Leaders in the field of autonomous and connected vehicles are meeting this week in Tampa.
- 4th annual Florida Automated Vehicles Summit in Tampa
- Autonomous and connected vehicles on display
- Officials say vehicle technology will keep public safe
Think self-driving cars and all of the technology that goes with it. The fourth annual Florida Automated Vehicles Summit is taking place in and around downtown Tampa.
From connected cars to vehicles that will talk to each other, as well as technology sending real-time information on traffic conditions to vehicles, the future of transportation is on display.
"Cars that are driving themselves obviously need to know what the lights are doing," said Matt Ginsberg with Connected Signals, one of the companies converging on Tampa this week. "That turns out to be a very hard problem because figuring out that's a traffic light is not nearly as simple for a computer as it is for us."
The conference also is displaying fully automated trams that require no driver.
"Connected vehicle technology is an integral part of how to keep traffic flowing and how to keep traffic safe," said Marcus Welz with Siemens Traffic Systems. "So Tampa has actually been chosen by the Department of Transportation to realize those technologies and put it from pilots to real world application on a large scale."
Conference officials said many of the technologies on display this week could be a reality within the next several years. And the technology behind connected vehicles is something that could be in place in the next 18 months or so, with all of the ground work in place for cars to "talk" to each other.
Officials said autonomous vehicles will help keep the traveling public safer while driving, preventing up to 80 percent of traffic crashes.