Business as Usual: Maintaining the U.S.'s Lead in Autonomous Vehicles

Transcription: 

So good afternoon, everyone. This is Friday. And this is Audrey Russo, President and CEO, the Pittsburgh Technology Council, very excited to wrap the week up with our guests today. So I'm very pleased to introduce you in to him in one moment, want to give a big shout out to Huntington bank for being our partners, all through the journey of this pandemic, as well as helping with PPP loans and just being there for each and every one of their customers and for building the future here in Pittsburgh. So today's our hundred and 39th session of business as usual, we thought it would last two weeks. But little did we know that we're still all working in different situations. But we are keeping the community tethered. And we want to keep you connected and formed and showcase some of the world changing innovation that is occurring in Pittsburgh, as well as hearing from people who have our elected officials and people who lead in public policy, which we're going to talk about today. So we've muted your microphones. And that's just to make sure that we don't hear the noise in the background, and we have a chat. So we're going to cover like a lot of topics we're going to pack it in, I think you're going to be pleased to hear about the things that are happening right now in Washington that really matter to some of our most pivotal sectors here in southwestern Pennsylvania. Jonathan kersting is with us and he is vice president of all things media and marketing. He's going to keep us on track in terms of the question, so I am going to be quiet it soon. Right after I introduce Finch Fulton. He is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for transportation policy at the US Department of Transportation. And I want to welcome Finch and thank you for taking the time to visit virtually with our tech community here. But before we jump in and just talk about autonomous vehicles, can we take a minute to learn more about who is fence? What tell us a little bit about yourself? What's your background, and just describe your roles and responsibilities that you have at the US Department of Transportation?

Well, thank you. And obviously I love starting out the conversation by talking about myself, it's my favorite subject can talk all day about how great I think I am.

So for anybody.

For anybody that doesn't know me, I'm from Alabama, graduate of the University of Alabama. And then as soon as I graduated, I came up worked on Capitol Hill, first the Louisiana delegation in the house, and then flipped over to work in the Senate for an Alabama member, Jeff Sessions, which is relevant to this administration, I got my graduate degree. And as soon as those student loans hit in, I decided to leave the senate went to the private sector. But it was interesting the the leaving the Senate and going to the private sector, because a lot of my work in the Senate was around the Armed Services Committee. So we had a lot of work around drones and how they were being used and how that technology was being flipped over to the private sector. And everything that the D o d was doing that enabled that technology. And that's relevant to automated vehicles and relevant to 84.0. Because some of the same mindsets went into that the investments that God has made in these technologies has kind of been foundational, and helping innovators develop these technologies. So I went to Texas, worked for public affairs company around it was mostly for very large telecommunications company. But in the spare time, we were trying to get new business, it was focused on how to get the public to accept innovative technologies. Mostly I was focused on drones, because my background working with Armed Services Committee, that's where a lot of my experience was. And that's where a lot of the challenges were. But also some of the ride sharing services, and tiny little bit around automated vehicles. So I was fascinated by this. I started writing all sorts of things about it, super interested in learning about it. And so after the election, I signed up for the transition team. So I could keep writing about these technologies, and try to, you know, meet all the people working in the space. So I could, you know, make the connections and get new business and get to work on this, you know, tiny little pieces of work around these innovative transportation technologies. Well, being the youngest guy on the transition team, I was the Stuckey with having to actually write the documents that were going to be presented to the Secretary, when you are the one that has to write everything. It turns out, you tend to be the only one that knows what's in the documents because no one else reads them. And so when it came time to present to the Secretary, I was the only one that knew what they were talking about. So for nine hours, I briefed the secretary directly which led her to liking me which led her to hiring me. And so in me trying to get little scraps of work to get to work on these technologies. Suddenly I got the whole buffet and it has been a fantastic experience. It is wild when you write policies and write papers and position papers on technologies. And then suddenly a secretary agrees. And suddenly, you know, the drone integration pilot program, that was a memo that I did back in December of 2016. We're about to wrap it up. It's in its third year, the things that we laid out in 2.0 3.0, and 4.0. Those were some things that we laid out. Now, these have been modified. But, you know, we laid out a plan in the beginning, we've been following these plans. So it's wild when these things can happen. And there's nothing like the power of the pin to give you the ability to actually shape what's happening in the world and the policies going forward. So I've been spectacularly lucky. But sometimes it's good to be the Stuckey.

