U.S. DOT issues a new plan and a rallying cry around V2X safety technology

The U.S. Department of Transportation is renewing its efforts to bring a beleaguered technology with the potential to save thousands of lives to American roads.

Officials said the plan amounts to a "call to action" that spurs automakers and government officials to ensure a connected-car technology known as V2X, which stands for vehicle to everything, reaches widespread deployment over the next 12 years.

The technology wirelessly transmits critical safety messages between vehicles, infrastructure and vulnerable road users that warn of hazards or changing road conditions. Fully implemented, the Transportation Department estimates V2X could eliminate 13 to 18 percent of reported crashes and save as many as 1,366 lives annually.

"We're trying to seize the bull by the horns and say, 'We want to create this framework so that the private sector, the government and academia can pull together, push forward and continue to scale this life-saving technology," Shailen Bhatt, administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, told Automotive News.

Scaling V2X deployments has been an aspirational goal since the turn of the century, but it has proven easier said than done.

Although pilot projects have existed in Tampa, Fla.; northern Virginia, and along a 35-mile stretch of U.S. 33 in Ohio, larger adoption has been stymied by technical rivalries and government skirmishes.

Frustrated by the lack of deployment progress, the Federal Communications Commission shrunk the radio frequency spectrum set aside for V2X in 2021, despite protests lodged by the Department of Transportation and safety advocates.

Further complicating deployments, automakers and technology providers developed two competing V2X methods — one called Dedicated Short Range Communications and another via cellular avenues.

Achieving the purported safety benefits hinges on a critical mass of users adopting the technology. Two rival technology paths undercut those prospective gains.

The National V2X Deployment Plan, issued Aug.16, aims to provide federal leadership, rally support among automakers and officials at all levels of government, and set concrete goals.

Among them, the plan promotes V2X deployments on 20 percent of roads within the national highway system by 2028. In the same time frame, it strives to equip a quarter of intersections in the top 75 U.S. metro areas with the technology and have two automakers commit to outfitting 2028 model year vehicles with the technology.

By 2036, the DOT hopes V2X will be fully deployed across the highway system, that 85 percent of intersections in the top metro areas are covered, and that six automakers have at least 20 vehicles models capable of operating V2X.

The national plan provides guidance and targets, but it is not regulatory in nature, nor does it provide funding.

The National Transportation Safety Board, an independent federal agency that investigates crashes and makes safety recommendations, has encouraged NHTSA to mandate connected-vehicle technology on all new vehicles and urged the creation of a nationwide plan to implement it.

V2X is one of several technologies, including automated emergency braking, driver-assistance features and fully autonomous driving systems, that Bhatt and others believe can reduce the traffic death toll, which reached 42,514 in 2022, the latest year for which NHTSA has complete figures.

While each of those technologies can play a role in reducing the carnage, "the connected piece is critical," Bhatt said, because it incorporates vulnerable road users and provides beyond-line-of-sight information.

"There are curves and other things out there where people can't see," he said. "So that's why we're hoping we can deploy every tool in the toolbox to get this going faster."