All right. Good afternoon, everybody. We are all very excited to be here with you on behalf of secretary elaine chao. Our let our panelists introduce themselves in a moment. We want to let you know we appreciate how much you taking the time to be here with you today or to be with us today, youre a critical audience for us, representing the researchers, for advanced transportation, trv is an fantastic event. You tend to be a lot of people that understand what were saying more times than not and hearing from you helps to inform everything were doing. We appreciate everyone who came to the Human Trafficking panel earlier today. With safety being a top priority its something we need to take action on here and now. We look forward to you coming back later today. Well be talking about the secretarys top priority, to engage with these Innovative Technologies to ensure, to foster innovation while ensuring that the publics legitimate concerns over safety, security and privacy are kept on the forefront. My name is finch fulton. Everything were looking at today has been my portfolio the past three years. Im very excited about this conversation. To my left is james owens. Hi. James owens, the active administrator for the national thask association or nitsa. Very active these days because its a very exciting time to be involved in surface transportation. Theres so Much Technology and innovation going on right now that presents opportunities and challenges for any safety agency. Im jim murkel, executive director of the integration office. Our role is to ensure that uas are safely integrated into our National Air Space and also to ensure we keep that as innovative as possible. My name is diana roth. I oversee all the 1. 1 billion worth of research in the different modes, plus the 75 million in the University Transportation centers. I also look at technology such as backup gps in case satellites get knocked out and spectrum and connecting vehicles and Automated Vehicles. Wonderful. So, the show for today, well all give brief presentations to show you foundational background of everything going on in terms of policy initiatives, regulatory initiatives, laying the foundation for conversation, then well have back and forth questions and then you should see a number of policy staff around the room with no cards. If our policy staffers could hold their hands up, youll see these note cards. If you can wave them over, that will allow us to take questions from the audience. We do this because this is currently being aired live on cspan. We need to make sure we take questions, not take statements if you know what i mean. Were looking forward to this conversation. To start with how we have been handling these new and emerging technologies, you are probably aware at this point that the secretary announced nontraditional and emerging council in march of last year. Also looking at new technologies that we havent been established to handle. We did start focusing on the types of petitions weve been receiving where you see the nontraditional tumbling but making sure were incorporating outreach initiatives, regulatory initiatives, making sure we use this to inform the other types of work were doing in the department. Needless to say our friends at the faa that work on drones are bringing in the Lessons Learned and figuring out how to inform the work the faa is doing. A lot of learning has been going back and forth between the faa, nitsa, all of the assets. Maybe theres some day we need to include a scooter working group. Thats a question diana has been thinking hard about. We need to make sure we have good Interagency Partnership because we have authorities that touch other agencies. This is a good place for everyone to go. And i think weve had some good success so far. We just put out a request for comment. They just closed on friday the 10th. We got 1300 views of that and 26 official responses from commenters, challenging us to be thinking of technology in certain ways. So well be reading those. It just closed friday. We have not read them yet. Reading those, taking them in, understanding them and well take next steps from there. We had 27 Public Comments not 26. The secretary attended so she could announce Automated Vehicles 4. 0, ensuring American Leadership and Automated Vehicle safety. It builds on the departments approach for safety. We started, of course, with the cornerstone of safety, automated driving systems 2. 0, vision for safety, highlighting 12 safety features important for Automated Vehicles consider posting voluntary self statements, making sure the public knows how theyre creating these technologies. Last year, or in 2018 at the end of 2018 we produced Automated Vehicles 3. 0, preparing for the future of transportation. This took this cornerstone of safety and laid a foundation so that we have one d. O. T. Approach for how we engage with these automated technologies. It highlighted the federal, state and local role in these technologies and where do we belong and where does the federal role in research belong as we work with new and emerging technologies . What you see in Automated Vehicles 4. 0 is a continuation of these themes. The feedback i got was well, its what we expected. It should have been. We took comment on 2. 0, 3. 0 and we put out a number of requests for comments and we listened and took those seriously. The engaged Transportation Community should have seen this coming. Its been fantastic, the feedback weve gotten. We are putting this out for Public Comment as well. Were always better off hearing from everybody. As weve been engaging with our interagency partners and partners at the white house we didnt have a perfect idea of how many agencies were involved. My best guess is something around 13. If you dont know all 38 agencies involved, one, please go to transportation. Gov av. How can we better tie together these pieces . As we look forward to the future we have billions of dollars being spent on this research. We have dozens and dozens of initiatives going on, to make sure we accurately communicate these technologies and make sure the public can understand what is expected of each Automated Vehicle manufacturer and what it means when they engage in public transit, there are so many different initiatives that even i wasnt aware of, someone who is highly focused. It should serve as a map for you all to look as an american innovator what are the tools in place to connect these dots and be able to utilize Government Resources to ensure that america can continue to lead in the innovation of these technologies . 36 states plus the department, plus the district of columbia are actively engaged in the testing of these technologies. Types of insure actives they would like to see. Weve been working with our state and local, outlines the federal role. We look forward to working with you all in this room on these things. It does highlight the principle. We highlighted what our principles are that align with our authorities. You should see some of the same principles and understand the foundation for how weve been engaging but also how do we tie in the different authorities that we ourselves do not have . You see things like privacy come pack into effect, you see things around systemwide impacts coming into effect, drawing some of the Cyber Security partnerships we have with dhs, tsa and on the dod side, all the work theyre doing, tying together the department of energy, what happens when you make a connected vehicle. All these pieces are here and theyre now aligned for the first time under one set of principle principles. One of the activities weve been using to inform ourselves again, im talking about the policy activities that are underway, well have some of our partners talk about the regulatory activities they have under way. Diana will be talking about some of the research and spectrum related activities. With 60 million that congress provided to us to inform and engage the public on automated, first and foremost on safety, secondly on generating the type of data for safe integration of technology and third working with our state and local partners on the types of operations theyre comfortable with today, bringing them in so we have a coalition that are working together to explore what this technology can do, how to bring it in the system safely and how we can all Work Together. Thats the criteria with which we judge these grants and weve got great results. Rural applications, urban applications, working with people with disabilities and those that have good understanding of these initiatives and even looking at trucking applications versus transit applications versus pure automated applications. Weve got it all. Fantastic