Category Archives: Collaboration

The Mobility Ecosystem: the changing landscape and the need for fresh, new ideas (Part 9: A Brief History of Our Human Species and Mobility)

07 Sunday Mar 2021

Posted by in Asset & Life Cycle Management, Benefit-Cost or BC, Biological Diversity, Business Transformation, Climate, Collaboration, Economics, Electric Vehicles, Environment, Extinction of Species, Fuel Taxes, Funding, History, Homo sapiens, Infrastructure, Interstate, Maintenance, Mobility, Mobility Ecosystem, Multimodal, Return on Investment or ROI, Safety, Society, Technology, Transportation

≈ Leave a comment

Current events seem a good place to start before a walk through some history and mobility—where we’re at and how we got here.

We are a society of people, and with that comes “the good, the bad, and the ugly,” borrowing from the movie of that name, and mobility is a part of that mix. The United States, and other cultures as well, have come a long way, including the times when discrimination and oppression of anyone that was different and had not been a part of the dominant class—African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, other colored peoples, women, other cultures and religions, and others—was rampant. But, we have a long way to go. In some form or fashion, this is reflected in what we are experiencing in the United States—division, tribalism, polarization, radicalism, cults, misinformation, disinformation, lies, conspiracy theories, inability to agree on facts, trust deficit, racial inequality, economic disparity, escalating, vindictive, caustic political dynamics, and even nihilism. These elements helped facilitate an attack on the United States Capitol, an act of domestic terrorism if not sedition (Bush, 2021). Moreover, voter suppression is reasserting itself at the state level and counterproductive to democracy. There is some speculation that this era of suppression may allow minority rule, similar to some fascist and autocratic regimes  (Derysh, 2021; Bagley, 2021; Albert, 2021; Smith, 2020; Chung and Hurley, 2021; Wolf, 2021). Where is this all headed and how will it end? How do we address or respond to this morass? Isabel Wilkerson (2020) makes a compelling case in her book, Caste: the Origins of Our Discontents, about how power—which groups who have it and which do not—has shaped America through a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings, that has continued from our nation’s beginning to today. The situation our society has found itself in has been referred to as a “cold civil war.” With all of the issues we in the United States and around the world are facing, it can be a challenge to resolve them. Developing leaders and helping them succeed, trust, display mutual respect, create strong relationships, educate the public, and listen are critical to addressing these challenges and in a civil and collaborative way. One element that is emerging is discussion to develop consensus of what democratic social media and the Internet look like in order to guard against extremism, hate, and lies that can foment conspiracy theories, attacks on our democracy, and distract and make difficult the work toward more important issues and needs such as transportation and infrastructure while protecting the freedom of speech and Internet, in the United States and around the world. This is a fine line to walk but with progress, democracy will be improved. The United States Constitution preamble, after all, is: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The work to achieve that aspirational preamble will never end. The mobility space is a part of this mix, is impacted by these events, and has a role to play in advancing a more sustainable and healthy society, economy, and environment.

It is hard to imagine how we can meet and overcome our many challenges—social, economic, environmental—associated with growing populations (Figure 10) in cities and countries around the world, but transportation/mobility are part of the solution. In 1968, The Population Bomb (Ehrlich, 1968) predicted worldwide famine in the 1970s and 1980s, major societal upheavals, and other environmental degradation due to human population growth. While most of the predictions did not occur as predicted, the general premise is hard to ignore considering today’s climate change, environmental degradation, and other global events. Ehrlich’s predictions were not new. Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834), a British economist and mathematician, proposed that population growth would outstrip increases in food supplies in his day (Malthus, 1798). Others have predicted that a sixth mass extinction has already begun (Ceballos et al, 2017; Carrington, 2017). While events have not unfolded as Ehrlich, Malthus, and others predicted, environmental resilience and human ingenuity, although limited, have almost certainly delayed and modified the timing, scale, and specific details of their predictions. It is startling to contemplate these events, the fact that there is evidence to speculate on these outcomes is reason enough to act to change their potential impacts (Lovejoy, 2017). It is also rare that predictions of any kind take place as originally described.

FIGURE 10. Population growth over the last 10,000 years. (Source: Our World in Data, 2019)

Transportation and mobility have been around since the beginning of humans. In fact, the history of people and civilization could be told in terms of mobility. Therefore, it provides some context and perspective for where our species started and how we got to the present. Our species, after all, are travelers and explorers that seek to understand our world and ourselves.

The universe and our place in it is a complex one (Figure 11) (Flannery, 2012; Flannery, 2002; 2018, Christian, 2019; Harari, 2014).

Figure 11. A brief history of human evolution. (Source: http://esccalbe.blogspot.com/2013/05/prehistory-over-hundreds-of-millions-of.html)

Mobility allowed our species to move out of Africa and around the world in roughly 50,000 years (starting around 60,000-80,000 years ago and completing this global journey around 15,000 years ago). Early components included navigating on animal trails and along waterways (rivers, lakes, and oceans), increasingly large and sophisticated floating craft (boats, canoes, ships, and others), and using domesticated animals to increase transport (horses, alpacas, camels, and others) over larger and larger expanses. The invention of the wheel (and associated axle) appears to date back to about 5,000 years ago and was a milestone that has resulted in vehicles of increasing size and capability ever since. The Silk Road connecting Europe and Asia, and others, increasingly expanded trade and cultural exchange over vast areas of the globe.

History is marked by the longest and oldest trade route in the world—the Silk Road—an ancient overland trade route formed in the Western Han Dynasty from about 202 BC to 9 AD. This road or trade route spans 4,350 miles, connecting China, India, Persian Gulf, Japan and Europe. While this route has periodically declined in usage, it has existed for over 2,000 years. (History.com, 2019; Elizabeth, 2016; National Geographic Society, 2019).

Within the realm of recorded human history, mobility and its infrastructure is also marked by the Romans building a network of an estimated 200,000 miles of roads to connect their empire. That was in their DNA from the beginning, and is likely in ours today (Morales, 2021).

Fast forward to the United States. Our forefathers had a great interest in roads, particularly in a “National Road” to connect the emerging United States of America. What eventually became the National Road (also known as the Cumberland Road, Cumberland Pike, National Pike, and Western Pike) was created by an Act of Congress in 1806 and signed into law by President Thomas Jefferson. The Act was revolutionary and called for a road connecting the waters of the Atlantic with those of the Ohio River. Federal funding began in Cumberland, Maryland. The predecessors of the National Road included buffalo trails, Native American footpaths, Washington’s Road, and Braddock’s Road. The latter two were developed over part of the Nemacolin Trail, a Native American pathway, as part of the British campaign to evict the French from the forks of the Ohio River (Weiser-Alexander, 2019). Congress paid for the National Road, in part, by establishing a “2 percent fund” derived from the sale of public lands for the construction of roads through and to Ohio (National Road PA Org, n.d). Construction took longer than expected and the costs of maintenance were underestimated. As a result, tolls were eventually collected to pay for maintenance. To this day underestimating the cost of maintenance is true in many states and communities.

