ARECIBO

Hurricane Maria, as you well know, has caused massive damage to the island of Puerto Rico.  At this writing, the entire island is without power and is struggling to exist without water, telephone communication, health and sanitation facilities.   The digital pictures below will give some indication as to the devastation.

Maria made landfall in the southeastern part of the U.S. territory Wednesday with winds reaching 155 miles per hour, knocking out electricity across the island. An amazingly strong wind devastated the storm flooded parts of downtown San Juan, downed trees and ripped the roofs from homes. Puerto Rico has little financial wherewithal to navigate a major catastrophe, given its decision in May to seek protection from creditors after a decade of economic decline, excessive borrowing and the loss of residents to the U.S. mainland.  Right now, PR is totally dependent upon the United States for recovery.

Imagine winds strong enough to damage and position an automobile in the fashion shown above.  I cannot even tell the make of this car but we must assume it weighs at least two thousand pounds and yet it is thrown in the air like a paper plane.

One huge issue is clearing roads so supplies for relief and medical attention can be delivered to the people.  This is a huge task.

One question I had—how about Arecibo?  Did the radio telescope survive and if so, what damages were sustained?  The digital below will show Arecibo Radio Telescope during “better times”.

Five decades ago, scientists sought a radio telescope that was close to the equator, according to Arecibo’s website. This location would allow the telescope to track planets passing overhead, while also probing the nature of the ionosphere — the layer of the atmosphere in which charged particles produce the northern lights.  The telescope is part of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center. The National Science Foundation has a co-operative agreement with the three entities that operate it: SRI International, the Universities Space Research Association and UMET (Metropolitan University.) That radio telescope has provided an absolute wealth of information about our solar system and surrounding and bodies outside our solar system.

The Arecibo Observatory contains the second-largest radio telescope in the world, and that telescope has been out of service ever since Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on Sept. 20. Maria hit the island as a Category 4 hurricane.

While Puerto Rico suffered catastrophic damage across the island, the Arecibo Observatory suffered “relatively minor damages,” Francisco Córdova, the director of the observatory, said in a Facebook post on Sunday (Sept. 24).

In the words of Mr. Cordova: “Still standing after #HurricaneMaria! We suffered some damages, but nothing that can’t be repaired or replaced! More updates to follow in the coming days as we complete our detailed inspections. We stand together with Puerto Rico as we recover from this storm.#PRStrong”.

Despite Córdova’s optimistic message, staff members and other residents of Puerto Rico are in a pretty bad situation. Power has yet to be restored to the island since the storm hit, and people are running out of fuel for generators. With roads still blocked by fallen trees and debris, transporting supplies to people in need is no simple task.

National Geographic’s Nadia Drake, who has been in contact with the observatory and has provided extensive updates via Twitter, reported that “some staff who have lost homes in town are moving on-site” to the facility, which weathered the storm pretty well overall. Drake also reported that the observatory “will likely be serving as a FEMA emergency center,” helping out members of the community who lost their homes in the storm.

The mission of Arecibo will continue but it may be a long time before the radio telescope is fully functional.  Let’s just hope the lives of the people manning the telescope can be put back in order quickly so important and continued work may again be accomplished.

C.T.E.

Portions of this post are taken from the New York Times, By KEN BELSON SEPT. 21, 2017.

There has been a great deal of discussion in this country about the effect of “impact sports” on cogitative ability.  From the NYTs article highlighted below, you can see the possible implications from repetitive concussions received during a very short time in the NFL.

The brain scan came as a surprise even to researchers who for years have been studying the relationship between brain disease and deaths of professional football players.

Aaron Hernandez, the former New England Patriots tight end and a convicted murderer, was 27 when he committed suicide in April. Yet a posthumous examination of his brain showed he had such a severe form of the degenerative brain disease C.T.E. that the damage was akin to that of players well into their 60s. 

C.T.E., or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, has been found in more than one hundred (100) former N.F.L. players, some of whom committed suicide, according to researchers at Boston University.