work. Probably many of you worked on these grants yourselves. Thank you for doing a great job. That made our life better. Now were in the process of cranking them out, going through all the activities. Youll see more headlines to come. Really the one thing that i would like to flag since jay is here, a lot of the things we learned from the very successful president s Drone Pilot Program we brought into this process, not only with how we processed it but how well execute t there are thipgs were doing recently in this administration itself that are informs our activities. Youll see echos of it, improvements over time as we learn from each other and have these conversations as an agency in the department. One of my favorite initiatives that weve been talking through and that the secretary did a great job announcing, and her focus on accessibility is starting to drive through since 2017, weve tripled the amount of research thats gone to accessibility insure actives and the secretary announced not only a number of research and policy driven initiatives but more of the intergovernment work bringing together the assets in the federal government, bringing back the coordinating council and accessibility since the george w. Bush administration, tying together these knots and row search initiatives to tie all the excitement around Automated Vehicles to ensure were bringing in that subject matter expertise so we can have the deployment of these grants, whether its the 40 million for the complete deployment grants that help use technology for accessibilities that can go from their beds to vehicles or to transit to their desk and back home, completing every trip they would like to make along the way not just working curb to curb but door to door and bed to desk. Its important in technologies here today, deploying that and taking the Lessons Learned. With the Inclusive Design challenge i love the mantra nothing about us without us. That is us, putting out a challenge to all the innovators, universities to Work Together, taking the standards that are already developed, creating new standards, helping to bring in this community of knowledgeable people with the actual engineers and Decision Makers of the Innovation Community together so were thinking proactively about the challenges that people with all sorts of accessibility needs, cognitive, visual, auditory, mobility challenges. Bring them in so we can Work Together to address concerns before it becomes a problem down the road. Cooking them in on the front end will hopefully help alleviate a lot of future challenges and lower that barrier to access blt. We want to take the lessons learn maryland that program and apply them to todays technology so were not waiting on Automated Vehicles to solve all problems and were not looking for silver bullets. One of the things we highlighted you see this in av 4. 0 and a lot of the work that james owens is doing in nit sch ni nitsa, we have to do a better job of what level it is or otherwise, but what its real capabilities are. So people riding in a vehicle, people that are regulating this. People that are just members of the public, that are seeing these things going on but dont know what they mean, they cannd if they get into a vehicle that this say level two vehicle. What does that mean . Driver assistance vehicle. Youre always in charge. Or is this a level four vehicle where youre not supposed to be hands on the wheel but youre supposed to be paying attention . There is not a truly self driving vehicle on the road today nothing for sale today. That remains the case. Increasingly brought into the vehicles that are improving safety today. We cannot let any of those things be conflated with actual self driving. It gives people Unrealistic Expectations of what their vehicle can do but it takes away the public trust in this technology in the future that can have the safety outcomes we really care about. Its important we get our technology correct, that we simplify it. We have everyone understanding what we mean if we talk to engineers versus the policy wogs that understand what it means to be level one vehicle versus level four vehicle. Driver assist functions and automated driving system functions or or av functions, we have to clarify what that is and make sure everyone understands, so that we can, so that we cannot lose the public trust. So this is something that you have seen us work on, we worked with some of our partners like sae, pave, consumer reports, on their documents and we are happy they came and talked to us beforehand and we had a lot of discussions with them so were happy with that, and that does serve as a starting point for more conversations, and more work that we need to be doing, to produce these things, for public consumption, and to inform ourselves even as the d. O. T. And the partners in congress, we are all in this together. We are still working on our Automated Vehicle work force, we hope to be able to produce this soon, but as we think proactively of the impact these technologies bring, we need to make sure were engaging and bringing in the community of people that are impacted and one of the main outreach initiatives weve been doing with the blessing and funding of congress is the Automated Vehicle Impact Report and looking at the Trucking Community and the Transit Community because theyre the ones who are likely going to bring the technologies into their system first. We had workshops. We brought them in. We had wonderful engagement with partners might not normally expect to be working, with the teamsters, uaw, bringing them in and having workshops firsthand so we can understand their needs and making sure were proactively thinking of and addressing these things. So we brought in four agencies, the department of labor of course, health and human serses, and commerce, so hopefully we can have something to produce for you soon because it really is a very interesting thought process we go through when trying to predict the future and predict what the impacts will have for specific people. So stay tuned on that one. Lastly, the Automated Vehicles comprehensive plan. This one has also referred funding from congress. But it is the most devilishy tricky problem we have because we have to predict the future and predict the future of regulations and which no lawyer is comfortable doing and predict the research and tie this together and that is why it is critical to put out there 4. 0 to outline the departments rules and what were focused and doing and the regulatory agenda out in public that omb produces routinely so you see what the plans are for regulations and you have the policy initiatives. How do we tie them together . How do we get from where we are today where we have a number of roles being put forth, for consideration and Research Initiatives and other policy initiatives, how do we get to where we are today and full and safe integration of ought mated vehicles into, Automated Vehicles into our National Transportation system. Thats what this project. Is so when we ask for comments on 4. 0, were thinking about how do we tie these things together to be a truly comprehensive plan and its not going to be right but we want to be as not wrong as possible. We cant prodict the future but were going to try, and it is going to be fantastically interesting and my colleagues on the stage, maybe excluding jay, i dont know, probably bring him in to some meetings, this is something were working on over the next number of months. So with that, i just leave you my information. I am always available to all of you. Please feel free to reach out to me, reach out to the policy shop, we are at your service. We are assets for you. We are all going to be working together on this. And we will be calling for to you make Public Comment on this document, right here, and on other things. Nothing we do is not done without taking Public Comment, and making sure were looking around every corner at what the impacts may be and how we should be shaping our actions. So with that, i will turn it over to you, james. Thank you, and its a pleasure to be here this afternoon, i appreciate you all being here. Its an opportunity for us to talk to you, share with you whats going on in our agencies. You are important stakeholders. We believe in very much reaching out to the public and getting feedback, so that we can make the ideally the best decisions possible or at least the decisions in light of the information weve been given. Let me start by noting that nhtsa as you all know first and foremost a safety agency. As the nations Vehicle Safety agency, everything we do is focused on protecting the people and our roads, whether they be vehicles, on foot, bicycles or using some other mode of transportation. This is also an exciting time to be in transportation, and particularly so with motor vehicles. We are witnessing a revolution in technologies that promise to make our cars safer than theyve ever been. First, lets start with the facts. In 2018, we saw a 2. 