The United States developed the first National Park System in the world, signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1873, that began with Yellowstone National Park, treasures for all to enjoy. Prior to full control by the National Park Service in 1918, the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for building roads, bridges, buildings and other appurtenances that provided access for the public to the Park while leaving nature as they found it (Williamson, 2016).

Early in the 20th Century, Gifford Pinchot, forester, conservationist, former Pennsylvania Governor, first Chief of the U. S. Forest Service, and close friend of Theodore Roosevelt, became known not only for advancing the protection of forests and public lands but economic development including road building for recreational public use access. (U.S. Department of the Interior, 2017; Encyclopaedia Britannica, n.d.).

In 1919, Oregon was the first to develop a reliable funding mechanism—the fuel tax—which has been the primary funding mechanism for roads and bridges. By 1929, all states had a fuel tax. It was not until 1956, that the federal government created a federal fuel tax—Federal Highway Trust Fund— to pay for construction (not maintenance) of the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System. While much of the first half of the 20th Century was spent “getting out of the mud”, the 50 years subsequent to 1956 were spent building and maintaining the interstate highway system under the responsibility of state departments of transportation. In large part, the 21st Century ushered in an era of system preservation, due largely to inadequate funding, NIMBY (not in my backyard), and other competing issues (e.g. climate change, pandemic, social justice, equity, political polarization, etc.).

Using the United States as a yardstick, the first half of the 20th Century was marked by increasing motorized road, rail, air, and river and blue water conveyance. The second half of the 20th Century was marked by improvements in all areas of conveyance but largely by the creation of the Interstate Highway System. Simplistically, these can be referred to as the motorized conveyance era and Interstate era, respectively. The Interstate era also saw an increase in the emphasis on safety, an effort to decrease loss in lives and property driven partly by liability concerns and increasing value placed on human life. This is critical and continues to this day.

As great as development of the interstate highway system is, there is also a dirty secret. It destroyed many neighborhoods of color, the poor, and underserved through destruction of homes, businesses, displacement, congestion, pollution, noise, and racism. The shadows of these impacts linger to this day (McFarland, 2021).

Data for improving mobility is not new and is reflected in virtually every aspect of the mobility ecosystem. These include engine oil diagnostics which serve to extend engine life, data-based preventative maintenance checks and services and scheduled services for all types of vehicles, data-based structural and functional capacities of roads and bridges, data-based pavement management systems, data-based bridge management systems, data-based needs assessments and estimated costs for repair and replacement of infrastructure (roads, bridges, buildings, runways, etc.), data-based asset management for determining priorities of spending within and between modes, analytic tools such as life-cycle costs, return on investments, and many others. In fact, it would be difficult to identify an element of the mobility ecosystem that is not or cannot be managed by data—we are dependent on it. Of course, good data does not always exist. There are many examples of poor organization and project performance (over budget, over schedule, poor quality) that resulted from the lack of good data.

In 2007 the first iPhone was fielded, and this serves to mark the beginning of a new era, one driven largely by rapidly evolving digital technology but other elements as well, including demand for vast amounts of data and analysis. These elements include other technologies and increasing demand for collaboration. While 2007 was not the beginning, it is convenient to view it as an inflection point, especially for mobility. The United States is, and has been, a leader in mobility and that has been a significant force-multiplier in building our nation’s strong economy.

The result—the United States is the best connected country in the world with the most extensive transportation system in the world—over 4 million miles of public roads, over 600,000 bridges on public roads, over 5,000 public airports, over 90,000 miles of privately owned Class 1 freight rail, over 20,000 miles of AMTRAK passenger rail, over 10,000 miles of transit rail, nearly 7,000 public transit providers, over 25,000 miles of navigable river channels, and over 300 ports (Wagner, 2020; BridgeReports.com, 2019; Hughes-Cromwick, 2019; Mazareanu, 2020; Bureau or Transportation Statistics, n.d.; Maritime Administration, 2019). This does not even consider other privately owned roads, bridges, airports, and other means of conveyance such as pipelines, short-line rail roads, trails, etc.

While much of the rest of the world has lagged behind the United States in the mobility space, it is rapidly catching up. Two examples: China’s “One Belt, One Road” which will result in the largest road network in the world, paving the Silk Road connecting China and Europe (Belt and Road Initiative, n.d.), and India’s National Highways Development Project which will result in a road network of over 30,000 miles as an element of their industrial revolution (IBEF, 2021; Devonshire-Ellis, 2020). This does not even consider other countries such as Norway, where roughly half of all cars on the road are no longer powered by gas, incentivized by tax savings, toll road exemptions and other incentives to limit climate change (Welch, 2021).

Multimodal advances, including through technology and collaboration, are also increasingly providing three dimensional vice two dimensional thinking—land, water, air, and space. It’s about connecting people to people and to other assets and resources. As such, transportation and mobility professionals are deemed “essential workers.”

We are now in the 4th Industrial Revolution—digital technology—with velocity, scope, and systems impacts that are blurring the lines between physical, digital, and biological spheres. The speed of these break throughs has no historical precedence and is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace. (Schwab, 2016). The evolution of transportation and mobility has been quite a journey and that journey continues.

Citations

Albert, S. (2021, February 24). Based on Trump’s election ‘big lie’, GOP proposes 165 voter suppression bills in 33 states. Between the Lines. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://btlonline.org/based-on-trumps-election-big-lie-gop-proposes-165-voter-suppression-bills-in-33-states/

Bagley, P. (2021, March 1). Bagley cartoon: voter oppression. The Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2021/03/01/bagley-cartoon-voter/

Belt and Road Initiative. (n.d.). Belt and road initiative. BRI. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.beltroad-initiative.com/belt-and-road/

BridgeReports.com. (2019). National bridge inventory data. BridgeReports.com. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://bridgereports.com/

Bureau of Transportation Statistics. (n.d.). System mileage within the United States. United States Department of Transportation. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.bts.gov/content/system-mileage-within-united-states

Bush, D. (2021, January 7). How the attack on the U.S. Capitol unfolded. PBS News Hour. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/how-the-attack-on-the-u-s-capitol-unfolded

Carrington, D. (2017, July 10). Researchers talk of ‘biological annihilation’ as study reveals billions of populations of animals have been lost in recent decades. The Guardian. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/10/earths-sixth-mass-extinction-event-already-underway-scientists-warn

Ceballos, G., P.R. Ehrlich, R. Dirzo. (2017, July 10). Biological annihilation via the ongoing sixth mass extinction signaled by vertebrate population losses and declines. PNAS. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.pnas.org/content/114/30/E6089

Christian, D. (2018). Origin story: a big history of everything. Little, Brown and Company.