Yet the results of the study of Mr. Hernandez’s brain are adding another dimension to his meteoric rise and fall that could raise questions about the root of his erratic, violent behavior and lead to a potentially tangled legal fight with the N.F.L., the most powerful sports league in the United States.

WHAT IS C.T.E.
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a degenerative brain disease found in athletes, military veterans, and others with a history of repetitive brain trauma. In CTE, a protein called Tau forms clumps that slowly spread throughout the brain, killing brain cells. CTE has been seen in people as young as seventeen (17) years of age, but symptoms do not generally begin appearing until years after the onset of head impacts.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, we can see the effects of CTE with the image below:

As you can certainly see, there is a tremendous difference between the appearance of a healthy brain on the left and a brain ravaged by CTE on the right.

Early symptoms of CTE usually appear in a patient’s late twenties (20s) or thirties (30s), and affect a patient’s mood and behavior. Some common changes seen include impulse control problems, aggression, depression, and paranoia.

As the disease progresses, some patients may experience problems with thinking and memory, including memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, and eventually progressive dementia. Cognitive symptoms tend to appear later than mood and behavioral symptoms, and generally first appear in a patient’s forties (40s) or fifties (50s). Patients may exhibit one or both symptom clusters. In some cases, symptoms worsen with time (even if the patient suffers no additional head impacts). In other cases, symptoms may be stable for years before worsening.

The best available evidence tells us that CTE is caused by repetitive hits to the head sustained over a period of years. This doesn’t mean a handful of concussions: most people diagnosed with CTE suffered hundreds or thousands of head impacts over the course of many years playing contact sports or serving in the military. And it’s not just concussions: the best available evidence points towards sub-concussive impacts, or hits to the head that don’t cause full-blown concussions, as the biggest factor. With that being the case, just who is at risk.  The chart below will give some idea.

SYMPTOMS OF C.T.E.:

Early symptoms of CTE usually appear in a patient’s late twenties (20s) or thirties (30s), and affect a patient’s mood and behavior. Some common changes seen include impulse control problems, aggression, depression, and paranoia. A short list is as follows:

• Difficulty thinking (cognitive impairment). This might be in the form of confusion or significant delays in taking action.
• Impulsive behavior. This impulsive behavior is generally “new” to the individual and does not represent normal behavior
• Depression or apathy.
• Short-term memory loss. This is continuous short-term memory loss and much more significant that forgetfulness.
• Difficulty planning and carrying out tasks (executive function)
• Emotional instability. Emotional instability and impulsive behavior and different reactions to a set of circumstances. You may look at the clinical differences.
• Substance abuse.
• Suicidal thoughts or behavior. This is exactly what happened to Aaron Hernandez.  CTE and being locked up 24/7 probably caused feelings of hopelessness.

CONCLUSIONS:

I remember as a kid just about getting down on one knee asking my mom to allow me to play football.  There was a real battle in our house over that.  I was instructed to bring home the equipment I drew from the football inventory so mom and dad could take a look.   We immediately went to Martin-Thompson Sporting Goods to buy me a new helmet with a proper face mask.  Even back in the early sixties head trauma was an issue and every parent knew what could happen.  Equipment improves but so does the size of the players.  STILL A PROBLEM.

PRODUCT LOGISTICS AND SUPPLY CHAIN

In preparation for this post, I asked my fifteen-year old grandson to define product logistics and product supply chain.  He looked at me as though I had just fallen off a turnip truck.  I said you know, how does a manufacturer or producer of products get those products to the customer—the eventual user of the device or commodity.  How does that happen? I really need to go do my homework.  Can I think about this and give you an answer tomorrow?

SUPPLY CHAIN LOGISTICS:

Let’s take a look at Logistics and Supply Chain Management:

“Logistics typically refers to activities that occur within the boundaries of a single organization and Supply Chain refers to networks of companies that work together and coordinate their actions to deliver a product to market. Also, traditional logistics focuses its attention on activities such as procurement, distribution, maintenance, and inventory management. Supply Chain Management (SCM) acknowledges all of traditional logistics and also includes activities such as marketing, new product development, finance, and customer service” – from Essential of Supply Chain Management by Michael Hugos.