4 decline in fatalities on our nations roadways. And thats the second Consecutive Year of declines. Our early estimates for 2019, suggests that this trend is continuing, and that is very good news. However, that still translates into 36,560 lives that we lost in our nations roads in 2018. Every fatality is a tragedy. Every fatality means a family has lost their loved ones, friends and colleagues have lost a partner, and of course, that weve all lost the amazing potential that every life promises. It is simply unacceptable that we lose so many lives on our nations roads. And under secretary chiles leadership, nhtsa is focused on who doing what we can do to save lives and the bring those numbers down. Simply put, fatal crashes have two basic roots. Behavior and technology. We know that most serious crashes are caused by human error. And far too many lives are lost because of drug or alcohol impairment, driving without seatbelts, speeding, and driving while distracted. On the other hand, technology has made new vehicles safer than before. Newer vehicles are safer vehicles. And our studies indicate that the proportion of occupants who are seriously injured increases with a vehicles age. Put simply, the newer the vehicle youre in, the safer you are in a crash. Newer vehicles are safer than before, but we believe that new technologies can and will make them even safer in the future. Not only are those technologies making our vehicles more crashworthy, that is to say, youre more likely to survive when a crash does occur, but theyre now helping us avoid or mitigate crashes in the first place. Today, as you all know, developers are investing billions of dollars in advanced technologies, that are helping drivers avoid crashes, or reduce the severity of crashes that do occur. This innovation is leading to growing levels of automation that can address some of the unsafe driving behaviors that cause most serious crashes. The United States leads the world in advanced vehicle technologies, because innovators is are able to develop safety enhancing technologies here. Here at home. Under the leadership of secretary chao, nhtsa is facilitating the safe testing and deployment of advanced vehicle technologies, including but not limited to automated driving systems, or ads. Nhtsa exercises careful oversight over these developing technologies by closely communicating with developers, conducting research into emerging technology, and human factors, investigating incidents and complaints, and when necessary, and appropriate, exercising our broad enforcement authority. And when the time is right, when the technology is proven, our history shows that we will adopt performancebased standards for automated technologies. Today, many manufacturers are developing and rolling out new advanced Driver Assistance Systems or adas. Such as automatic emergency braking and lane keeping assist which can help drivers avoid crashes or reduce the severity of the crashes that are occurring. We expect that these and other developing technologies will help reduce fatalities on our roads, including among pedestrians, and other vulnerable road users. And the early data on the efficacy of these technologies is quite promising. Its critical however, as finch alluded to, that the public understands a vital fact about current technologies. All vehicles sold in America Today are, and require a driver to be fully attentive and cogtively engaged in the driving task at all times. This is true even if the vehicle is equipped with any of the adas technologies that are currently on the market. While these adas technologies are improving, and enhancing safety, they are not self driving. Misusing Driver Assistance Systems by failing to maintain control of the operation of the vehicle at all times, can result in serious and even deadly crashes. Consumer education is an important tool for enhancing, or for insuring that adas technologies are used in a way that enhances safety. In addition to driverassistance technologies, we are seeing significant investments in more advanced automated driving systems or ads, that might one day allow vehicles to drive themselves and there are thereby have the potential to greatly reduce the number of fatal crashes involving human error or poor choices. Ads technologies may also enhance mobility for underserved communities, and reduce congestion on our crowded highways. These technologies are being developed today, by many different innovators is, and nhtsa is actively participating by maintaining a close dialogue with developers to ensure that our safety concerns, including concerns about Cyber Security, as well as the efficacy of these systems, are incorporated into the Product Development process. Some of nhtsas existing poilgs and regulations will require updating to address the innovative vehicle designs being introduced by ads developers. Currently, nhtsa is working on numerous regulatory initiatives relating to the future governance of ads technologies. In fact, right now, we are working on about ten separate rule makings that address regulatory issues with these advanced technologies. Some of these initiatives seek comment on requirements that may not serve any safety purpose, if applied to certain ads equipped vehicles. Other initiatives address Test Procedure challenges that are introduced by some of these ads equipped vehicles. Existing federal motor Vehicle Safety standards, or fmvss, may present unintended and unnecessary future barriers for future ads vehicles without drivers and we are working on several rule makings to address these issues. Historically, the fmvss have been based on a concept of a human driver operating the vehicle, with the introduction of ads, the driving tasks will increasingly shift from human ors the driving systems or Automated Systems themselves. The agency is gathering information to support decisions about the potential adaptation of regulations to address unnecessary barriers to innovative designs. While ensuring that these vehicles would have equivalent levels of safety and performance to systems and components covered by our existing Safety Standards. Its an important thing to emphasize. When would he adopt new standards, as we evaluate these new technology, our lodestar is to ensure that the new technologies that are being introduced have at least an equivalent level of safety to existing standards, and we all hope it will actually be significantly improved safety. Nhtsa issued an advanced notice of proposed rule making last year on existing motor vehicle, ads regulatory barriers and we are right now, we are reviewing those comments. Were also working on an nprn, on a rule that would address fmvss requirements in a high level of ads vehicles ensuring occupant protection in vehicles without conventional driver controls such as steering wheels. High level ads vehicles may also convey information to drivers in a novel fashion. The rule making team is currently drafting an anprn, to amend the fmvss to address safety messaging including telltales, indicators and warnings in vehicles without conventional controls. Were also undertaking several actions to streamline the existing exemption process from regulatory requirements. By proposing improvements to the current exemption processes, we hope to facilitate testing and enhanced safety oversight by allowing a wider variety of entities to request exemptions to operate nonconforming vehicles on public roads for purposes of research and demonstration. One such rule making under way would create a new exemption for domestic manufacturers to operate nonconforming vehicles. Thus, helping to level the Playing Field with imports. Finally, our other rule makings in process would identify future Regulatory Frameworks for adsequipped vehicles. Our ads safety principles rule making, which is currently in the draft stage, would discuss creation of a safety framework for objectively and transparently assessing and validating the success of each ads vehicle. Were also crafting rule makings that would address specialized ads vehicles, like low speed shuttles, and also, occupantless ads vehicles like delivery vehicles. All new vehicles, including ads equipped vehicles, are subject to nhtsas broad and powerful safety defect authority. That means that defective vehicles and equipment must be recalled and repaired, when the manufacturer or the agency determines that vehicles