It is it's great to hear that and by the way, I hardly detect an Alabama accent. I'm from

coast to coast to life, and we're different

people. Yeah, you're special people. Okay. Well, let's just let's sort of jump in let's we're gonna before we talk about the policy challenges that autonomous vehicles represent, and there are many can we briefly talk about what the D o t sees as the core benefits of AV technology? So why don't we start from there like example, earlier this year, the National Science Council and the US Department of Transportation released a report about av 4.0. And steering Americans leadership in automated vehicle technology. So So what if what about all this from your perspective, we really want to see leadership? What's what are the core benefits? I mean, I think you can take it from there, you know what we're getting at?

Well, I think that everyone here is very familiar with the safety argument with the flawed and somewhat misleading stat that 94% of crashes can be attributed at some point to a fault that the human is making. Obviously, people have concerns with that, but it does paint the picture. People are dangerous drivers, how can we use technology to improve the safety of these operations. And I've seen like the the

I'm blanking on the group's name,

oh, man, the National Safety Governor's Highway Safety Program, the study that showed that by 2025 to eight s technology. So the driver assistance technologies being incorporated and integrating and integrated into our systems can save up to 5000 lives by 2025 alone. And this is just what the technologies that exist today, lane centering automatic emergency braking and like being integrated into fleets and people buying these vehicles with these technologies that saving lives today. So building from this foundation. That's the main reason why we're interested in it. But obviously, people are aware of the efficiencies that can be found in the system, the economic gain that these technologies can bring, as well as what it can mean for accessibility 25 over 25 million Americans before the pandemic were found to not be able to be employed, because they could not get to the location where they need to work. And so transportation being a limiting factor is an incredible differentiator. Now what we're seeing with the maximum telework and the device facing during the pandemic, obviously, there's been a big push for these video conferences, in a tremendous push to make sure that the watercooler type conversations that you know, many able bodied people enjoy from a day to day point of view can happen in these virtual spaces. We have to make sure we bring these lessons learned forward so that we don't accidentally discriminate against people with disabilities, preventing them from having those normal conversations that many of us able bodied people take for granted. We have to learn these lessons, but also incorporate some of the other safety impacts package delivery of, you know, groceries of goods, it's skyrocketed. I mean, we went from 1% in 2000 of online purchases, and package delivery up to something like Tron remember this stat up to something like 15% by 2010. Obviously, those have dramatically skyrocketed in since March. I know we've seen a 30 to 40% pickup in grocery delivery alone, up to $7.2 billion in June. These are changes that I know I now have Sundays, afternoons free to not go to the grocery stores. That's life time I get back to enjoy because I order my groceries online now. So these changes that we'll see these are economic changes. This is just with online purchasing. But as we look at the market, we're seeing that the focus on the package delivery autonomously is where a lot of the investments are going in, I think that's going to be a core benefit that people see and that is a safety benefit.

I don't see us turning back. I think I think the pace of growth that we're at right now. fences that the same pace that we're going to see for the next year. Yeah.

You agree based on your trajectories?

Yeah, I mean, so the percentage of people for the household travel good survey that that happened before the survey, we saw that there's a 22% reduction in the last decade in the trips people took to the grocery stores. That was before the pandemic, in fact, and so people already are gravitating towards what's most convenient for them. This just accelerates that. And once you get people trying something that if it proves out to be convenient for people in the long term, why would you go back?

Exactly.

And so that's a market for those developing automated vehicle systems, package delivery vehicles and the like.

Right, the opportunities are, are endless. And so listen, we I love the fact that you're using the term able bodied I picked up on that right away. And I really appreciate your leadership and in the language that you're using, because really, we're only all of us are only temporarily able bodied. Right? Yeah. And so the you know, you've spent a quite a bit of time thinking about this, the Department of Transportation has about accessibility and ensuring that people with disabilities can have access to transportation in the future. And I think this goes in tandem, the beginning of August, this is correct, you the D o t awarded $1 million to the University of Pittsburgh for research in this topic, and we have a lot of core competencies. And so you talk about how you see AV technologies playing even a greater role in the world of supporting people who are

disabled or Absolutely.