“Logistics is about getting the right product, to the right customer, in the right quantity, in the right condition, at the right place, at the right time, and at the right cost (the seven Rs of Logistics)” – from Supply Chain Management: A Logistics Perspective By John J. Coyle et al

Now, that wasn’t so difficult, was it?  A good way to look at is as follows:

MOBILITY AND THE SUPPLY CHAIN:

There have been remarkable advancements in supply chain logistics over the past decade.  Most of those advancements have resulted from companies bringing digital technologies into the front office, the warehouse, and transportation to the eventual customer.   Mobile technologies are certainly changing how products are tracked outside the four walls of the warehouse and the distribution center.  Realtime logistics management is within the grasp of many very savvy shippers.  To be clear:

Mobile networking refers to technology that can support voice and/or data network connectivity using wireless, via a radio transmission solution. The most familiar application of mobile networking is the mobile phone or tablet or i-pad.  From real-time goods tracking to routing assistance to the Internet of Things (IoT) “cutting wires” in the area that lies between the warehouse and the customer’s front door is gaining ground as shippers grapple with fast order fulfillment, smaller order sizes, and ever-evolving customer expectations.

In return for their tech investments, shippers and logistics managers are gaining benefits such as short-ended lead times, improved supply chain visibility, error reductions, optimized transportation networks and better inventory management.  If we combine these advantages we see that “wireless” communications are helping companies work smarter and more efficiently in today’s very fast-paced business world.

MOBILITY TRENDS:

Let’s look now at six (6) mobility trends.

1. Increasingly Sophisticated Vehicle Communications—There was a time when the only contact a driver had with home base was after an action, such as load drop-off, took place or when there was an in-route problem. Today, as you might expect, truck drivers, pilots and others responsible for getting product to the customer can communicate real-time.  Cell phones have revolutionized and made possible real-time communication.
2. Trucking Apps—By 2015, Frost & Sullivan indicated the size of the mobile trucking app market hit $35.4 billion dollars. Mobile apps are being launched, targeting logistics almost constantly. With the launch of UBER Freight, the competition in the trucking app space has heated up considerably, pressing incumbents to innovate and move much faster than ever before.
3. Its’ Not Just for the Big Guys Anymore: At one time, fleet mobility solutions were reserved for larger companies that could afford them.  As technology has advanced and become more mainstream and affordable, so have fleet mobility solution.
4. Mobility Helps Pinpoint Performance and Productivity Gaps: Knowing where everything is at any one given time is “golden”. It is the Holy Grail for every logistics manager.  Mobility is putting that goal within their reach.
5. More Data Means More Mobile Technology to Generate and Support Logistics: One great problem that is now being solved, is how to handle perishable goods and refrigerated consumer items.  Shippers who handle these commodities are now using sensors to detect trailer temperatures, dead batteries, and other problems that would impact their cargos.  Using sensors, and the data they generate, shippers can hopefully make much better business decisions and head off problems before they occur.  Sensors, if monitored properly, can indicate trends and predict eventual problems.
6. Customers Want More Information and Data—They Want It Now: Customer’s expectations for real-time shipment data is now available at their fingertips without having to pick up a telephone or send an e-mail.  Right now, that information is available quickly online or with a smartphone.

CONCLUSIONS: 

The world is changing at light speed, and mobility communications is one technology making this possible.  I have no idea as to where we will be in ten years, but it just might be exciting.