are, that the vehicles or equipment present an unreasonable risk to safety. The agencys broad defect authority serves an important safety backstop to our standards. So long as a vehicle complies with our safety regulations, then Developers May Move ahead with new designs. But they will still be subject to nhtsas defect authority, if the vehicle or equipment presents an unreasonable risk to safety. As manufacturers develop and test advanced vehicle technologies, nhtsa will continue to engage in an ongoing dialogue with innovators is, to ensure that our safety concerns are incorporated into Product Development. And we will also remain vigilant to ensure that these Innovative Technologies do not pose an unreasonable risk to safety. As ever, the agency will not hesitate to use its enforcement authorities when it is necessary and appropriate to protect the safety of the traveling public. In closing, innovation is advancing rapidly in the automotive sector. And the development of these technologies promises to save lives and reduce injuries on our nations roads. Nhtsa will continue to engage stakeholders, as we draft Automated Vehicle policies, and regulations, that will continue to position the United States as the worlds leader in Automated Vehicle technology, while at the same time fulfilling nhtsas vital safety mission. Thank you very much. Thank you, james. And thank you to the audience for spending your afternoon with us on this panel. I too am very excited about the innovative activities occurring on my, in my segment. In fact, we are in the Unmanned Aircraft system, the largest and most rapidly growing segment in aviation. Many people liken it to the level of innovation and the level of change that we last saw in the introduction of jets into commercial aircraft. And so its a very exciting time to be alive, to be working on these things. Specifically we are seeing the entire aviation ecosystem filling in. So largely, the small uas, which are most notably in the news today, are filling in that last mile to last five miles. Were also seeing the emergence of urban air mobility, which is really filling in the last 30 to 300 miles, which will then meet commercial aviation and complete the whole aviation supply chain. So to give you roughly an idea of how quickly this segment of aviation is growing, we have about 6,000 commercial aviation aircraft registered today. We have 1. 6 million small ua. S registered, and that registration just began in 2015. So you can see in just a few years, weve greatly exceeded the number of commercial aviation aircraft. Weve also seen a rapid growth in the new form of pilot. And those are our remote pilot, or remote pilot operators. And these have, are now roughly 160,000 since we started registering those, as well. So this is a dramatic increase. And people have often asked me, well, why do we think that were seeing such a great change in aviation, that for roughly 100 years, stayed very much the same . And i think theres two key come poech opponents here. One, these components here. One is these aircraft are much more affordable and we have really democratized the affordability to access aviation, commercial, excuse me, a private aircraft can cost several hundred thousand dollars up to many millions of dollars. The average person can go and buy a drone that has a very autonomous, very capable platform, for roughly the same price that they can take their family to a sporting event. So were seeing that really change, who can have access to aviation. The other thing that changed is because these aircraft behave so differently, from traditional, particularly winged aviation, we are using parts of the air space that were never really utilized before. Roughly the air space that was used prior to the introduction of uas, was an airport, the approach and departure pads around the airport, and then the upper air spras that was used for transitioning long distances. Were now seeing these aircraft operate 400 feet and below routinely, in areas that manned aviation just really didnt go into, suburban communities, urban areas, and theyve really opened up the air space for use that wasnt really used in the past. So we have this very Thriving Market of commercial, we also have Public Safety, both fire and police, are actively using these, as well as other rescue, and forestry, and other areas, and then a very strong recreational community. So all three of these are growing simultaneously. And where are we in terms of operations . I think that we have, through our small uas rule, called part 107, largely met the requirements of those who want to operate these aircraft within visual line of sight. And we see a tremendous number of people safely, commercially operating these aircraft, for missions like wedding photography, other photography, around the house, doing Land Surveying on a small scale, and in and around structures, doing inspections. So those have been, those requirements have largely been satisfied. So whats left to do . The real economic and societal lock that we are starting to unlock is beyond visual line of sight and that really brings us to the very Innovative Program that secretary chao and President Trump initiated. The integration Pilot Program. We, within, we the uas office, within the faa, really are the focal point for aviation innovation. And there are really three main functions we serve as a parts of that. One, we are the front door, where we provide navigation throughout the bureaucracy that is the faa and help new operators learn how and where to contact us, and how to work within our existing regulatory framework. And then the second piece is we are the incubator. And thats really what the integration Pilot Program is. A very specific Incubation Program that was designed to integrate aircraft into the air space, in very innovative ways, and then also look at the community and societal integration as well. And ill come back to that point, because thats probably one of the Key Takeaways that an aviation policy person might not have originally stumbled upon. So we took, we also took a very different approach to how we started integrating these aircraft. A traditional manned aviation approach would be to see a problem, recognize the problem, and then engage in rule making, and start changing the rules so that you can solve the problem. We reversed that paradigm, and the ipp is really showing tremendous progress, by reversing this paradigm, by starting to approve very simple safe operations first, learning from those operations, and then building on those operations. And one of the things weve had to do is deconstruct our very, our, the word escapes me. Very specific. No, no. The requirements that are put on the vehicle operator, the vehicles themselves, the manuals . Prescriptive is the word i was looking for. A prescriptive rules structure. Specific was close. Specific was close. Thank you, for taking me down that road. But our prescriptive rule, weve had to look at them, and look at what was the real safety intent behind that rule, and then derive from that safety intent the ability to find a safe operation for the drones. Probably our best example of this is the current prescriptive rules for commercial aviation, require that the pilot have the manuels for the aircraft on board the aircraft. Now, we could certainly digitize all of the uas manuals, and we can certainly put that digital form of those manuals on the drone while it was flying around. But those manuals would not really be accessible to the pilot when he or she needed them. And thats what we learned from they dont construction of this rule, was the real safety intent was to have the Information Available to the pilot. So were able to go back and reconstruct that, and say okay, how in the remote pilot situation do we make that available to them . We are in the third of three years for the integration Pilot Program. We have nine of our ten original partners, that are still doing very robust operations. It is progressing faster than i think we even predicted it would. And probably the best example of the pace of change that we are seeing comes from our ups flight forward authorization of their commercial, or on demand air carrier certificate. This time last year, january, last year, they were proposing flights, that could occur. In march, we started operating flights under our small uas rule, and by the end of september, we had figured out how to take that operation and turn it into a commercial air carrier. So for those of you who arent as familiar with aviation and its regulatory processes, a manned aviation air carrier with a known aircraft, typically takes about two years. So in the course of roughly nine to