So. And yes, congratulations to Pittsburgh for winning that award. For the research going through the university Transportation Center there. It's a big deal. And we're seeing all the research that's happening for different components of accessibility. It's vital. So we have a few things going on. The Secretary has been directing this, she's taking a lot of her experience from our time at Department of Labor, understanding the impacts of disabilities to people to be able to be employed. It's important for the country that if somebody wants to be able to work, that transportation is not the key barrier to getting them to be able to work. And we've seen that, you know, over 25 million Americans, but for transportation are unemployed, people with disabilities that otherwise would want to work. Now, we're seeing these barriers being reduced, I think, sorry, we just had two conversations, I'm trying to remember which things I just said previously, and which things I'm saying for the first time, okay. But so as we look to reduce the barriers to accessibility, this is something that the department has identified as something that is a market failure. So there should be government actions there. We're trying to reduce the barriers to innovators being able to create accessibility focused vehicles, as we work towards universal design, they can address people's needs, whether there have visual impairments, auditory impairments, cognitive impairments, or mobility impairments, and we've been in a wheelchair, something like that. So the work that Pittsburgh's doing is going to be foundational to that. We've been working with the coordinating council on access and mobility, something that Secretary Chao stood back up for the first time since the George W. Bush administration, to make sure from the interagency point of view, the federal government was aligned and taking affirmative action to ensure the government's doing what it needs to do in this space, we've got a market study that I think is important. It's evaluating the business case for accessibility. So if you make x change, they can get you know, why type of person with type certain types of disabilities, if you can accommodate them, what new business opportunities are available for innovators. That's something that engineers that want to do this work anyway, can present to the people that are holding the budgets for investments. If they can make that argument about the business case, suddenly, we're unlocking a lot more private sector innovation. And of course, we have our Inclusive Design Challenge. The applications are coming in, starting to pick up fortunately, but they're due on October 30. And that's how we can work with private sector innovators, provide government funding, that can be an emphasis to get people involved in active and make sure that we're including the community of people that have disabilities are experts in those areas. As a part of the process. I love the saying nothing about us without us. This is a way that the government is trying to ensure that people that actually have the disabilities can be a part of creating solutions to address these disabilities. Because it's common sense for them something that I might not see your thing through. If they're like, you know, hey, I'm blind, you handed me a piece of paper with a presentation. I have no idea what's on this paper. Those common sense things are apparent to somebody with that disability. And if you're not including them, you're probably missing the boat. So we have so many different initiatives, terrific work, this is going to be foundational work that will have to go on for a decade to get where we need to go. But we got to take every step we can today to improve accessibility so we can get where we want to go by the end of the day.

Well, I applaud the, the leadership here, because really, when you solve problems, like what you just articulated sense when we solve problems for people who have, you know, those different kinds of abilities or disabilities, whatever label that we want to put on that you're solving problems for all of us. Okay, so when and I think that is the most important piece that people tend to forget, and think that we're just solving one particular issue for a particular type of disability know you're solving a problem for all of us. And I just want people to, to really appreciate that University of Pittsburgh getting that award is a very big deal. I wrote in my chat, that it's critical, and it's actually pivotal. So I'm really thrilled about that, as well. So thank you, for your leadership and policy design on that and continued support, because that doesn't get enough sunshine on it, you know, we're really missing that. So let's talk about this. in Pittsburgh, we've seen enormous economic developments associated with the AV industry, we are just hoping that this is just the beginning. Right? This is not just yesterday, and so with an eye towards protecting America's leadership role in the space? And what are the key things that we need to focus on? You know, clearly, we're going to be focusing on r&d, right? Clearly, we have world class universities and Carnegie Mellon and the University of fit. But you know, what are some of the other key strategies that that you have found that you think we should be focusing on?