TRUCKING

I have several clients I try to keep happy each week.  One is in Cleveland, Tennessee. That’s about a forty-five (45) minute drive for me, one way, so I get to see a great deal of Interstate traffic.  This is my thirteenth year with this company as a client so I have made that trip multiple times.  There is NO time of the day that I do not see an armada of fifty-three (53) foot rigs hauling their load from point “A” to point “B”.  The numbers are quite frankly staggering.  According to the American Trucking Association (ATA) for the year 2016:

• The big rigs moved 10.42 billion tons of freight or seventy percent (70%) of all domestic freight tonnage.
• The nation’s commercial trucks paid $41.3 billion in state and federal highway user fees and taxes. The average five-axel-trailer pays more than $5,600.00 in taxes annually.
• There were 33.8 million trucks registered for business purposes, including 3.68 million Class 8 trucks. (NOTE: The Class 8 truck gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) is a vehicle with a GVWR exceeding 33000 pounds (14969 kg). These include tractor trailer tractors as well as single-unit dump trucks of a GVWR over 33,000 pounds; such trucks typically have 3 or more axles.)
• The 33.8 million trucks mentioned above burned 38.8 billion gallons of diesel fuel and 15.5 billion gallons of gasoline. Today’s average price per gallon for diesel is $2.71.
• They traveled 450.4 billion miles.
• Approximately 7.4 million Americans are employed in trucking-related jobs, including 3.5 million as truck drivers.
• Trucking is an industry made up of small businesses; 91% of motor carriers operate six or fewer trucks and 97.3% operate less than 20.
• Annual revenues for 2016 totaled $676.2 billion.
• Freight volumes are projected to grow 2.8% in 2017 with an annual growth rate of 3.4% through 2023.
• Truckload volumes are expected to grow 2.7% per year from 2017 to 2023.
• Short haul or LTL shipments, will increase 3.3% per year from 2017 to 2023.

Companies, small and large, are making concerted efforts to lessen costs for diesel fuel and obtain greater efficencies thereby reducing overall total costs of operation.  This is a nationwide exercise all movers long-haul and short-haul are participating in.  We are already seeing FedEx, UPS, the Federal Post Office, DHL, police departments, taxi cab companies and others convert from diesel to propane or natural gas as the fuel of choice.  This not only reduces operating expense but reduces carbon emissions.   We also see companies who design and build engines for these big rigs, working hard to improve mileage and engine efficencies.  Progress is being made on a yearly basis.  So, the next time you pass an LTL or STL hauler, think about the industry and the efforts they are in the process of adopting to improve their company.

MULTITASKING

THE DEFINITION:

“Multitasking, in a human context, is the practice of doing multiple things simultaneously, such as editing a document or responding to email while attending a teleconference.”

THE PROCESS:

The concept of multitasking began in a computing context. Computer multitasking, similarly to human multitasking, refers to performing multiple tasks at the same time. In a computer, multitasking refers to things like running more than one application simultaneously.   Modern-day computers are designed for multitasking. For humans, however, multitasking has been decisively proven to be an ineffective way to work. Research going back to the 1980s has indicated repeatedly that performance suffers when people multitask.

REALITY:

Multitasking is not a natural human trait.  In a few hundred years, natural evolution may improve human abilities but for now, we are just not good at it.  In 2007, an ABC Evening News broadcast cited, “People are interrupted once every ten and one-half minutes (10.5).  It takes twenty-three (23) minutes to regain your train of thought.  People lose two point one (2.1) hours each day in the process of multitasking.”

A great article entitled “No Task Left Behind” by Mark Gloria, indicated that a person juggled twelve (12) work spheres each day and fifty-seven percent (57%) of the work got interrupted.  As a result, twenty-three percent (23%) of the work to be accomplished that day got pushed to the next day and beyond. That was the case twelve years ago.  We all have been there trying to get the most of each day only to return home with frustration and more to do the next day.

Experience tells us that:

• For students, an increase in multitasking predicted poorer academic results.
• Multitaskers took longer to complete tasks and produced more errors.
• People had more difficulty retaining new information while multitasking.
• When tasks involved making selections or producing actions, even very simple tasks performed concurrently were impaired.
• Multitaskers lost a significant amount of time switching back and forth between tasks, reducing their productivity up to forty percent (40%).
• Habitual multitaskers were less effective than non-multitaskers even when doing one task at any given time because their ability to focus was impaired.
• Multitasking temporarily causes an IQ drop of 10 points, the equivalent of going without sleep for a full night.
• Multitaskers typically think they are more effective than is actually the case.
• There are limited amounts of energy for any one given day.
• Multitasking can lessen inter-personal skills and actually detract from the total work force.
• It encourages procrastination.
• A distracted mind may become permanent.