ten months, we started from concept to air carrier. And that really is a result of this very Innovative Program that the department and the office of science and technology have been so supportive of. So we continue to investigate the societal and the economic outcomes of this program. But probably the biggest piece that is coming out of this, and is really the Lesson Learned for future Unmanned Aircraft, urban air mobility, and i think all of these automated technologies, is Community Engagement and community acceptance. We have found that the more work we put into that early on, the quicker we get these safe operations not only up and running but we start seeing the real economic and societal benefits from these. The public has a lot of questions about these technologies. And if you dont engage the public, with a robust program, then they tend to make up their own answers, as to what you are doing or what you are not doing, and how it benefits them, or how it doesnt benefit them. And so i think for the small uas, and ill talk later about urban air mobility, the biggest Lesson Learned out of all of this work has not been the underlying technology, but its really been how do we engage the public and help them embrace these very Innovative Technologies . Weve seen in other countries where they didnt do as good of a job embracing the community, that that community was very quick in shutting down those operations, so thats a Real Advantage that weve seen here. So the ipp, or the integration and Pilot Program, as i mentioned, will terminate in october this year. There is one aspect of this that we will continue to work with our partners on, and that is unlocking the economic and societal benefits of the beyond vision line of sight through safe operations. And primarily this is ensuring that the aircraft continue to be air worthy, durable and reliable, and then also working to determine, detect and avoid, which in todays manned aviation system, a pilot prays a function called see and avoid, where the pilot is responsible for seeing other aircraft and avoiding them. Well, obviously, these drones do not have a pilot on board. And the Remote Sensing technology in terms of an extension of the human eyeball is really not particularly great at avoiding the other aircraft. And that, those, the technology of detect and avoid, and aircraft, reliability and durability, will be the things that we continue to work on with our partners. But we arent stopping there. You may have heard that we have issued another set of proposed rule making for what i think will probably be the most significant rule in the Drone Community that we will see in the next ten years, and that is Remote Identification. Remote identification is essentially a license tag, like you would have on your car, but an electronic version, and its associated with your drone. This technology is vitally important for ensuring that we can safely evolve the ecosystem around drones. It is also vitally important for our security partners, our defense partners, and local Public Safety officials. One of the great challenges with Drone Operations today is if someone is operating an aircraft outside of the conformance of the rules, it is very difficult to track them down to identify them and to find the operator. And Remote Identification will allow drones to see other drones in the air space, so that they can operate safely among each other, it will also allow Public Safety and defense officials to determine the identification of that drone, and the location of the operator. Now, the personally identifiable information will not be available to the public. You will only, you will have to have actual credentials to be able to get that, so Police Departments and aviation, safety inspectors and such, will have it. But others will not. I strongly encourage you, if youre interested in this area, to please go comment on the rule. On the Public Comment period, it will close on march 2nd, and it is absolutely important that we hear from you, on your ideas, about Remote Identification. And so with that, and hopefully you will comment very quickly, i want to close with some thoughts on the next very, very innovative piece of technology that we see emerging, and thats urban air mobility. As i mentioned, these are aircraft that fill that void from 30 miles to 300 miles, between the small drones and the commercial aircraft we know today. And probably the biggest question i get on this is, is this real . Are they really happening . Yes, this is more than just hype. This is more than just promotional videos. We have at least six aircraft well along in their type certification, which is the first step in introducing the new aircraft into operation. We are beginning to work on integrating them operationally, so the pilot requirements, the Airline Operating requirements, and then were also beginning to work on the air space integration as well. It will drive a far more multimodal approach than the small uas have in the past, and thats why working with the net counsel and others, were very excited in seeing how we bring all these technologies together. It is beth a cargo component and a human transportation component. Particularly for the human transportation component, most of the Business Models rely on taking people from some hub area, in an urban or suburban area, and transporting them across congested surface congestion, to another hub area, where you can then meet up with shortrange surface transportation. And one of the popular Ridesharing Companies is doing some business modeling right now with traditional helicopters, and on their application, you can connect with a ride sharing or even their scooters. So we think thats going to be a very important area over the next few years, and we see that as we solve the problems with small uas, and beyond visual line of site, well be turning more and more of our attention to these urban air mobility. And so to that end, we are continuing and starting to work on Community Engagement. This will be a particularly new challenge for us. Because with small uas, they dont require very large landing areas. They dont require much infrastructure to support them. Theyre largely batterypowered or the larger versions are either traditional fossil fuel or hybrid battery fossil fuel, but these urban air mobility, tend to be electric driven and have tremendous Power Requirements for recharging. There are problems that i should say, there are needs to solve certain problems, associated with getting people to and from these aircraft. The best example is they want to use space on top of existing buildings, as landing areas. And most elevators dont go to the roof. So they will have to redesign elevators to get passengers up to those areas. And to get them up there safely, and without interrupting other activities. So this is a brief overview of all of the very exciting and innovative things that are going on in aviation today. And i think it matches well with what were seeing emerge in the surface transportation areas, and the other areas of research. So again, thank you for your time and attention. And look forward to your questions. Create, and as you pass the clicker over to diana, i would note it is very interesting, work that council can do because these urban air mobility features need to take off and land somewhere, are they transit centers, are they parking decks . Which is the most to be needed to bring into this session and it is something we are actively thinking about because it is fun to think about. Diana . Thank you very much. I know its in the mid afternoon when everyone is having that postlunch dip, but this is a really important topic. And thank you so much for coming and listening. Today, i want to take the opportunity to talk to you about the safety that can come through connected vehicle technology. And Intelligent Transportation systems. I want to make sure that you can keep innovating. As james said, every year, than 36,000 fatalities and 2. 7 Million Deaths on the roads. Well, two decades ago, in 1999, the federal communications commission, an independent set megahertz of spectrum in the 5. 