Chung, A. and L. Hurley. (2021, March 2). U.S. Supreme Court signals more leeway for voting restrictions. Reuters. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-ballots-idUSKCN2AU13M

Derysh, I. (2021, February 27). Republicans roll out “tidal wave of voter suppression”: 253 restrictive bills in 43 states. MSN. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republicans-roll-out-tidal-wave-of-voter-suppression-253-restrictive-bills-in-43-states/ar-BB1e4akH?ocid=BingNews

Devonshire-Ellis, C. (2020, May 18). Belt & Road initiative: India. Silk Road Briefing. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.silkroadbriefing.com/news/2019/06/20/belt-road-initiative-india/

Ehrlich, P.R. (1968). The population bomb. Buccaneer Books.

Elizabeth. (2016, December 6). How long is the Silk Road in miles. PandaSilk. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.pandasilk.com/how-long-is-the-silk-road-in-miles/

Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Gifford Pinchot American conservationist. Britannica. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gifford-Pinchot

Esccalbe Blogspot. (2014, April 20). Science. Esccalbe Blogspot. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from http://esccalbe.blogspot.com/2013/05/prehistory-over-hundreds-of-millions-of.html

Flannery, T. (2002). The eternal frontier: an ecological history of North America and its peoples. Grove Press.

Flannery, T. (2012). Here on Earth: a natural history of the planet. Grove Press.

Harari, Y.N. (2014). A brief history of humankind. Signal Books.

History.com (2019, September 26). Silk Road. History.com. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-middle-east/silk-road

Hughes-Cromwick, M. (2019). 2019 public transportation fact book. American Public Transportation Association. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uploads/APTA_Fact-Book-2019_FINAL.pdf

IBEF. (2021, February 28). Road infrastructure in India. India Brand Equity Foundation. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.ibef.org/industry/roads-india.aspx

Lovejoy, T.E. (2017, July 26). Extinction tsunami can be avoided. PNAS. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.pnas.org/content/114/32/8440

Malthus, T.R. (1798). An Essay on the Principle of Population, 2 vols. E.P. Dutton & Co., New York.

Maritime Administration. (2019, July 23). Ports: the gateway to American waters. U.S. Department of Transportation. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.maritime.dot.gov/ports/strong-ports/ports

Mazareanu, E. (2020, June 26). How many airports are in the U.S.? Statista. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/183496/number-of-airports-in-the-united-states-since-1990/

McFarland, M. (2021, February 27). Highways that destroyed Black neighborhoods are crumbling. Some want to undo the legacy. CNN Business. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/27/cars/buttigieg-highway-removals/index.html

Morales, J.R. (2021, January 21). 200,000 miles of Roman roads provided the framework for empire. National Geographic Society. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/world-history-magazine/article/200000-miles-roman-roads-provided-framework-empire

National Geographic Society. (2019, July 26). The Silk Road. National Geographic Society. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/silk-road/

National Road PA Org. (n.d.). Historic National Road: America’s road to revolution. National Road PA Org. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from http://nationalroadpa.org/timeline/

Our World in Data. (2019). World population since 10,000 bce. Our World in Data. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-population-since-10000-bce-ourworldindata-series

Schwab, K. (2016, January 14). The Fourth Industrial Revolution: what it means, how to respond. World Economic Forum. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-what-it-means-and-how-to-respond/

Smith, T. (2020, August 20). Timeline: voter suppression in the US from the Civil War to today. ABC News. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/timeline-voter-suppression-us-civil-war-today/story?id=72248473

U.S. Department of the Interior Blog. (2017, August 9). Gifford Pinchot: a legacy of conservation. U.S. Department of the Interior. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.doi.gov/blog/gifford-pinchot-legacy-conservation

Wagner, I. (2020, May 18). U.S. highway mileage 1990-2018. Statista. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/183397/united-states-highway-mileage-since-1990/

Weiser-Alexander, K. (2018, December). Nemacolin’s Trail in Pennsylvania & Maryland. Legends of America. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.legendsofamerica.com/nemacolin-trail/

Welch, C. (2021, January 22). Has the electric car’s moment arrived at last? National Geographic Society. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/has-electric-car-moment-arrived-at-last

Wilkerson, I. (2020). Caste: the origins of our discontents. Random House.

Williamson, E.L. (2016, September 15). 100-year-old National Park Service’s roots go deeper with U.S. Army. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.nad.usace.army.mil/Media/News-Stories/Article/947994/100-year-old-national-park-services-roots-go-deeper-with-us-army/

Wolf, Z.B. (2021, March 2). Two maps show why both sides are trying to change rules ASAP. CNN Politics. Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/02/politics/what-matters-march-2/index.html

The Mobility Ecosystem: the changing landscape and the need for fresh, new ideas. (Part 4: Economics of Autonomous Vehicles)

06 Saturday Feb 2021

Posted by in Autonomous Vehicles, Business Transformation, Clean Energy, Collaboration, Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV), Dynamic Transportation Management, Economics, Electric Vehicles, Future, Government & Policy, Internet of Things or IoT, Mobility, Mobility as a Service, Mobility Ecosystem, Relationships, Ride Sharing, Safety, Smart Cities, Society, Strategic Planning, Technology, Transportation

≈ Leave a comment

Motorized vehicles began with the advent of electric vehicles as evidenced by the first recorded powered vehicle fatality in the United States in 1899, from an electric taxi (see Part 2 of this series). Technology advances in the intervening 100 plus years have given rise to fully autonomous vehicles which are on the horizon.

The summary (abstract) provided by Clements and Kockelman (2017) is superb and provided in full.

“Connected and fully automated or autonomous vehicles (CAVs) may soon dominate the automotive industry. Once CAVs are sufficiently reliable and affordable, they will penetrate markets and thereby generate economic ripple effects throughout industries. This paper synthesizes and expands on existing analyses of the economic effects of CAVs in the United States across 13 industries and the overall economy. CAVs will soon be central to the automotive industry, with software composing a greater share of vehicle value than previously. The number of vehicles purchased each year may fall because of vehicle sharing, but rising travel distances may increase vehicle sales. The opportunity for heavy-truck drivers to do other work or rest during long drives may lower freight costs and increase capacity. Personal transport may shift toward shared autonomous vehicle fleet use, reducing that of taxis, buses, and other forms of group travel. Fewer collisions and more law-abiding vehicles will lower demand for auto repair, traffic police, medical, insurance, and legal services. CAVs will also lead to new methods for managing travel demand and the repurposing of curbside and off-street parking and will generate major savings from productivity gains during hands-free travel and reduction of pain and suffering costs from crashes. If CAVs eventually capture a large share of the automotive market, they are estimated to have economic impacts of $1.2 trillion or $3,800 per American per year. This paper presents important considerations for CAVs’ overall effects and quantifies those impacts.”

See Table 1 for a summary of the economic impacts of autonomous vehicles.