THE MYTH OF MULTITASKING:

People believe multitasking is a positive attribute, one to be admired. But multitasking is simply the lack of self-discipline. Multitasking is really switching your attention from one to task to another to another, instead of giving yourself over to a single task. Multitasking is easy; disciplined focus and attention is difficult.

The quality of your work is determined by how much of your time, your focus and your attention you give it. While multitasking feels good and feels busy, the quality of the work is never what it could be with the creator’s full attention. More and more, this is going to be apparent to those who are judging the work, especially when compared to work of someone who is disciplined and who has given the same or similar project their full focus and attention.

MENTAL FLOW:

In positive psychology, flow, also known as the zone, is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.

The individual who coined the phrase “flow” was Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. (Please do NOT ask me to pronounce Dr. Csikszentmihalyi’s last name.)  He made the following statement:

“The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times… The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”

– Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi  

EIGHT CHARACTERISTICS OF “FLOW”:

1. Complete concentration on the task.  By this we mean really complete.
2. Clarity of goals and reward in mind and immediate feedback. No need to focus and concentrate when there are no goals in mind to indicate completion.
3. Transformation of time (speeding up/slowing down of time). When in full “flow” mode, you lost time.
4. The experience is intrinsically rewarding, has an end itself.
5. Effortlessness and ease.
6. There is a balance between challenge and skills.
7. Actions and awareness are merged, losing self-conscious rumination.
8. There is a feeling of control over the task.

I personally do not get there often but the point is—you cannot get in the “zone”, you will not be able to achieve mental “flow” when you are in the multitasking mode.  I just will not happen.

As always, I welcome your comments.

IF

Like most Americans, I have been greatly saddened by the destruction caused by hurricanes Harvey and Irma.  My heart certainly goes out to all of those who have lost love ones, livelihood, and property.  Let’s quickly take a look at several facts relative to each to see if we can get some idea as to the rebuilding efforts and challenges that may lie ahead.

HARVEY:

• Category 4 storm that creating $180.00 billion dollars in damage
• Affected thirteen (13) million people.
• Will require more than $125.00 billion in Federal relief.
• As of 12 September, the death toll has reached seventy (70) people.
• Two feet of rain fell in the first twenty-four (24) hours. Flooding forced 39,000 people out of their homes and into shelters. Dallas created a mega-shelter for 5,000 evacuees out of its main convention center.
• Total rainfall hit 51.88 inches in Cedar Bayou on the outskirts of Houston. That’s a record for a single storm in the continental United States. “Harvey Broke a National Record Rainfall for a Single Tropical Storm,” Vox, August 30, 2017. Much of Harvey’s damage came from massive rainfall. It created a 1-in-1,000-year flood event. That means nothing of that size has happened within modern recorded history. Flooding covered southeast Texas the size of the state of New Jersey. Thirty inches of rain fell on an area near the coast the size of the state of Maryland. (Source: “Harvey Is a 1,000-year Flood Unprecedented in Scale,” The Washington Post, August 31, 2017.)
• Hurricane Harvey damaged 203,000 homes, of which 12,700 were destroyed. There were 507,000 people who registered for assistance with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The agency delivered 80 tractor-trailer loads of emergency supplies.
• Federal forces rescued 10,000 people who were trapped in their homes or on flooded highways.
• In the Gulf area, 1 million vehicles were ruined beyond repair, according to auto data firm Black Book. That includes 300,000 to 500,000 vehicles owned by individuals. (Source: “Harvey May Have Wrecked 1 Million Cars and Trucks,” USA Today, August 31, 2017.

IRMA:

The overall damage from hurricane Irene is yet to be determined but it obviously is in the billions.  Here is what we know to date.