9 gigahertz band. This is a safety band. Spectrum air waves reserved for Transportation Safety. In anticipation of the future. Those days, in 1999, Transportation Safety was important enough, for the fcc to set aside spectrum air waves clear from any possible interference. Over the past 20 years, our department has been funding research, based on the existence of this band of spectrum. I have heard about much of your research. And i know that many of you are doing fascinating things. This research has helped the automotive industry, and state and local governments, to develop new technologies that rely on the safety band, uncluttered by interfering uses. These new technologies depend on Clear Wireless signals that can help cars avoid accidents in the smallest fraction of a second. Some examples of these technologies, changing red lights to green when an Emergency Vehicle is going through. Having a vehicle stop automatically if there is something ahead out of the line of sight. Having platooning trucks move down a Highway Safety without hitting anybody else. Theres a myriad of these technologies that are going to help safety and Intelligent Transportation systems reducing congestion and lowering emissions. From 2004, to 2012, the institute of electrical and Electronics Engineers worked on standardized Wireless Communications for vehicles. And by 2016, the society of automotive engineers completed standards governing performance requirements and Data Elements for devices that enabled vehicles to communicate with each other, using a technology called dsrc, dedicated short range communications. In 2017, Certified Technology enabled cars to communicate not only with other cars, but also with traffic signals, with cyclist, and with pedestrians. New technologies, including Autonomous Vehicles, will rely on the safety band if it is allow to continue. The new safety ban technologies are now being pilot tested and preparing for wide deployment. Toyota has announced its deploying in japan, volkswagen has announced it is going to deploy in europe. So these new technologies are rolling out in countries around the world. And in the United States. Here, you can see a map of existing deployments and more are coming. I had the pleasure of visiting many University Transportation centers, such as Virginia Tech, which has a whole track area to test Automated Vehicles, ohio state university, and i hope to, this year, to visit texas a m, the Transportation Technology center there. This morning, i met with henry yu, who is standing here, henry, can you please stand, i met with henry yu, who is standing here, who is here in the audience, and who is doing fascinating work at m city. So there is much work in Research Going on around the United States. And we want to keep this as it is. However, a new notice of proposed rule making by the fcc would take 45 megahertz of the spectrum, over half, and give it to unlicensed wifi. The remaining 30 megahertz would be divided into 20 megahertz from cv to x, a new technology, and 10 megahertz for dsrc, the proven technology. Of course the department of transportation is tech neutral. The technology that we see today is going to be different from the technology that we had have five years from now and ten years from now. But we want the technology to continue and continue to develop. While an action such as putting 20 megahertz for cv to x and taking away 45 megahertz for unlicensed wifi, might help people to add ever more internet and other communications services, it would jeopardize our research, and the schedule and the ability to leverage communications to vehicles to improve Traffic Safety, and increase travel efficiency. We cannot be sure that these billions of devices on the unlicensed wifi, wanting to use these air waves, will not interfere with Traffic Safety. And will not delay deployment of vehicle and Safety Systems that interfere, contributing to car accidents. Our Research Shows that unlicensed wifi in the lower 45 megahertz of the band is going to harm reliability in the upper 30 that is left for Traffic Safety. In fact, the 10 megahertz of dsrc that is right next to the 45 that would be used for unlicensed wifi, would be practically unusable. The faa, and jay is here with the faa, would never allow unlicensed devices to operate in faa bands for radar and communications that protect the safety of hundreds of thousands of air travelers at any time. The safety of hundreds of millions of automotive, of automotive passengers, should be no less important. The integrity of the safety band should be preserved. If the safety band remains closed to unlicensed devices, these devices can simply be used in other bands, where Public Safety is at risk. There is plenty of spectrum, as you can see, you can see a tiny slice of the 5. 9 band. And the federal government and taxpayers do not benefit by opening up this tiny slice to unlicensed devices, where unlicensed wifi could go elsewhere. Theres no need, i can see many of you taking a photograph of this, this slide, and many others, are on our web site, at d. O. T. We have a whole web site devoted to the safety band. In the audience, theres michelle janet, michelle, i dont know if you would like to stand up, who would direct you to all of the resources that we have, and many other informative papers on the subject. We admit and acknowledge that unlicensed devices are, and the wifi thats associated with them, are extraordinarily valuable to the american consumer. All americans use these unlicensed devices every day, and the demand for free wifi. In fact, the demand for free anything is unlimited. But there are two important differences between unlicensed devices and automotive safety. First, wifi and other unlicensed devices operate in many different bands already, and as i mentioned, they can operate in others. There will be no fewer unlicensed devices or applications if the safety band remains offlimits to unlicensed devices inches contrast, there no other possible dedicated band for Traffic Safety, if the safety band is taken away, and given to or shared with unlicensed devices. The fcc is not going to allocate any more spectrum for Traffic Safety. Second, kmauncommunications bet transportation vehicles and equipment cannot tolerate interference and delays. In the complex fastpaced world of modern traffic, fractions of seconds are the difference between getting safely home for dinner, or the trauma of an accident. Now, other countries such as china and europe, have set aside their own safety bans in the 5. 9 band. Many of you are working on sbrochlts that will make moving people and freight faster, safer, and cleaner and more efficient. Canada and mexico have set aside 7 75 megahertz on the same band. It would be tragic if drivers in mexico were protected but when they drive to the United States, they are no longer protected, because the connectivity didnt work. Similarly, with canada. Also, given that we have a Global Market in automobiles, it would be tragic if we could import cars from germany, japan, elsewhere, and their safety would work in their own countries but their Safety Devices would not work in ours. That is not fair to the American Public. We talk a lot about stakeholders in the past, our main stake holder is the American Public. Well, the original commitment of airways for Transportation Safety was and still is a prudent decision. Preserving this capability is important for the United States to remain the worlds leader in transportation automation. The fcc will soon put its notice of proposed rule making in the federal register. All five commissioners voted in favor of taking away part of the safety ban in december. This notice of proposed rule making will be open for comments for 30 day, and then reply comments for 60 days. This will give the traveling public Emergency Responders and all of you researchers, and us, the department of transportation, the opportunity to comment on the proposal. Well, thank you very much for listening. And now, all of us are available to take your questions. Yes. One thing i will point out is that if you have enjoyed this part of the discussion, on vehicle to everything technology, tomorrow james owens and diana will be on the its America Panel at 9 30 in the fairagat north room in mezzanine three. This is a very Important Corporation that we want to continue. So please, we hope to see you there. I also want to say that the secretary of transportation elaine chao will be in this room, on sense at 12 45 after the chairmans lunch and of course, we always make sure that she has plenty of good interesting things and analyses to work that were excited about so if you want to be here to see those in person, we think that is a great idea. We think you will enjoy it. Were very excited about her comments. And i was going to start with a lighter question, but i think the thing that i would like to touch back on is something that has come up, obviously the department of transportation is investing in connected vehicle deployments. Using technology that exists today. Not only through our build grants, intragran, advanced Traffic Congestion innovation through technological deployment grants but also our connected vehicle Pilot Program, so not only are we testing and proving