TABLE 1. Table 1. Summary of economic effects (industry- and economy-wide) (source: Clements, L. M. and Kockelman, K. M., “Economic effects of automated vehicles”, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board Volume 2606, Issue 1, January 2017, pages 106-114)

In the columns headed “Dollar Change in Industry” and “Percent Change in Industry,” signs “+” and “-”, respectively, denote a gain and a loss for the industry, whereas the industry-specific total for the dollar change in industry is the sum of their absolute values. Figures in the “$/Capita” columns and provided as overall total represent the sum of net economic benefits enjoyed by consumers.

According to an estimate by Intel Corporation and Strategy Analytics, announced in June 2017, the economic effects of autonomous vehicles will total $7 trillion in 2050 (Figure 6). The dollar amount represents a newly created value or a new ‘passenger economy’, calculated based on the assumption that fully automated Level 5 vehicles will be on the roads by 2050.

Figure 6. Global service revenue generated by autonomous driving in 2050 (US$ millions) (source: Lanctot, R. Strategy Analytics, Accelerating the Future: The Economic Impact of the Emerging Passenger Economy, June 2017)

They also assumed that consumers and businesses will use Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) offerings instead of owning cars, and those who had been commuting to work by car will become passengers and spend the commuting time doing something else. Furthermore, transportation companies suffering from a serious labour shortage – such as long-haul truck operators and home delivery service providers – will introduce autonomous driving services, thereby enabling them to change their business models drastically. As such, the estimate reflects a very broad range of potential effects, which also include a wide variety of new commercial services such as onboard dining and retailing (Tomita, 2017).

Advancements continue almost daily. CNN Business (Farland, 2020) reports a self-driving and electric robotaxi from Amazon’s Zoox can travel up to 75 mph and never has to turn around, reversing directions as needed to navigate crowded city streets. In an effort to become a leader in this sector, China is advancing autonomous vehicles quickly, including fully autonomous highways (Metha, 2019; KPMG International, 2019).

There are a myriad of challenges to realize fully automated vehicles and that will require an accumulation of massive quantities of data and learning processes to enable the development of AI capable of coping with navigating the rules, laws, traffic control devices, unique infrastructure, and nuances in each city, county, and state, not to mention internationally. Moreover, developing soft infrastructure, including laws and regulations, and setting rules for liability arising from accidents involving autonomous vehicles will be challenging. Similar to the open ITS architecture established by USDOT, there is a need to establish AV architecture within the U. S., if not internationally.

The advent of fully automated driverless vehicles will have a tremendous impact on our society, bringing fundamental changes to the entire economic and social systems. When fully automated vehicles come into operation, they will become a major means of mobility for the elderly and infirmed in rural areas, in addition to agriculture uses. Urban areas will likely experience the greatest changes, the number of cars owned for personal use will drop, eliminating congestion and the need for parking spaces, and car-sharing services will continue to grow.

Companies are investing enormous money in both electric and autonomous vehicles. For example, Microsoft is investing $2 billion in Cruise, that is majority owned by GM, for a valuation of over $30 billion (Colias, 2021). Apple and Hyundai-Kia are planning to start production of a fully autonomous electric car in 2024 (Lebeau, 2021). It is interesting to note that the smart phone market is about $500 billion annually of which Apple has roughly one-third of that market. By contrast, the mobility market is about $10 trillion annually so Apple would only need two percent of that market to match their iPhone business. It is little wonder the interest in the autonomous and electric vehicle space.

Although some estimates are that it will be at least 2040 before fully autonomous vehicles will be dominant, how should we cope with these forthcoming changes? How should we redesign and change the urban and rural infrastructure and landscapes, land use, and the economic and social systems?

There are test beds spreading around the nation in an effort to bring these and other technologies to market—Contra Costa County California formed a Transportation Authority (CCTA) and developed the leading facility in the nation—GoMentum (https://gomentumstation.net), the University of Michigan established Mcity some years ago (https://mcity.umich.edu), Waymo is planning a test facility in Ohio (Moderation Team, n.d.), and Missouri just formed a Missouri Center for Transportation Innovation (https://mcti.missouri.edu). These test beds, and other efforts, reflect the drive toward an autonomous and safe mobility ecosystem future. What do they have in common? They are built on partnerships and collaboration. Of course, the National Academies Transportation Research Board (https://www.nationalacademies.org/trb/transportation-research-board), U. S. Department of Transportation, state departments of transportation, universities, and the private sector represent the best minds around and continually add to our body of knowledge on all aspects of mobility and transportation.

Autonomous marine, freshwater, river, air, truck, and train vessels

This discussion does not even mention other modes and types of autonomous vehicles such as marine, riverine, freshwater, trucks, trains, planes, drones or unmanned aerial vehicles, aircraft, or space craft. Although they share many of the same challenges as cars and similar vehicles, many of these are likely years away before widespread use. Nonetheless, they are on the horizon. Of course, the elimination/reduction of operators will require careful planning to help people find other jobs in addition to negotiations with unions, changes in business models, and changes in society. The following links provide more information on these topics.

“What Will the Autonomous Ship of the Future Looks Like?” Smithsonian Magazine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/what-will-autonomous-ship-future-look-180962236/

“The Marine Corps is eyeing a long-range robot boat that can nail targets with kamikaze drones” Task & Purpose: https://taskandpurpose.com/news/marine-corps-long-range-unmanned-surface-vessel-contract/

“A New Generation of Autonomous Vessels Is Looking to Catch Illegal Fishers” Smithsonian Magazine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/new-generation-autonomous-vessels-looking-catch-illegal-fishers-180976336/

“Autonomous Shipping: Trends and Innovators in a Growing Industry” Nasdaq Technology: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/autonomous-shipping%3A-trends-and-innovators-in-a-growing-industry-2020-02-18

“The Future of Autonomous Aircraft” TechXplore: https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-future-autonomous-aircraft.html

“Xwing Unveils Autonomous Flight System for Regional Planes” VentureBeat: https://venturebeat.com/2020/08/20/xwing-unveils-autonomous-flight-system-for-regional-planes/

“Rail in on the way to autonomous trains” International Railway Journal: https://www.railjournal.com/opinion/rail-autonomous-trains

“Autonomous vessels on inland waterways” De Vlaamse Waterweg: https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regexpert/index.cfm?do=groupDetail.groupMeetingDoc&docid=38717

“Automated Trucking, A Technical Milestone That Could Disrupt Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs, Hits the Road” CBS News 60 Minutes: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/driverless-trucks-could-disrupt-the-trucking-industry-as-soon-as-2021-60-minutes-2020-08-23/

“Robots exploring on their own and self-piloting spacecraft are a long way off, says NASA computer scientist” Arizona State University News: https://news.asu.edu/20200220-discoveries-autonomous-spacecraft-baby-steps

Citations

Clements, L.M. and K.M. Kockelman. (2017, January 1). Economic effects of automated vehicles. Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. Retrieved February 6, 2021, from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3141/2606-14