• Reports indicate that Irma was directly responsible for 49 deaths: five (5) in the Dominican Republic, three (3) in Haiti, and forty-one (41) in the United States. Surprisingly, there were no reported deaths in the Bahamas, where Irene was the strongest.
• The hurricane’s strongest sustained winds, at 185 mph, blew for more than 65 consecutive hours, something no other tropical cyclone has done in the modern satellite era, which began 50 years ago, according to Philip Klotzbach, a meteorologist at Colorado State University.
• Irma’s tropical-storm-force winds and heavy rains resulted in power outages for up to three (3) million U.S. residents.
• Irma also produced copious amounts of rain in Puerto Rico, with a maximum of 22.05 inches in Gurabo Abajo, which caused major flooding in the northeastern portion of the island.
• In the United States, the Insurances Services Office reported that the hurricane caused an estimated $4.3 billion in losses. Doubling this figure in an attempt to account for uninsured losses results in an estimated total of $8.6 billion. Based on National Flood Insurance Program data, it is estimated that Irene caused $7.2 billion in losses from inland flooding and storm surge. Using these figures, the total damage estimate is $15.8 billion.
• With Irma’s projected path fixed over much of the United States East Coast, over 65 million people from the Carolinas to northern New England were estimated to be at risk.
• The storm paralleled offshore of Hispaniola, continuing to slowly intensify in the process. Shortly before making four landfalls in the Bahamas, Irene peaked as a 120 mph (190 km/h) Category 3 hurricane.
• More 6.2 million homes in Florida are without power and scores of people have been rescued. More than 160,000 people are thought to be waiting out the storm in shelters across the state.
• Irma also has one of the lowest pressures, at 914 millibars, ever recorded in a storm, according to Blake.
• Irma is also one of three hurricanes now formed in the Atlantic Ocean, something that has not happened in seven years. It is followed by Hurricane Jose, which was upgraded to Category 3 yesterday, though it is unclear whether that storm will hit the United States.
• Irma is over four (400) hundred miles across.

As I mentioned, most of the data relative to lives lost and the cost of damage are still much too early to announce for Irma.  The good news is–Americans are extremely resilient, hard-working and with great supports systems.  Those effected will rebuild.

One of my favorite writers is Rudyard Kipling. His poem IF defines and describes the American people and the American spirit much better than I ever could.

 IF

If you can keep your head when all about you

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

WHERE WERE YOU

Do you remember where you were on September 9, 2001?  At 8:46 on the morning of September 9, 2001 Mohammed Atta and other hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 11 crash the plane into floors 93-99 of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, killing everyone on board and hundreds inside the building.

Seventeen (17) minutes later at 9:03 am – Hijackers crash United Airlines Flight 175 into floors 75-85 of the WTC’s South Tower, killing everyone on board and hundreds inside the building.

The WTC buildings, before their demise, are pictured in the digital picture below.

The first crash is shown as follows:

I was in the “cube farm” working as a mechanical engineer for the Roper Corporation, Inc when Duane Lee came over and indicated his wife had just called telling him a small plane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center in New York.  I have a private pilot’s license so my first impression was a student pilot had gotten into heavy winds and mismanaged the controls allowing the plane to veer into the tower.  Maybe mechanical problems with the aircraft.  Maybe a medical emergency.  None of these really seemed plausible because there are very specific FAA regulations regarding airplanes relative to structures.

91.119 Minimum safe altitudes; general

“Over congested areas – Over any congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or over any open-air assembly of persons, an altitude of 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2,000 feet of the aircraft.”

” Over other than congested areas – An altitude of 500 feet above the surface except over open water or sparsely populated areas. In that case, the aircraft may not be operated closer than 500 feet to any person, vessel, vehicle, or structure.”

I think we can all agree; downtown NYC is a significantly congested area so one thousand feet (1,000) above and two thousand (2,000) feet within a horizontal radius would be the norm.  Something did NOT add up.  I called one of my sons and asked him if he had heard about the small airplane hitting the tower.  SMALL—not small, an airliner.  As we were speaking, the second plane hit the south tower.  It became very obvious that we were under attack.   That fact was confirmed when at 9:37 am – Hijackers aboard Flight 77 crash the plane into the western façade of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., killing fifty-nine (59) aboard the plane and one hundred and twenty-five (125) military and civilian personnel inside the building.