Yeah, so there's a few things. I think the clearest thing is collaboration and transparency. I think when we talk about the safety of these automated vehicle systems, people are like, that's great. It's great. I don't understand why you haven't just passed regulations yet. Why can't you just regulate and say, thou shall be safer, and thou shalt be safe enough. And it's because we're all working together, to develop these tests these technologies and to test them together. And to do this research together. I think the work going on in Pennsylvania, the work going on. at Carnegie Mellon, I know we have a few people on here from their their work going on in industry around standards development, trying to make it something that engineers understand to something that walks on the hook and understand to be something that the public can understand that transparency, and that clarity of message, how these standards build on each other, to show the safety of a system, that's going to be incredibly important to the development of this. I know a lot of work underway. But that's going to be something that the department through, it's the safety principles rulemaking that you're going to see the NPRM come out in the coming weeks, maybe months, as well as automated vehicle comprehensive plan is going to put a key focus on so how do you actually prove safety? How do you show that the department's engaging, and that the government is involved, and that the innovators are involved in developing the safety of these vehicles, I think the AV test initiative is going to be key to that. That is where the department's providing a platform for innovators to show the actual activities happening around the company in the country, as well as linking to the voluntary, voluntary self safety assessments. So showing how the companies are proving safety and showing where these activities are happening. That's going to be critical. So people actually understand what's happening and what's not happening, what's hype, and what's reality. I think the parks initiative, which is OEMs, we have over 90% of the OEMs in the country, providing data on these automated driver assistance systems to the department, sorry, not to the department, we've provided a platform where they can share with each other so they can see the safety improvements from these technologies learn from each other. That's going to be critical, this third party data sharing so that innovators don't have to compete on safety, they can take these safety lessons learned and share them with each other. I think also we've got an initiative that's based on the karma initiative, which is connected an automated vehicle platform that is open sourced, it's provided to universities, we have partners around the country testing on this platform. We talked about av 4.0. We talked a little bit about, you know, the billions of dollars that our military spends to develop these technologies. How can we little old d o t plug into this machine that's investing all of this research? How can we pull these pieces from the D o d, shape them so that they're not classified, shape them so they can be usable? And then create sort of an arm's length platform not controlled by the government so that innovators can test interoperability, they can test the safety of the systems, they can test whatever they want to test using these mechanisms that were created to prove the interoperability of you know, a Joint Strike Fighter with You know, missile that's connected to a ship and ground systems all created by different companies that are all super protective of their IP. It's been proven God has been doing it for decades. Why can't we take those tools and provide them to our innovators so that they now have a platform for sharing data, they can learn from each other, and they can really collaborate on safety, there's a way to do it. We're doing it now. And we hope to have that ready for you next year, at least the first step, so we can have the innovators shape these tools as we pull them out of the DLD. But it all goes back to being able to share safety lessons learned and to show the public, what's happening out there, and how we're developing safety approaches. I think that's the biggest deal there is.

Well, so listen, there, there really are a lot of interesting, you know, things in terms of this open innovation, and how do we keep innovation safe from theft? You know, and when someone wrote in here by China, but just sit, you know, safety is really universal. So when everything is open source, how do we protect this notion that you've got, which it's a brilliant idea? It's just how do you keep it? You know, in terms of this whole, you know, sort of protectionism and safety?

Yeah, well, I think you can have performance based standards. And I think you can prove the safety cases around different types of operations without giving away IP. So on one hand, nav 4.0, we spent a lot of time talking about the different authorities in government to protect the IP and to make sure that foreign powers or otherwise can't steal it, what tools are in place? How do we do it? What do people need to be paying attention to tapping into to protect their IP, and to know how to do that against foreign powers that may just want to cheat their way to success. So we have a lot there, please check it out. But also, there is a lot of progress that can be made without giving away, you know, the golden goose, proving safety, being able to collaborate, being able to show that greater level of transparency for how we're proving safety, there is a lot there that you can do without giving away your IP and without, you know, taking away the market signal for innovators to be able to invest more in these technologies. I think creating these platforms, and then shining a spotlight on them is how we're gonna approach it. But you know, there are more tools being created every day in the private sector. And so we want to enable that as well.

Well, you mentioned something earlier about an innovation grant, or can you talk about that? What

the design challenge?