Colias, M. (2021, January 19). Microsoft bets bigger on driverless-car space with investment in GM’s Cruise. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved February 6, 2021, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-bets-bigger-on-driverless-car-space-with-investment-ingms-cruise-11611064940#

KPMG International. (2019). 2019 autonomous vehicles readiness index: assessing countries’ preparedness for autonomous vehicles. KPMG International. Retrieved February 6, 2021, from https://assets.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/xx/pdf/2019/02/2019-autonomous-vehicles-readiness-index.pdf

Korosec, K. (2017, June 1). Intel predicts a $7 trillion self-driving future. The Verge. Retrieved February 6, 2021, from https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/1/15725516/intel-7-trillion-dollar-self-driving-autonomous-cars

Lanctot, R. (2017, June). Accelerating the future: the economic impact of the emerging passenger economy. Strategy Analytics. Retrieved February 6, 2021, from https://newsroom.intel.com/newsroom/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2017/05/passenger-economy.pdf

LeBeau, P. and Reeder, M. (2021, February 3). Apple and Hyundai-Kia pushing toward deal on Apple Car. CNBC. Retrieved February 6, 2021 from https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/03/apple-and-hyundai-kia-driving-towards-deal-on-apple-car.html

McFarland, M. (2020, December 14). This robotaxi from Amazon’s Zoox has no reverse function. CNN Business. Retrieved February 6, 2021 from https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2020/12/14/zoox-robotaxi-amazon-orig.cnn-business

Mehta, Ivan. (2019, April 15). How China’s new highway for self-driving cars will boost its AV ambitions. The Next Web. Retrieved February 6, 2021, from https://thenextweb.com/cars/2019/04/15/how-chinas-new-highway-for-self-driving-cars-will-boost-its-av-ambitions/

Moderation Team. (n.d.). Waymo to open new autonomous testing facility in Ohio. Self Driving Cars 360. Retrieved February 6, 2021, from https://www.selfdrivingcars360.com/waymo-to-open-new-autonomous-testing-facility-in-ohio/

Tomita, H. (2017, December 17). Awaiting the realization of fully automated vehicles: potential economic effects and the need for a new economic and social design. VOXEU CEPR. Retrieved February 6, 2021, from https://voxeu.org/article/potential-economic-and-social-effects-driverless-cars

One Seamless Transportation System 3.0: 7 Tenants for the Future

19 Sunday May 2019

Posted by in Collaboration, Future, Leadership, Management, Strategic Planning, Sustainability, Transportation

≈ Leave a comment

The future of transportation/mobility is about leadership. Seven tenants to improve this include:

  1. Safety: reduce crashes, fatalities, injuries, and property damage

At its base, every department of transportation, their partners, and stakeholders hold their first priority as safety. This is the value we put on life. As the future of transportation and mobility evolve, driven by demand for technology and collaboration, a safe system can be achieved with zero crashes, fatalities, injuries, and property damage. However, human nature cannot be controlled and periodic mishaps are bound to occur. Nonetheless, the future is bright for a safer transportation/mobility system.

  1. Mobility: reduce congestion, increase the capacity of existing infrastructure; connected and intermodal=one seamless transportation system

Every transportation department, their partners, and stakeholders were formed to improve mobility, whether that was getting out of the mud or the interstate highway system. Earlier, these departments were focused on engineering and construction using concrete, asphalt, and steel to predominately build a network of roads and bridges. The complexity for these departments has long since become increasingly multi-faceted, demanding additional disciplines, skill sets, and more understanding. The future of transportation and mobility, again driven by increasing demand for digital technology and collaboration, portends the opportunity for one connected, intermodal, seamless transportation system. The parts to this system are fast emerging in autonomous vehicles, one shop stop apps for routing, transfers and payments, and increasing demands from the public to make it so. This latter is driven largely by demand for access, social justice, greater diversity and other social values for fairness.

  1. Economy: improve access to jobs, products and services, origin, destination, and transport

There is a strong argument that transportation and mobility have been a primary driver of economic growth. This is an especially strong argument in valuing the interstate highway system. Other countries recognize that, too. That is why China is building the “One Belt, One Road” which will result in the largest road network in the world and India’s National Highways Development Project which will result in a road network of over 30,000 miles as an element of their industrial revolution. Our entire society depends on transportation and mobility for access to jobs, public safety, health care, food, recreation, and many others. This access can be as large as the interstate highway system or as small as handicap ramps at intersections and curbs. Transportation and mobility are important at every level of our society although many take it for granted. Increasingly and rightly so, departments of transportation are using various and emerging systems to more directly value the impact of transportation and mobility in the economy. In fact, many have this reflected in their mission statements.

As the future emerges and more efficient, environmentally friending fuels come into the market, the future transportation and mobility system may include a newer user-based system such as a vehicle miles traveled tax or VMT, emerging from the fuel tax invented by the State of Oregon in 1919. This has been demonstrated as feasible for over 10 years by Oregon and other states. As such, the transportation and mobility system may operate more like a utility than it does now.

As the demand for digital technology and collaboration has increased, it requires a workforce that knows and understands how to use them. The rate of change is so rapid that the entire transportation and mobility industry, educators, and job seekers are challenged to keep up.

  1. Environment: improve air, land, and water

As the social consciousness of environmental pollution, impacts, and climate change has increased, the efforts to control, mitigate and cleanup those impacts have correspondingly risen. While the environment and the impacts put upon it are often complex, the ownership is often ambiguous. Although many businesses are leaders in improving the environment, governments at all levels are frequently the leaders in regulating, mitigating and cleaning up impacts. As such, it is increasingly common for departments of transportation to be looked to lead in the environmental arena and mitigate the impacts on air, land, or water. My own sense is that these departments are generally very sophisticated and are up to the task.

  1. Costs: reduce overall costs

Most people, governments, and businesses look closely at the costs in dollars since that is a primary measurement of value in our society. We view our savings, reduced costs, or costs avoided to a lesser degree. These can be significant, especially when viewed broadly such as the time-value to the driver either sitting in traffic, not being able to get to work or appointments on time, emergency responders including ambulances being slowed or stuck in traffic, and the increased opportunity for secondary collisions. Still, other impacts on the environment may be affected and add to global warming. What are the impacts on plants and animals which share our planet and sometimes may represent the “canary in the coal mine”. While direct costs in dollars serve an important purpose, viewing the wider range of costs, including those that are difficult or may not lend themselves to being valued in dollars, can be a challenge. In fact, progress in some areas such as environmental impacts and climate change may not be adequately valued in dollars, in spite of the fact that there are real financial impacts. Taking the “big picture” of the real or estimated costs in dollars or other value systems is difficult. Still, this must be done to more fairly assess the impacts to and within the built and natural environments. Otherwise, decision-making, which always has inherent flaws or risks, will not result in optimal judgments. Our ability to make more informed decisions on the total costs is evolving and improving in many parts of our society, including in transportation and mobility. Some of the systems enabling decision-making are well founded and continue to be well used, such as engineering economics. Others such as balancing the built and natural environments are more challenging but are improving within the emerging discipline of sustainability.