At 9:42 am – For the first time in history, the FAA grounds all flights over or bound for the continental United States. Some three thousand (3,300) commercial flights and twelve hundred (1,200) private planes are guided to airports in Canada and the United States over the next two-and-a-half hours.

The resulting destruction is given with the following three pictures:

 

At 10:07 am – After passengers and crew members aboard the hijacked Flight 93 contact friends and family and learn about the attacks in New York and Washington, they mount an attempt to retake the plane. In response, hijackers deliberately crash the plane into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, killing all 40 passengers and crew aboard.

For me, this was one of the worst days in my not-so-short life.  By noon, it was obvious we were at war.  With whom, I had no idea but payback was in order and with President Bush in office that payback would be assured.  Only cowards kill innocent civilians—ONLY COWARDS.

V2V TECHNOLOGY

You probably know this by now if you read my postings—my wife and I love to go to the movies.  I said GO TO THE MOVIES, not download movies but GO.  If you go to a matinée, and if you are senior, you get a reduced rate.  We do that. Normally a movie beginning at 4:00 P.M. will get you out by 6:00 or 6:30 P.M. Just in time for dinner. Coming from the Carmike Cinema on South Terrace, I looked left and slowly moved over to the inside lane—just in time to hit car in my “blind side”.  Low impact “touching” but never the less an accident anyway.  All cars, I’m told, have blind sides and ours certainly does.  Side mirrors do NOT cover all areas to the left and right of any vehicle.   Maybe there is a looming solution to that dilemma.

V2V:

The global automotive industry seems poised and on the brink of a “Brave New World” in which connectivity and sensor technologies come together to create systems that can eliminate life-threatening collisions and enable automobiles that drive themselves.  Knows as Cooperative Intelligent Transportation Systems, vehicle-to-vehicle or V2V technologies open the door for automobiles to share information and interact with each other, as well as emerging smart infrastructure. These systems, obviously, make transportation safer but offer the promise of reducing traffic congestion.

Smart features of V2V promise to enhance drive awareness via traffic alerts, providing notifications on congestion, obstacles, lane changing, traffic merging and railway crossing alerts.  Additional applications include:

• Blind spot warnings
• Forward collision warnings
• Sudden brake-ahead warnings
• Approaching emergency vehicle warnings
• Rollover warnings
• Travel condition data to improve maintenance services.

Already The Department of Transportation “Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communications: Readiness of V2V Technology for Application”, DOT HS 812 014, details the technology as follows:

“The purpose of this research report is to assess the readiness for application of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications, a system designed to transmit basic safety information between vehicles to facilitate warnings to drivers concerning impending crashes. The United States Department of Transportation and NHTSA have been conducting research on this technology for more than a decade. This report explores technical, legal, and policy issues relevant to V2V, analyzing the research conducted thus far, the technological solutions available for addressing the safety problems identified by the agency, the policy implications of those technological solutions, legal authority and legal issues such as liability and privacy. Using this report and other available information, decision-makers will determine how to proceed with additional activities involving vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), and vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P) technologies.”

The agency estimates there are approximately five (5) million annual vehicle crashes, with attendant property damage, injuries, and fatalities. While it may seem obvious, if technology can help drivers avoid crashes, the damage due to crashes simply never occurs.  This is the intent of an operative V2V automotive system. While these “vehicle-resident” crash avoidance technologies can be highly beneficial, V2V communications represent an additional step in helping to warn drivers about impending danger. V2V communications use on-board dedicated short-range radio communication devices to transmit messages about a vehicle’s speed, heading, brake status, and other information to other vehicles and receive the same information from the messages, with range and “line-of-sight” capabilities that exceed current and near-term “vehicle-resident” systems — in some cases, nearly twice the range. This longer detection distance and ability to “see” around corners or “through” other vehicles and helps V2V-equipped vehicles perceive some threats sooner than sensors, cameras, or radar.  This can warn drivers accordingly. V2V technology can also be fused with those vehicle-resident technologies to provide even greater benefits than either approach alone. V2V can augment vehicle-resident systems by acting as a complete system, extending the ability of the overall safety system to address other crash scenarios not covered by V2V communications, such as lane and road departure. A fused system could also augment system accuracy, potentially leading to improved warning timing and reducing the number of false warnings.

