Yesterday (June 5, 2018) during the Mobility 2.0 roundtable discussion at ITS America’s Annual Meeting in Detroit, Michigan, industry leaders shared insights into mobility trends, predicting ‘more progress in the next 10 years than in the last 100’.
ITS America’s president and CEO, Shailen Bhatt (below), took to the stage to welcome visitors and kick-start the session. He outlined the mission of ITSA and what it hopes to achieve in the future.
“I took this job because ITSA is the place where private sector companies, public sector agencies and research institutions would come together to create a better – smarter and safer – world transformed by intelligence mobility,” Bhatt said. “That is our vision for ITSA. We want to save lives. We want to reduce congestion to create an equitable system in which people and freight can move about more freely. I firmly believe that transportation 10 years from now will be more productive than the 100 years of transportation that we have behind us.”
Next, Heidi King (below), deputy administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gave an in-depth keynote presentation about topical issues including how data collection and processing can install public confidence in autonomous vehicles; the crucial importance of keeping each link in the cybersecurity ecosystem safe; and the huge benefits of increases in infrastructure funding.
“The only calculus for NHTSA involves a single data point: safety,” said King. “Some 37,461 of our friends, colleagues and neighbors were lost on our roadways in 2016. Early 2017 estimates still place the number over 37,000. NHTSA aims to improve safety without hindering innovation – and that’s why I’m excited to be here today.”
Finally, moderator Mark De La Vergne, chief of mobility innovation at City of Detroit, brought energy to the stage while leading a panel discussion. The speakers (pictured, top) – Gary Smyth, vice president of global research and development at General Motors; Dr Paul Rogers, director of the US army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC); Alvaro Ramis, head of global market development at MOIA; Jessica Robinson, director of city solutions at Ford Smart Mobility; and Patrick Little, senior vice president and general manager of automotive at Qualcomm – shared their views about how connected technologies should be integrated to maximize the benefits of data and fully connected transportation systems in the future.
