How can self-driving vehicles
discourage smoking in the vehicles?
Problem
73% of smokers in the U.S. smoke in their vehicles.1 After a long day at work, they often smoke as soon as they get into their vehicle on their ride home. While smokers are certainly free to smoke in their own vehicles, smoking in self-driving vehicles that are later used by other people presents a problem.
Many non-smokers are bothered if the self-driving vehicle arrives smelling like smoke. In fact, 85% of non-smokers insist on smoke-free vehicles.1 The smoke odor can seep into the clothing and bags of the non-smokers. Non-smokers prefer companies that provide smoke-free vehicles.
- Without a driver present, preventing smoking in self-driving vehicles is problematic.
- With many passengers using each vehicle each day, determining who smoked in the vehicle can be challenging.
- Removing the potent odor of smoke in vehicles is expensive.
Solution
The key is for the system to effectively discourage smoking in vehicles, mitigate smoking damage, and when necessary, automatically clean the vehicles. A few examples of our solutions are described below.
We would love to enable you to integrate these helpful features into your autonomous vehicles.
Discourage Smoking in Vehicles With the Following Steps
Detect
“Smoke” inside vehicles can be combustion smoke caused by burning cigarettes, marijuana, or other items in the vehicle. “Smoke” can also be an aerosol from vaping. Combustion smoke can be handled differently than aerosol from vaping because combustion smoke could be due to a vehicle fire, which is an urgent safety issue. As a result, the vehicle may pull over as soon as possible in response to detecting combustion smoke while the vehicle may take less urgent action in response to detecting aerosol from vaping.
A smoke detection system can include an ionization smoke detector to detect the combustion smoke and an optical smoke detector to detect electronic cigarette aerosol by detecting that a particle size of the aerosol is greater than a threshold.
Knowing whether the smoke is due to combustion (a safety issue) or vaping (not a safety issue) can be very helpful to remote fleet monitors. In addition to important safety considerations, whether the smoke is due to combustion or vaping can dictate if cleaning is needed immediately (because combustion smoke causes far more odor damage than vaping aerosol).
A communication can identify the smoke as an aerosol in response to the smoke detection system determining that the particle size is greater than a threshold. The communication system can identify the smoke as combustion smoke in response to the smoke detection system determining that the particle size is less than the threshold.
Mitigate
As soon as smoking is detected, the system can minimize damage to the vehicle by filtering the air and rolling down the windows (to remove smoke from the cabin of the vehicle).
The vehicle can also encourage the rider to cease smoking by stopping the vehicle (or at least slowing down) until the rider stops smoking. The vehicle can also warn the smoker of fines. The system can even make the cabin of the vehicle uncomfortably hot or cold until the rider stops smoking.
Report
The system can notify a manager of the vehicle that the vehicle has been smoked in. The notification can identify which rider smoked in the vehicle.
The system can take a picture of the rider smoking in the vehicle (for evidence). The system can send the picture to the manager of the vehicle.
Fine
The rider can be fined in response to detecting smoke in the vehicle.
Removing smoke odor is difficult, expensive, and time consuming. Typically, the vehicle must be vacuumed to remove particles from carpets and seats. Many auto detail shops also steam clean the vehicle. Hard surfaces must be wiped down. Then, deodorizers are used on all surfaces and in the ventilation system.
Fining the passenger can help recoup at least part of the cleaning expenses. Letting passengers know in advance that smoking will result in fines is a powerful deterrent.
Pause
Rather than risk alienating future riders, in response to detecting smoke in the vehicle, the system can make the vehicle unavailable to accept pickup requests (e.g., until after the vehicle is cleaned).
Clean
After a person has smoked in the vehicle, a top priority is cleaning the vehicle to remove the offensive odor. On one hand, the vehicle needs to be cleaned to avoid alienating future passengers. On the other hand, the vehicle needs to be placed back into service as quickly as possible to minimize lost profits due to downtime.
The system can clean the vehicle automatically in response to the vehicle detecting smoke (e.g., over a certain threshold). The system can be configured to drive the vehicle to a vehicle cleaning area in response to the smoke detection system detecting the smoke inside the vehicle
As a result, smoke odor does not alienate future passengers and the vehicle can be placed back into service quickly.
We would love to enable you to integrate these helpful features into your self-driving vehicles.