  1. Time: reduce travel time

There is only so much time. Most of us are very protective of it. If we cherish our time, then it makes sense to place a value on it. Increasingly this is done. For example, placing a dollar value on a driver’s time and doing a calculation for a construction contractor’s incentive if work is completed early, or conversely charging a disincentive if work is completed late. Driven by increasing demand for digital technology and collaboration, the transportation/mobility system future promises a transition from a fragmented multimodal system to one connected, seamless, intermodal system that will optimize travel time for each of us.

  1. Support: leverage emerging, business intelligence/analysis, data, and decision-making systems

The six previous tenants are ideas that cannot be achieved without an underlying support system. While these are based on education and research and development, emerging technologies are building tools for creating better built and natural environments. The rapidly evolving arena of the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, business intelligence, and analytics, augmented and virtual reality and others are great, especially when considering the Apple iPhone was only released in 2007. Digital technology is a significant driver in this brave new world of transportation and mobility. Another significant driver is our human ability to collaborate for the greater societal good. Using these emerging tools to create a better transportation and mobility system will be a significant step.

The above seven tenants do not supplant the process of planning, design, construction, operations, and maintenance. At least until there is a better way, these do not supplant many other important elements such as a strong safety culture and program, annual needs assessments and their costs or savings, preserving the existing system, utilization of asset management tools, assessing and documenting infrastructure condition, and monitoring and managing traffic speed and volume.

It is the utility of all tools that will optimize outcomes in creating a better world for us and our posterity.

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

– Socrates

Transportation and Mobility: Past, Present, Future

10 Wednesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Business Transformation, Collaboration, Future, Government & Policy, Strategic Planning, Transportation

≈ Leave a comment

Setting the stage: a brief history

Transportation and transportation infrastructure (heretofore referred to simply as mobility) have been around since the beginning of humans. In fact, the history of people and civilization could be told in terms of mobility. Mobility allowed our species to move out of Africa and around the world in roughly 50,000 years (starting around 60,000-80,000 years ago and completing this global journey around 15,000 years ago). Early components included walking on animal trails and along waterways (rivers, lakes, and ocean), increasingly large and sophisticated floating craft (boats, canoes, ships, and others), and animals domesticated to increase transport (horses, alpacas, camels, and others) over larger and larger expanses. The invention of the wheel (and associated axle) appears to date back to about 5,000 years ago and was a milestone that has resulted in vehicles of increasing size and capability ever since. For at least the last few thousand years virtually all of the mobility system developed based on available data, mathematics, and trial and error. Over time, these components have evolved into an increasingly sophisticated mobility system. The Apian Way allowed the Roman Empire to travel and dominate much of the known world. The Silk Road and others increasingly expanded trade and cultural exchange over vast areas of the globe.

Our forefathers had a great interest in roads, particularly in a “National Road” to connect the emerging United States of America. What eventually became the National Road (also known as the Cumberland Road, Cumberland Pike, National Pike, and Western Pike) was created by an Act of Congress in 1806 and signed into law by President Thomas Jefferson. In many ways, it was an early precursor to the Interstate Highway System. The Act was revolutionary and called for a road connecting the waters of the Atlantic with those of the Ohio River. Federal funding began in Cumberland, Maryland. The predecessors of the National Road included buffalo trails, Native American footpaths, Washington’s Road, and Braddock’s Road. The latter two were developed over part of the Nemacolin Trail, an Indian pathway, as part of the British campaign to evict the French from the forks of the Ohio River. Congress paid for the National Road, in part, by establishing a “2 percent fund” derived from the sale of public lands for the construction of roads through and to Ohio. Construction took longer than expected and the costs of maintenance were underestimated. As a result, tolls were eventually collected to pay for maintenance. To this day underestimating the cost of maintenance is likely true in many states and communities.

In 1919, Oregon was the first to develop a reliable funding mechanism—the fuel tax—which has been the primary funding mechanism for roads and bridges. By 1929, all states had a fuel tax. It was not until 1956, that the federal government created a federal fuel tax—Federal Highway Trust Fund— to pay for construction (not maintenance) of the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System. As of December 2007 (“Peters Quick Action” in Better Roads), the U. S. Secretary of Transportation reported that 40 percent of the Federal Highway Trust Fund is used for other purposes. While much of the first half of the 20th Century was spent “getting out of the mud”, the 50 years subsequent to 1956 were spent building and maintaining the interstate highway system under the responsibility of state departments of transportation. In large part, the 21st Century appears to be ushering in an era of system preservation, due largely to inadequate funding.

As indicated earlier, data for improving mobility is not new and it is reflected in virtually every aspect of the mobility ecosystem. These include engine oil diagnostics which serve to extend engine life, data-based preventative maintenance checks and services and scheduled services for all types of vehicles, data-based structural and functional capacities of roads and bridges, data-based pavement management systems, data-based bridge management systems, data-based needs assessments and estimated costs for repair and replacement of infrastructure (roads, bridges, buildings, runways, etc), data-based asset management for determining priorities of spending within and between modes, analytic tools such as life-cycle costs, return on investments, and many others. In fact, it would be difficult to identify an element of the mobility ecosystem that is not or cannot be managed by data. Of course, this requires good data and that does not always exist. There are many examples of entities that attempt management without good data that is fairly analyzed and with actionable outputs.

In 2007, the first iPhone was fielded, and this serves to mark the beginning of a new era, one driven largely by rapidly evolving digital technology but other elements as well. These elements include other technologies and increasing demand for collaboration. While 2007 was not the beginning it is convenient to view it as an inflection point, especially for mobility. The United States is, and has been, a leader in mobility and that has been a significant multiplier in building our nation’s strong economy.

While much of the rest of the world has lagged behind the United States in the mobility space, it is rapidly catching up. Two examples are China’s “One Belt, One Road” which will result in the largest road network in the world and India’s National Highways Development Project which will result in a road network of over 30,000 miles as an element of their industrial revolution.

Introduction

Transportation is the aging term. Mobility reflects the emerging mobility ecosystem and marketplace. This ecosystem is at an inflection point coupled with the Internet of Things (IoT) and new ways of thinking in the 21st Century. It is an exciting time, with more changes in the next 10 years than perhaps the previous 100, driven by increasing demand for technology and collaboration. It is not an overstatement that today’s new gadgets are tomorrow’s antiques.

While some things will remain the same, this new mobility ecosystem will move inextricably forward as it evolves. We’ll increasingly think and speak in terms of one seamless, connected, efficient, user-friendly, intuitive, multimodal mobility system. Over time we will speak less in terms of buying and owning vehicles, “hard” infrastructure without embedded technology and planning individual modes to get where we want to go. Moreover, this new emerging mobility ecosystem will better connect one global community and economy, with all of its challenges, risks, and opportunities.

