QUALITY DRIVING

Transportation Safety

It is quite a shock when an airliner falls off the sky and kills dozens of people. When an airplane or a train crashes, or a ship sinks, it is usual to try to establish whether humar error was the cause. It is unfortunate to know that around three thousand humans die every day from land-wheeled-vehicle crashes.The latter events usually do not make the headlines but the toll is around 1.3 million yearly deaths, and between 25 and 50 million persons are either injured or permanently disabled.

Research into the domain indicates that most road crashes are caused by human error. It could be said that traffic processes are chaotic because today no way has been found to bring the number of traffic deaths to zero or at least to minimize them systematically, as some experiments and initiatives have called for.

The Global SoS Network has identified the isomorphism between Legislative SoS and Ground Transportation SoS. As a result, Globalsosnet has also designed the technological approach required for eliminating most vehicle crashes. Just as social calamities are caused by massive human sociotechnical error, so are land-wheeled-vehicle crashes.

Land-wheeled-vehicle crashes are not accidents. They are statistically predictable outcomes, and they are not the fault of drivers -they are an organizational or systems problem. So a holistic solution to the problem is required if innovations such as autonomous vehicles are to become the norm because introducing nifty autonomous vehicles into early 21st. century traffic is, in effect, throwing them into chaotic traffic systems in which the same autonomous vehicles will suffer as many events as any other vehicle in today's traffic. 

Globalsosnet is working to bring Total Quality Management, or Quality Driving, into practical use.  The United Nations has placed such importance on this issue that it has assigned Target 3.6, of the Sustainable Development Goals, indicating that traffic deaths should be cut by half as part of the 2030 UN Agenda. This network has identified the method to bring the vehicle traffic processes under control and eliminate not half, but over 90% (6 Sigma) of crashes, assuming normal data distribution and that each crash is a process defect.

A traffic process under control is essential for autonomous driving, and 6 Sigma involves controlling processes so that there are 3.4 defects per million opportunities. Does this mean that the 1.3 million yearly traffic deaths in the world can be reduced to less than 5 (five) yearly traffic deaths? The goal can certainly be set. Autonomous vehicles can thrive only in that type of controlled traffic process.