Yes,

yeah. So this is one of my favorite initiatives happening right now. So going back to October, at the access and mobility for all summit, the Secretary had a number of announcements, and one of them was a $5 million prize for Inclusive Design Challenge. So we launched that back in April, I think. And then we extended the deadline to October 30, because people were distracted. We wanted to make sure that you know, like the university students that are often partnering in these programs, they just weren't back in school in May. So we didn't think we were going to get the type of applications in the type of thoughtful approaches that we are aiming for. So we extended it to October 30. And this is really making sure we can connect the university partners that are thinking deep thoughts about how these technologies can improve accessibility be groups of people with disabilities, and there are organizations that shine a spotlight on these things that are developing accessibility standards that are really putting a focus in this area, and the innovators themselves that are developing the technologies, having a function that brings them all together and rewards them. monetarily is important. And we've seen this level of collaboration as being foundational to getting if you want to have success in these areas, you have to have that collaboration early on. And so you know, working with the carrot instead of the stick, the federal government wants to make sure to enable those types of conversations and efforts. And so on October 30, it's just a white paper. If anybody's considering how to do it and wanting to join, you can put a white paper together and show the partnerships and show your thoughtful approaches by October 30. It's not too late. And then after we get those white papers, we'll have our career staff do their assessments will downselect and then fund a number of the initiatives, whether it's prototyping, whether it's food vehicles, whether it's just focused on one component, it's going to be based on the strength of the applications and their feasibility and their market feasibility. We This is not focused on you know, there's three types of research, basic research, applied research and tech transfer. This is not basic research. We're not really fundamentally set up as an organization to provide that level of funding. $5 million, probably doesn't get you there. This is more on the tech transfer and applied research side. So how do we take the basic research applied to the technologies being developed how to We transfer it out so that people can use it. So that's really where our focus is with this. So it could be use please, please participate, because it's going to be

I just wrote out there fench, the inclusive design sounds via GRC. And I'm sure they can find it right on on that. So if someone has a company already in them product that's used for something else, they would be eligible for this. If they thought there was transference.

Yeah, if they write a white paper, and they show how it applies to this area, the limitation from Congress is that it has to be around automated vehicles. They provided us $38 million a few years ago. And so we're shipping out funding initiatives. But we're it must be related to automated vehicles. It can't be pure accessibility, even though that's incredibly important. That's the limitation on the funding. Okay,

well, that's great. That's great. So they have till the end of October. So if anyone's interested, definitely go there. So I'm cute. Here's the thing. You are now, you know, working if you weren't working at the US Department of Transportation, instead, we're leading an economic development team. Let's say it was here in Pittsburgh, what would you be doing to leverage this important sector for job growth and community impact?

Not to not to be too obvious, but it's, it's the big obvious things that will be the thing that drives the market, people opt in to what is convenient for them. So they may not be looking for level five vehicle that can do all things at all times that, you know, they don't have to drive anymore, what they're probably going to be focused on are things like package delivery, how to get goods to come to them, how they can use these technologies to make their lives easier, that's probably going to be the quickest market. And so we're we're seeing, you know, skyrocketing rates of, you know, automation on little sidewalk, vehicles automations, on not to name check anybody, but some of the package delivery devices that are focused on like grocery deliveries that aren't that big, they can go to people's homes, I would focus on sort of not small ball, but how to make people's lives easier, because that's going to be where the market signs are, first, it's moving of goods that probably will get money first. Whether it's, you know, there's an argument for the interstate systems that focus on automated driving systems there, I think that there's a real strong economic signal for commercial motor vehicles and deliver goods that way. And I think that there's, I think that'll be an early use case. But I also think package delivery in cities is going to be a use case. So thinking through curb impacts, how to accommodate those technologies in a city, how to show that you're thinking about that and proving out the designs as these as these devices are developed, I think that's going to be where the dollars flow first. And from that, we'll be able to leverage those developments into some of the other systems that people will enjoy in the future.

But I think convenience, and

I think convenience is going to be what drives people's willingness to spend money.

So that's where I would focus.

Okay, so that that's good advice. And that's also includes jacent markets in terms of what what we've already built, that's being built here and the research that's going on. So Finch, I want to thank you for taking the time with us today and staying engaged, I got to count on you to be a great ambassador for AZ for Pittsburgh, okay, just always think about Pittsburgh as the heart of this work. And and we'll be relentless about making the world proud of what comes out of here. But we really have the amount of density and the amount of research and the amount of really, really young, ingenious people who are leading tomorrow and building tomorrow, and it's right here. So I want to make sure that I'm leaving you with that punch so that you know that and I want to thank you for the work that you're doing both, you know your leadership and and through the times that we have right now keeping the vision straight. And that that just matters more than anything. So Finch, stay safe, and stay connected to us. Thank you for spending time. Thank you, everyone, on everyone to have a safe and great weekend Monday we actually kick off the week with Mark Thomas, who is who run as part of the Allegheny conference that runs an organization called the PRA, the Pittsburgh regional Alliance, and we'll talk about things all things economic development. So thanks, everyone. Thanks again to Finch and thank you all for joining have a fabulous weekend.

Thank you for having me.

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