In short, mobility is being reimagined.

Current Situation

The mobility ecosystem is complex if it is anything. Modes vary across the world. These modes and some components include planes, trains, automobiles, trucks, transit providers of all types, buses, bicycles, motorcycles, pedestrians, airports, marine/lake/river ships, roads, rail, bridges, marine and freshwater ports, dredging to enable navigable ports and rivers, pipelines, public safety providers, governance in both the public and private sectors, and many others. These provide us access to jobs, medical care, food, fuel, emergency response, vacations, and many others. The size and capacity of many vehicles are growing increasingly from large to gigantic in an effort to gain economies of scale in moving people and goods as much of the supporting infrastructure races to keep up.

Using the United States as a yardstick, the first half of the 20th Century was marked by increasing motorized road, rail, air, and river and blue water conveyance. The second half of the 20th Century was marked by improvements in all areas of conveyance but largely by the creation of the Interstate Highway System. Simplistically, these can be referred to as the motorized conveyance era and Interstate era, respectively. I think it is important to note that the Interstate era also increased the emphasis on safety in an effort to decrease losses in lives and property. This is critical and continues to this day, as it should.

According to historian Jonathan Kenoyer, the concept of using a valueless “technology” instrument to represent transactions dates back 5,000 years, when the Mesopotamians used clay tablets to conduct trade with the Harappan civilization. While cumbersome, a slab of clay with seals from both civilizations certainly beat the tons of copper each of which had to be melted down to produce coins. Fast forward to the mid 20th Century, the Diners Club Card was the first credit card in widespread use by 1951. American Express introduced the first plastic card in 1959. Within five years, one million American Express cards were in use. In the 1950s-1960s my father, who worked for DX Oil Company, talked about them working on a card that could be used to pay for gas and enable self-service dispensing of fuel. The card became one of the ubiquitous credit cards. While credit cards have been upgraded over time to include passwords, security codes, and chips, today’s technology changes at increasingly rapid rates (the iPhone with its camera, GPS, apps and other associated technologies is just one example).

With the rapid advances in technology in the early 21st Century, the opportunities for mobility to be reimagined has never been greater and this has only just begun.

New technologies do not have to function on their own and frequently do not. For example, Iteris and Lindsay Corporation recently announced a smart work zone collaboration, leveraging the existing Lindsay Road Zipper for placing concrete jersey barriers and the industry-leading technology of Iteris. This collaboration promises to improve safety while getting more capacity at a lower cost with existing infrastructure. This also holds promise, on a temporary or permanent basis, for real-time lane reconfiguration in separating today’s traffic from autonomous and connected vehicles.

Currently, much of the mobility ecosystem is siloed to protect proprietary interests, growth, and profits. Silos must be broken down to achieve one efficient, connected, and seamless mobility system focused on the movement of people and goods, not vehicles alone. This can require a significant change in mindset.

New models and methodologies are developing. The emerging 5G coming out in 2019 is estimated to be 100 times faster than current mobile technologies, have more capacity, and dramatically reduce power consumption and communication response times. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is advancing, driven partly by more effectively “mining data” such as IBM’s Watson. Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones) has undergone dramatic growth in recent years in an increasing number of markets. Fully autonomous vehicles have arrived although it will likely take longer to have a significant impact than many have projected. Semiautonomous vehicles are increasingly mainstream as manufacturers add new technologies. Final destination methodologies are increasingly deployed whether through mobility as a service, Amazon, FedEx, ridesharing (Uber, Lyft, and others), high-speed transport such as high-speed rail, Hyperloop, and others. Finally, we are on the cusp of technology providing “one-stop shops”, such as Expedia does for airlines and hotels, for simple, connected, seamless, user-friendly trips for people. This has been ongoing in the primarily private sector-based freight industry which is driven by economies of scale, efficiency, and profit. Business to business has recognized for a long time the value of breaking down silos in spite of their need to protect their proprietary interests, growth, and profit. The public sector is more dominant in the movement of people and they seem to struggle more in breaking down silos, in part, to protect public interests including personal data and privacy. Breaking down the silos between public, private, and public and private entities, makes the task of creating one mobility ecosystem enormous. Still, this is an opportunity as the demand for collaboration increases to provide more efficient, cost-effective, environmentally and economically sustainable mobility for the movement of people and goods. This has become a quality of life issue for our planet and our global society.

Reimagining Mobility

Some elements

The future will be what we make it. It will likely be messy, and no one has the answers. The Transportation Research Board 2019 report on Critical Issues in Transportation reflects a smorgasbord of issues, challenges, and opportunities. The report states, “Changes are coming at transportation from all directions, including potentially revolutionary technologies such as drones and automated vehicles, rapid innovations in urban transportation services, unreliable funding for infrastructure and operations, and possible changes in national policies affecting trade, climate, environmental protection, and sources of energy. The potential consequences of these changes could make future congestion, fuel consumption, and emissions either markedly better or markedly worse. Correspondingly, these potential changes could positively or adversely affect commercial truck, rail, aviation, and waterborne networks, with significant implications for the delivery of goods and services, personal travel, and the economy.” What will likely not change is the general systematic process for developing vehicles and infrastructure—planning, design, construction, manufacturing, operations, maintenance.

Despite concerns over privacy, identifying travel patterns is important. Technology has enhanced our ability to do this enabling plans and designs to be developed for improvements.

Sharing data is another important component. How? Simple vehicle/people trackers are available and used while protecting privacy.

Gaining trust is critical and that takes time. This is also easily lost, and everyone must stay mindful of how important this is for the system to work properly, even efficiently. The technology should include the ability for the user to turn the location off unless it has potential safety risks or system impacts which may relate to safety and/or efficiency.

So, what’s in it for me? This has the potential to reduce costs financially and environmentally while improving the overall quality of life, decrease travel time, increase the efficiency of the system, maintain and/or increase the profits of data collectors/owners.

A determination should be made of what is the proprietary in both the public and private spheres.

What are some drivers in reimagining mobility? These include reducing costs for users and the environment, reducing congestion, increasing the capacity of existing infrastructure, reducing travel times, and increasing safety.

What are some obstacles? Privacy continues to dominate, including as an issue in exploring a replacement for the fuel tax such as the vehicle miles traveled tax (VMT) initiated by the State of Oregon. Fielding is another issue. How do you efficiently field new technologies into a fleet of varying types and ages? That is likely messy and will require a long transition. Consolidation, analysis and meaningful output is likely another obstacle. Collecting data is only useful if it can provide meaningful outputs. While 5G will greatly enhance rates, the overall capacity of the system is a predictable obstacle to include adequate data storage capacity. Data centers being developed by Facebook, Microsoft and others may be examples of what will be needed to accommodate this new, emerging mobility ecosystem.