out this technology, and getting Realtime Data back from places as farfetched as wyoming, new york and tampa, but we can use this technology, it sounds like a good thing when you talk about signal phase and timing, Controlling Traffic lights and all that, but what weve seen in some of the research that has come to my attention recently is that it can make a big impact for First Responders so i dont know, james, or diana, if you wanted to talk about that at all. I think that is a question for diana. Thanks, finch. Thanks, diane nachlt so yes, as many of you know, one of nhtsas big stake holder, after the American People are First Responders. We work very closely with ex ms around the country, and of course we partner with state and local Law Enforcement on many matters, related to highway Traffic Safety. And of course, at the end of the day, ems is a trit cal part of our Highway Safety infrastructure. If you are in a serious crash, times is of the essence, you need to get to medical attention, get to a hospital as quickly as possible, that happens because of ems services. So one of the things weve learned in discussing matters of technology, matters with First Responders, is that there is unfortunately a very high rate of crashes involving Emergency Response vehicles. Probably not surprising, if you think about it, because our Emergency Responders, our First Responders, theyre the ones called upon to drive very fast, to get to an incident, or to get to a hospital, and often, navigating different traffic, different weather, and difficult terrain. So there are roughly 700,000 Emergency Response vehicles in the United States. We estimate that there are about 46,000 crashes involving Emergency Response vehicles every year. So if you think about that, thats about 6 or so, of Emergency Response vehicles are involved in a crash every year. Out of those 46,000 crashes, about 17,000 serious injuries occur, and last year, or i should say 2018, we believe we lost nearly 150 people, as a result of these crashes. So these, this is a seriserious and we believe that technology can be a part of the solution. A technology where an Emergency Responder can, right now, if you think about, Emergency Responders rely on two mode, two methods of alerting drives around them that they are coming. Lights and sirens. Vehicle technology, vehicle connected technology, v to X Communications can provide a third and much broader pattern of alerting drivers and infrastructure that an Emergency Response vehicle will be coming through a location soon. Moreover, we do have unfortunately a number of crashes involving two Emergency Response vehicles that hit each other, often coming into an intersection, responding to the same or sometimes different incidents. Technology like this, on vehicle to Vehicle Communications technology, could help prevent those accidents, those crashes from occurring. We think that this is something that is, that can be worked on today, we know that the Technology Developers are out there, and are eager to work with our First Responders. We know that First Responders are eager and interested in this possibility. Were certainly looking to do what we can to partner with our First Response community, and ensure that theyre as safe as possible, because what theyre doing, is theyre putting their lives on the line, to protect the rest of us. So the least we can do is do what we can to protect them while they do their jobs. So this is something that were excited about. We think that the technology is there, or getting there. We think that the time is right, and we really want to work with our community, both the technology community, and the First Response community, to ensure that this connection can be made, and these technologies can start being deployed. That of course, assumes that there will be sufficient spectrum and other Resources Available for the technology to work properly. So american heroes are getting hurt and killed responding to American People, who are trying to keep them safe and there is something we can do about it. It seems like something we should double down on. Right, it is not just american heroes, it is for example, a car that might be in the path, something might be, talking about accessibility, who might not hear the siren, who is in the way, who might get struck by the fire engine or the am bans. So it is the American Public as well as the heroes. Absolutely. If i can, i have one more thing which is to note that one of the challenges that our ads developers have is the question, how do ads communicate with First Responders . Thats maybe the toughest question that a lot of our developers get. And a lot of them are developing, you know, complex technologies, to interpret a siren or interpret the lights, and to take action accordingly. But it doesnt take, you know, it doesnt take a lot of thought to think that well, actually, if there is a technology, a Communications Technology that is already working, then that is one possible avenue in which ads technologies could be integrated with the First Response community. And Virginia Tech has even enabled technology that connects a motorcycle with vehicles and with infrastructure, so motorcycles, where, you know, crashes tend to be more common, they would be able, and motorcycles would be able to get a notice in the helmet that if he is trying to change lanes, theres a vehicle there, or theres a stopped vehicle ahead or maybe if he is going too fast. So this is fascinating technology. And i saw this Motorcycle Helmet when i visited Virginia Tech. So lets continue talking about safety. But looking at how different modes, and faa and nhtsa in particular can address it and when Congress Gave them power, obviously the idea is these are airplanes theyre up there, someone else that is trained very carefully should be operating the whole thing, we want the federal government to be in charge of everything from that pilot, who can be that pilot, how theyre trained, who can maintain that vehicle, what vehicle can be in there, and what you do this, who can maintain it, everything, congress provided that authority to the faa and the faa has overriding authority on all of that, from the moment a vehicle leaves the ground, to when it leaves our air space. With space launch and reentry. They have all of that control. And the regulatory structure reflect that. Nhtsa focuses on Vehicle Safety. So when Congress Gave nhtsa power, they focused on what authorities they needed and they really focused on new specifications for new vehicles and vehicles are something you can touch and sit in the front yard and you dont want to go to the federal government to try to get them to change the speed limit in your neighborhood. It is fundamentally a local issue. How people move about in the local transportation system. They are fundamentally handled different. Ly. But we see a commonality with prioritizing safety, with faa technologies an drone technologies. Can you tell me a little bit more about how you deal with these authorities and what they mean in terms of the rule makings we have seen coming out from a drone point of view and from advanced traffic points of view. Advanced vehicles points of view. Sure. So ill start. As you pointed out, finch, the federal government has the authority to regulate the air space from the blade of grass all the way up to outer space, within our political boundaries, and also, air space delegated to us under the Civil Aviation authority. And the big advantage we have in terms of aviation regulation is that we get to look at the entire ecosystem. And one of the big things we see changing is that, and im sure this is changing as well on surface and probably a very different challenge for you, what was done by an airplane, what was done by a pilot, what was done by an air traffic controller, those boundaries and those allocations with Unmanned Systems are dramatically changing. For example, in the drone world, a pilot is not navigating in that airplane. That aircraft is typically navigating itself. On an autonomous flight. We determine, is that aircraft navigation of sufficient performance, to meet the requirements safely of that flight. But now, i no longer have to train that operator, that pilot, in the same level of navigation and skill. I dont have to test them to that. But thats been a challenge for our us, is those changing boundaries and as we move into unmanned traffic management, and move away from Traditional Air traffic control, were going to see those boundaries between what an air trafficker d contro did to provide separation, and prevent conflicts between aircraft, is now largely going to be incorporated in the technology on the aircraft. So we have the advantage of the whole ecosystem, but in our world, because the allocations among the three principles, the aircraft, the operator, and the air traffic control, are all changing, we have to be very mindful, but having that ability to look at the whole ecosystem, allows us to set a target level of safety overall, and then work within those allocations. Thanks. Well, nhtsa, nhtsas environment is very different. But as jay mentioned, i think in some respect, the technology, the Technology Challenges that were receiving are, the Technology Challenges and opportunities that were seeing i think are starting to overlap, in some very interesting respects. I mean to start off with the basics, i believe jay mentioned theres some 60some thousand aircraft in the nation, and 6,000 commercial aircraft. And 1. 