Communications represent the keystone of V2V systems.  The current technology builds upon a wireless standard called Dedicated Shor- Range Communication or DSRC.  DSRC is based upon the IEEE 802.11p protocol.  Transmissions of these systems consists of highly secure, short-to-medium-range, high-speed wireless communication channels, which enable vehicles to connect with each other for short periods of time.  Using DSRC, two or more vehicles can exchange basic safety messages, which describe each vehicle’s speed, position, heading, acceleration rate, size and braking status.  The system sends these messages to the onboard units of surrounding vehicles ten (10) times per second, where they are interpreted and provide warnings to the driver.  To achieve this, V2V systems leverage telematics to track vehicles via GPS monitoring the location, movements, behavior and status of each vehicle.

Based on preliminary information, NHTSA currently estimates that the V2V equipment and supporting communications functions (including a security management system) would cost approximately $341 to $350 per vehicle in 2020 dollars. It is possible that the cost could decrease to approximately $209 to $227 by 2058, as manufacturers gain experience producing this equipment (the learning curve). These costs would also include an additional $9 to $18 per year in fuel costs due to added vehicle weight from the V2V system. Estimated costs for the security management system range from $1 to $6 per vehicle, and they will increase over time due to the need to support an increasing number of vehicles with the V2V technologies. The communications costs range from $3 to $13 per vehicle. Cost estimates are not expected to change significantly by the inclusion of V2V-based safety applications, since the applications themselves are software and their costs are negligible.  Based on preliminary estimates, the total projected preliminary annual costs of the V2V system fluctuate year after year but generally show a declining trend. The estimated total annual costs range from $0.3 to $2.1 billion in 2020 with the specific costs being dependent upon the technology implementation scenarios and discount rates. The costs peak to $1.1 to $6.4 billion between 2022 and 2024, and then they gradually decrease to $1.1 to $4.6 billion.

In terms of safety impacts, the agency estimates annually that just two of many possible V2V safety applications, IMA (Integrated Motor Assists) and LTA (Land Transport Authority), would on an annual basis potentially prevent 25,000 to 592,000 crashes, save 49 to 1,083 lives, avoid 11,000 to 270,000 MAIS 1-5 injuries, and reduce 31,000 to 728,000 property-damage-only crashes by the time V2V technology had spread through the entire fleet. We chose those two applications for analysis at this stage because they are good illustrations of benefits that V2V can provide above and beyond the safety benefits of vehicle-resident cameras and sensors. Of course, the number of lives potentially saved would likely increase significantly with the implementation of additional V2V and V2I safety applications that would be enabled if vehicles were equipped with DSRC capability.

CONCLUSIONS: 

It is apparent to me that we are driving (pardon the pun) towards self-driving automobiles. I have no idea as to when this technology will become fully adopted, if ever.  If that happens in part or across the vehicle spectrum, there will need to be some form of V2V. One car definitely needs to know where other cars are relative to position, speed, acceleration, and overall movement. My wife NEVER goes to sleep or naps while I’m driving—OK maybe one time as mentioned previously.  She is always remarkably attentive and aware when I’m behind the wheel.  This comes from experience gained over fifty-two years of marriage.  “The times they are a-changing”.   The great concern I have is how we are to maintain the systems and how “hackable” they may become.  As I awoke this morning, I read the following:

The credit reporting agency Equifax said Thursday that hackers gained access to sensitive personal data — Social Security numbers, birth dates and home addresses — for up to 143 million Americans, a major cybersecurity breach at a firm that serves as one of the three major clearinghouses for Americans’ credit histories.

I am sure, like me, that gives you pause.  If hackers can do that, just think about the chaos that can occur if V2V systems can be accessed and controlled.  Talk about keeping one up at night.

As always, I welcome your comments.