How to Move Forward

Finding a framework is key for the needed public-private partnership to develop. The Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) architecture developed by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) may be a good model. This architecture attempts to define a system of governance and key architectural elements that must be met by participants, public or private, while not being overly prescriptive. This can be a fine line to walk. The Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITSA) is a consortium that continues to bring the public and private sectors together to augment USDOT in developing and deploying emerging technologies. In 2019 the Transportation Research Board published the results of a three year study on the future of the interstate highway system, originally planned for a 50 year life, that made several recommendations including that its future should be modeled after the original interstate approach, adjusting the federal fuel tax to the original 90 percent federal share, creation of an Interstate Highway System Renewal and Modernization Program (RAMP), increasing the federal fuel tax to a level commensurate with the federal share required of the RAMP investment and adjusting the tax as needed for inflation and vehicle fuel economy, and with an assumption that it would be at least 2040 before large scale automation occurred. These frameworks of governance have worked in the past and there is every reason to believe they will work in the future. It is critical that the federal and state governments, and their conventions such as the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), lead the way.

It is important to tie this effort to safety, congestion reduction, climate change, resilience, security, economics, quality of life, health, business, asset management including the true costs of travel and supporting infrastructure, sustainability, and overall system performance. This also has the potential to improve other associated elements to include social justice, equity, diversity, increased access, reduced energy consumption, and others. Reimagining mobility has the potential to improve all of these.

In a mobility ecosystem, everything is related to everything else and the progression to it will be challenging, messy, and a long road (no pun intended). However, there are some human elements that will enhance, if not be critical to, success. These include being resilient, collaborative, maintaining a focus on the big picture goal, not getting stuck or lost in the details, and continuing to leverage emerging technologies.

Transportation and Infrastructure Executive Daily Operations: a Generic Outline and Primer

28 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by in Collaboration, Leadership, Learning and Success, Management, Results, Team-Building, Transportation, Trust

≈ Leave a comment

Executive leadership requires a complete and evolving set of tools, including maintaining a big picture perspective and delving into details as necessary. This spectrum of leadership, management, and oversight manifests itself in daily activities. As such, I have borrowed from my own experience in developing the generic outline below for conducting daily activities. Every person develops their own unique daily routines. Thus, I emphasize that this is simply a generic outline and primer based on my own experience.

Leadership Style

People-Based, Results-Driven

A basic premise

Opportunity + Preparation = Success

Personnel Management

People-based: You lead people and manage things, but it is all about people: first who, then what (Good to Great).

  • “feedback loops” and continuous improvement
  • trust
  • relationships
  • collaboration
  • alignment
  • humility
  • listening
  • common courtesy
  • consistent communication

What’s most important? Employees. Select the right people, set the right expectations, provide the right tools and training, provide opportunities, help them succeed and develop leaders. They will take care of the clients. “We listen, we solve.”

Overall, set the vision, values, direction, culture, priorities, and coach within a framework where people can flourish.

Results-driven

  • “feedback loops” and continuous improvement
  • strategic plan: goals and performance measures
  • the future of transportation is at a “tipping point”
    • public-private partnerships (ramped up collaboration)
    • digital technology revolution

Daily Operations

  • “feedback loops” and continuous improvement
  • outreach to employees, clients, client’s clients, stakeholders and partners
  • ensure trust/relationships
  • ensure collaboration
  • leverage emerging technologies
  • ensure alignment
  • identify issues, problems, obstacles and fix them: continuous improvement

Goals

  • routine goals:
    • ensure linkage to strategic/long-term and near-term goals
    • balance everything against risks
    • do an assessment of employees, new and existing clients, stakeholders and partners
  • new goals to consider:
    • expand market share with existing clients…understand client interests and issues, win work, exceed expectations, repeat clients
    • develop new clients and expand transportation (roads, bridges, rail, transit, aviation, ports etc), through planning, design, construction management, CEI, program and project management, and other services as the preferred provider, including through staff augmentation
    • be a tier 1 provider of planning, design, construction, operations, maintenance, and support services
    • build image-increase visibility with various interests, including existing and new clients-legislatures, city councils, county commissions, transportation commissions, dots, aeronautics/airports, economic developers and departments, emergency management, AGC/contractors, ACEC/consultants, ASCE, AASHTO, ARTBA, ITSA, ATA, APWA, PMI, IHEEP, universities/colleges, MPOs, ACO/counties, LOM/cities, UP, BNSF, short line railroads, USDOT, FHWA, FAA, FTA, FRA, USACE, and others
    • assess the efficacy of acquisitions/mergers
    • support and collaborate with other line business sectors
    • monitor and assist growing bridge programs…design and construction
    • assess the efficacy of alternative delivery…DB, CMGC, PPP
    • assess economic stimulus of work…jobs created, taxes generated, spending/re-spending, etc
    • prepare, emphasize and execute sustainability across all business sectors
    • explore/expand:
      • teaming with contractors, consultants, and others-collaborate to win business
      • efficacy of targeted acquisitions/mergers
      • efficacy of new markets

The world is changing and we must change with it. Traditional engineering and construction are not enough.

Commit to the success of team, organization, clients, partners, and stakeholders.

Good to Great by Jim Collins, 2001, HarperBusiness, NY

Collaboration – The World of Partnerships

10 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by in Collaboration

≈ Leave a comment

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines collaboration as a noun “to work with another person or group in order to achieve or do something.” Paraphrased, collaboration enables individuals to work together to achieve a defined and common business practice. Simple, right? Not at all. The challenge becomes the ability for people to work closely and avoid the interference of hurt feelings, misunderstandings, and differing opinions. Collaboration is “all about people.” I believe it is largely about listening, finding common ground and finding a way to achieve mutual business benefits. It may be more of a challenge with clients since their interests must be served first and foremost. This is especially acute when serving as the owner’s representative on complex mega-programs.

So, how is collaboration achieved? Through open and honest communications, lots of listening, feedback, alignment, relationship-building, mutual respect, trust and the achievement of mutual benefits and serving the client.

This can be difficult, and there are bumps along the way, but strong relationships will weather the storm and allow collaboration to flourish for the greater good. In fact, as relationships build it should be agreed upon that the relationship will be retained regardless of  disagreements. Although difficult to achieve,  it is very possible if all parties really want it.

While collaboration can and should occur between all people, its roles continue to shift between the public and private sectors. For example, as the digital revolution continues, it is unlikely that the public sector is sufficiently nimble enough to cost-effectively manage these rapid changes. The private sector is much better suited. Conversely, it is likely that the construction industry will continue its traditional construction role but with increasing use of machine control and other digital efficiencies.

In the main, the public sector, as the owner, may increasingly manage the transportation system while the private sector may increasingly be responsible for delivery of products and services. This evolution has already begun in such places as the Oregon Department of Transportation where a private-sector joint venture delivered a long-duration, complex mega-program to repair or replace hundreds of Oregon bridges. Similar programs have been undertaken in Missouri, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”

– Helen Keller