Concepts of Operations for Autonomous Vehicle Dispatch Operations 5/21/2020 Mary Cummings (P.I.) Songpo Li Dev Seth Matthew Seong Duke University 1 www.roadsafety.unc.edu U.S. DOT Disclaimer The contents of this report reflect the views of the authors, who are responsible for the facts and the accuracy of the information presented herein. This document is disseminated in the interest of information exchange. The report is funded, partially or entirely, by a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s University Transportation Centers Program. However, the U.S. Government assumes no liability for the contents or use thereof. Acknowledgement of Sponsorship This project was supported by the Collaborative Sciences Center for Road Safety, www.roadsafety.unc.edu, a U.S. Department of Transportation National University Transportation Center promoting safety. TECHNICAL REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE 1. Report No. 2. Government Accession No. 3. Recipient’s Catalog No. CSCRS-R9 4. Title and Subtitle: 5. Report Date 5/21/ 2020 Concepts of Operations for Autonomous Vehicle Dispatch Operations 6. Performing Organization Code 7. Author(s) 8. Performing Organization Report No. Mary Cummings, Songpo Li, Dev Seth, and Matthew Seong 9. Performing Organization Name and Address 10. Work Unit No. Humans and Autonomy Laboratory 11. Contract or Grant No. 130 North Building Collaborative Sciences Center for Road Duke University Safety (Grant #: 69A3551747113) Durham, NC 27708 12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address 13. Type of Report and Period Covered Final Report (May 2018-May 2020) Collaborative Sciences Center for Road Safety 14. Sponsoring Agency Code 730 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Suite 300 Chapel Hill, NC 27599 15. Supplementary Notes Conducted in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration. 16. Abstract The future of surface transportation will likely include fleets of autonomous vehicles (AVs), both passenger and freight. Such futuristic operations will require remote monitoring of individual and fleets of AVs through an operations center staffed by personnel that resemble present-day surface transportation dispatchers. This report outlines three new functionalities unique to AV dispatchers as well as five broad Concepts of Operation (CONOPs) that illustrate how such AV remote management could develop, including Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) AV Dispatch Support, Robo-Taxi Dispatch, Autonomous Trucking Dispatch, Public Transportation AV Dispatch, and State/Regional AV Management and Dispatch. To further understand implications of AV dispatch tasking on dispatcher workload, a case study was developed that examined how AVs could impact a regional dispatch center. A dispatcher workload discrete event simulation yielded several models that examined both single and two-person dispatcher models under both typical and emergency operations. These models indicate that even with minimal new tasking caused by the arrival of AVs, the additional workload would likely overload a single dispatcher, even under a normal operational tempo, requiring additional personnel. Results also suggest that in order to ensure dispatchers are not bored and distracted, dispatchers may need to share tasks instead of specializing across tasks. Understanding that these results are only specific to this case study, this study demonstrates why companies and agencies anticipating the integration of AVs in their transportation networks need to build such models in order to determine how to safely develop and staff futuristic AV dispatch centers. 17. Key Words 18. Distribution Statement Dispatch center, dispatcher, workload, autonomous vehicles, driverless, self-driving 19. Security Classif. (of this report) 20. Security Classif. (of this page) 21. No. of Pages 22. Price Unclassified Unclassified 34 Form DOT F 1700.7 (8-72) Reproduction of completed page authorized Contents Concepts of Operations for Autonomous Vehicle Dispatch Operations __________________________________ 1 U.S. DOT Disclaimer .................................................................................................................................. 2 Acknowledgement of Sponsorship .......................................................................................................... 2 Introduction ___________________________________________________________________________________________ 5 Defining Autonomous Vehicles ________________________________________________________________________ 5 Current US Dispatch Operations ________________________________________________________________________ 6 Possible New AV-Related Functions in Dispatch Centers ________________________________________________ 8 Remote Control/Teleoperation ....................................................................................................................... 8 Teleoperation ............................................................................................................................................. 9 Goal-based Supervisory Control ............................................................................................................. 10 Communications with Passengers ............................................................................................................... 10 Fleet Management ......................................................................................................................................... 11 Platoon Monitoring .................................................................................................................................. 11 Representative Concepts of Operations ______________________________________________________________ 11 Concept 1: Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) AV Dispatch Support ............................................ 12 Concept 2: Robo-Taxi Dispatch ..................................................................................................................... 12 Concept 3: Autonomous Trucking Dispatch ................................................................................................ 13 Concept 4: Public Transportation AV Dispatch ............................................................................................ 14 Concept 5: State/Regional AV Management and Dispatch ........................................................................ 15 Summary of Five Designs .............................................................................................................................. 15 Detailed Workload Model for State/Regional Dispatcher Managing AVs _______________________________ 17 Single Dispatcher Operations ........................................................................................................................ 18 Two Dispatcher Operations ........................................................................................................................... 21 Conclusion __________________________________________________________________________________________ 22 Acknowledgements__________________________________________________________________________________ 23 References __________________________________________________________________________________________ 23 Appendix A __________________________________________________________________________________________ 26 Appendix B __________________________________________________________________________________________ 27 B.1 SHADO Field Entries for Single Dispatcher Models ........................................................................ 27 B.2 SHADO Field Entries for Two Dispatcher Models ........................................................................... 27 Appendix C __________________________________________________________________________________________ 28 Appendix D __________________________________________________________________________________________ 31 Introduction While there is significant debate about when autonomous vehicles, aka self-driving or driverless cars, will become part of the driving landscape, there is general agreement that they will eventually be introduced across the country in various operational driving domains. As fleets of such vehicles move into operations and reliable vehicle-to-vehicle (V-to-V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V-to-I) networks are established, there will be an increasing need for remote supervision of such vehicles by humans to ensure safe operation in contingency and emergent situations. One recent example occurred in Southern California during the Thomas Fire, when many mobile navigation apps advised their users to follow roads that were closed due to imminent fire hazards. This occurred because the crowdsourced apps automatically identified them as having little traffic. This problem resulted in the Los Angeles police warning drivers against using mobile navigation in these areas to prevent them from driving directly into the fire (Felton, 2017). Developers had to quickly intervene to stop the apps from making the dangerous recommendations. Such problems will become even more critical for autonomous vehicles (AVs) without drivers who provide understanding of local context, so the role of external dispatchers will likely become even more critical as the technology matures. While remote operations centers exist for several modes of transportation, such as air traffic control, flight dispatch, rail dispatch, and public safety for police, ambulance and state vehicles, limited