The future is mixed . Enjoy !
The news that the Connected Motorcycle Consortium ( CMC )
has published its first stage ' Basic Specification ' to allow manufacturers to plan moves towards a V2V ( or at least motorcycle-to-motorcycle ) common standard is very important . This will enable rival brands of machines to ' play nice ' with each other and other road users in the ' Brave New World ' of autonomous driving . A future in which Level 4 or 5 True Self Driving ( TSD ) fully autonomous vehicles will be able to read and recognise motorcycles , communicate with them , and vice-versa . Many so-called collision avoidance devices and systems are already found in vehicles ( cars especially ), but Advanced Driver Assistance systems ( ADA ) are just Level 0 , 1 , 2 and 3 stages on the way to TSD full ( but not full-time ) autonomy . When Level 4 and 5 are with us , motorcycles will have to be recognisable to all vehicles and be able to integrate their systems with all other vehicles . Seamless V2X ( Vehicle to Everything ) is going to need a common communications standard through which to be able to exchange information to make C-ITS ( Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems ) practical . The defining of the ' Basic Specification ' isn ' t the end of the process , but it is the end of the beginning . It has been four years in the making , and an all-important and entirely necessary first step in a process that could give future users of two wheels unimagined levels of safety and convenience . The Consortium has seen BMW , Honda , Triumph , Yamaha , Suzuki and KTM ( ACEM is also a member ) form a working party which , through several studies , the development and evaluation of prototype bikes and through meetings and discussions with different major stakeholders , has achieved that critical first stage . Do not underestimate just how huge this has the potential to be for our industry . As ACEM Secretary General Antonio Perlot stated : " The integration of motorcycles in the C-ITS ecosystem will bring significant safety benefits and will lead to better integration of motorcycles in the transport system ." But in fact , it goes way deeper even than that . It is impossible to underestimate just how far our industry needed to move from the dawning of the first European Motorcycle Multi-Directive in 1996 , and equally impossible to overestimate just how far in the right direction the industry has travelled since then . The ' Gang of Six ' are still hoping that other manufacturers will now be minded to ' come on board ' as , either way , they will have to work with whatever standards are developed . December saw ' The Six ' sign up to a second stage - CMC ' Next ' - that already got underway in January . This second phase will see the approach widened and the work include investigating the conspicuity of motorcycles by ADA systems . This stage will look at creating synergies between on-board sensor systems and connectivity and define further essential functional requirements . The ' Basic Specification ' is a first step to ultimately being able to describe the function of motorcycle V2X systems - which will include ' Vehicle-to-all-Vehicles ' and ' Vehicle-to-Infrastructure '. Motorcycle systems will need to be able to mesh V2X or DSRC ( Dedicated Short-
J3016 keeps the human role
Range Communications ) with the communication systems in the rest of the road transport industry . For example , motorcycles need to be able to integrate with the on-board sensor systems ( radar , camera , etc .) and driver assistance systems being developed in the automotive , rapid transit and road freight markets . Don ' t let anybody be under any illusion - this is not trivial . It may be a long-term issue , but it is one that places an opportunity-rich future for the PTW industry in opposition to an otherwise existential crisis with no apparent future for PTWs . At present , the most advanced so-called autonomous systems being trialled and installed by the automotive industry are delivering Level 2 semi-autonomy , basically ' driver assist ' rather than ' driver replace '. If Tesla continues to develop its AutoPilot , then it will break into Level 3 semi-autonomous territory at some stage soon . From there to Level 4 and 5 is a huge leap , but after that the differences between Level 4 and 5 are subtle . Both allow Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) to drive the vehicle . The primary difference is that Level 4 permits engagement of the automatic system only within the scope of the vehicle ' s pre-defined Operational Design Domain ( ODD ). In Level 5 there is no such set of limitations . Both are " True Self Driving ", but both can also be driven by a human . The SAE J3016 standard ( actually , it ' s more of a protocol ) stipulates that in all circumstances and in both levels the system can be overridden by a human . It is not a prescription for full-time autonomy , neither is it necessarily about ' driver replace ' - but neither level stipulates that a human driver MUST be available in the vehicle . The issues of the democratisation of transport , safety , energy and emissions are so huge that a connected and largely electric future transport policy is a genie that will never go back into the bottle . However , provided that motorcycles are integrated into that traffic ecosystem , then our industry can continue to co-exist with autonomous vehicles , but it will be in a mixed ecosystem where some vehicles are being controlled by AI some of the time , some by humans some of the time and , in the case of PTWs , by humans all of the time . With apologies to Yamaha ' s ' Motobot ', without transporting humans as their mission , there would be no practical reason for PTWs to exist . All the other functions to which they could conceivably be purposed to would be better fulfilled by alternate solutions . SAE J3016 guarantees that the future traffic ecosystem will be a mixed one . Therein lies the potential salvation of the motorcycle market . If motorcycle manufacturers ' get it right ', then semi and full autonomy could be the ' Golden Ticket ' our Chocolate Factory has been looking for ever since 1996 .
Robin Bradley Publisher robin @ dealer-world . com