6 million drones. And 1. 6 million drones. There are more registered vehicles in the United States than there are licensed drivers. So you know, were talking about 250 million plus vehicles in the United States. At many different ages. Unfortunately, our fleet is the oldest it has ever been. Almost 12 years old is the average vehicle on our roads today. And that creates a very different regulatory challenge. We, the faa, and ive had the opportunity in the past here at d. O. T. , to work closely with jay and others at faa. Faa certainly puts a lot of very good work into evaluating new aircraft designs, from the getgo, and its very hard work, its very time intensive work. But we have about 400 models that are being sold in the United States, every year, and more than 50 new models, that are refreshes or entirely new models being introduced every year. So it is a very different challenge in terms of the quantity, in terms of how the regulations have to work. Traditionally, unlike the faa, nhtsa and the operation of the vehicle, is governed by the state and local governments. And of course, the equipment is what we regulate. But what is starting to change is theknow, the challenge that faa, think, has with drones is beyond visual line of sight, which requires an aircraft to monitor its environments and operate in a safe manner. The surface i think the its safe to say the surface transportation environment is more challenging than the aviation environment. Your speeds are not as high. Your distances are much closer. You have many more objects you can potentially hit. So, thats i know our Innovative Developers are encountering those challenges right now, and that is something that were all going to overcome together. Its going to be a very interesting challenge to see how this comes together, but we rely on, you know, our Safety Standards. We establish standards, typically when we have established standards, these equipment, these standards, are already in the fleet because it takes us a long time. When ntsa establishes a safety standard, we have to make sure that the standard is objective. It means it has to be we have to have a prepeatable test metrc so anybody around the country, around the world, can run our test metric and determine whether they are in compliance with our performance standards. So that takes time. It takes a lot of research. It takes a lot of effort and takes many years to get it right. We cant change our rules over, you know, willynilly overnight, so we take the care to get it right the first time. But we have the comfort in knowing that if something is out there, whether or not it complies with our standards, if it proves in practice to present an unreasonable risk to safety, thats where defect authority will kick in, and we exercise that authority when we have to and when appropriate and necessary. Its a very large part of what nhtsa does. Its a very important part of what nhtsa does because our defect authority plugs into our standards. That is to say our defect authority is what means that we dont have to issue standards prematurely because we can fall back on our defect standards to ensure that that if something is unsafe, we can ensure that its recalled from the market and repaired. And no longer presents an unreasonable risk to the traveling public. And we dont have to wait for something to happen, right . Thats one of the things outlined in av 4. 0, we have our authorities where nhtsa jumps in if it impacts safety but the ftc has their authorities if its miscommunicating what something can do, they could be perceived as trying to encourage more sales. Also the s. E. C. , if its something that impacts stocks, youll see this entire government approach watching these technologies and if we take on this approach with making sure we all understand who can do what, how they should be talking about these technologies, then you have the federal government and the private soeector working togeth to hold each other accountable for what the technologies can do and cannot do. Thats the ecosystem were trying to cultivate. One of the things i wanted to touch on, we also as we look to update the regulations, we have very prescriptive requirements from the past that are working to update piece by piece and it is very arduous work to make sure we update that, and we also have some of that with nhtsa, Different Levels and extents, but the idea of what you would do if you could start from scratch, whether its safety principles you highlighted that are already on our regulatory agenda or creating new categories for delivery vehicles, for other types of operations, how do you approach that challenge and how do you make sure youre bringing in the research on the front end that can help generate the types of insights that we need to make sure were creating the Performance Measurements and requirements that last . While also allowing for technological change. Absolutely. Well, thats an easy question. So, i mean, the challenge we have, of course, is because our standards have to be objective and repeatable standards, we need to have empirical evidence and that puts our Research Group front and center and our Research Group does a tremendous amount of great work, but the end of the day, what we dont know, we dont know. Right . So for something where were talking about more traditional vehicle equipment issues, such as crash worthiness, those are standards we know how to create right now through hardwon experience. You know, nhtsa was created long after the Auto Industry had been in place and in large part because of some serious safety issues that had arisen in the marketplace. So we know what were looking for when it comes to crash worthiness. When it comes to behavioral iss issues, thats new ground for us and that is something were very carefully researching and were very carefully learning from in a dialogue, learning from developers, to learn what theyre doing, how theyre going about this. Because this is behavior is behavior of a vehicle, that is an operational behavior of a vehicle, is more traditionally something that a state dmv would regulate. Can you do a right on red, drive above 45 miles an hour on this boulevard . And so thats something that w now, you know, its as it comes into the realm of equipment making those decisions, that starts to create an area where we have to do a lot of work and a lot of research to make sure we get it right. We cant get it wrong. So when were working on if when were working on new areas, green field areas such as vehicle behavior, we step back and we want to make sure that we establish the right principles first. Start at the very basic foundation. What are the kind the basic issues, basic principles of what a vehicle should do in order to be safe. Then we will work from there into more more detailed, more granular level to determine what specific issues if may arise in the future. Right now, our focus has to be on what is it that we would hope that all developers would, bear in mind, the loadstars, to speak, of their development, so we can ensure that those vehicles are behaving, operating in a way that is consistent with motor Vehicle Safety. Really interesting you say that, james, about the need to have empirical evidence because all the empirical evidence, all the deployments i was showing you on the safety ban, on the map, they are all dsrc, yet the fcc in its discussions in necessary december had 20 megahurts per cd to x which d. O. T. Is in the process of testing but is still an unproved technology. Only ten megahertz to dsrc. Its right to have the empirical evidence to sign up that people are going to be relying on for their safety. I would add while we use slightly different language, we follow roughly very close the same methodologies. So we, too, start with the fundamental principles of safety. There are two risks or hazards that we look to mitigate in all cases. