isn't to double down on the failed DSRC standard," an FCC spokesperson said. "That would be akin to doubling down on zeppelins with the aim of leading the world in air travel."
If the DSRC path was rebuffed by regulatory uncertainty, some worry the cellular path might find technical uncertainty ahead. Industry experts worry cellular V2X messages sent on a smaller slice of spectrum may be prone to interference — which could render them useless for providing immediate notification of safety hazards.
The FCC says "there is no evidence" to support those fears and that its record shows cellular V2X is less prone to interference than DSRC.
But the 5G Automotive Association, a global organization of automotive and telecom companies promoting the cellular approach, says in a written statement its members are "concerned about the potential for harmful interference from Wi-Fi devices allowed to use the lower portion" of the band. Noting Chao's objection, both Republican and Democratic members of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure have requested the U.S. Government Accountability Office conduct a study into the safety implications.
In the meantime, delays in deployment could cost lives on the road.
"I am not going to say which technology is better or which is worse," said Debby Bezzina, senior program manager for the connected-vehicle test environment at the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute. "But I can say that DSRC is ready, and if we start deploying that, we can start saving lives today."
A University of Michigan study published in 2018 found that waiting five years to deploy cellular V2X rather than moving ahead with DSRC today would cost as many as 75,098 lives.
The university has been a key testing venue for DSRC. It has outfitted 2,150 vehicles in the Ann Arbor area and 75 roadside units with DSRC capability, which would be rendered useless should the FCC proposal pass. Documents from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, part of the Department of Commerce, suggest it would cost $645 million to "rip and replace" current DSRC equipment already deployed in dozens of projects across the country.
For researchers such as Bezzina, the proposal is devastating.
"I could live with the conversion to cellular V2X, but I can't live with taking the band away for the sake of entertainment," she said. "I find it appalling and really disappointing, personally. There's a lot at stake, and I prided myself on working to save lives."
Bhatt echoed similar sentiments. When he was executive director of the Colorado and Delaware departments of transportation, he was notified every time there was a traffic death in those states.
"You had a sense of responsibility," he said. "It's really personal for me. ... So now, at a time when the country is focused on the deaths of about 1,000 Americans a day from the pandemic, we're ignoring 100 deaths a day of people on the roadways. There's the refrain of, 'We should listen to the experts on the pandemic.' I can't believe the FCC is willfully disregarding the experts on safety."
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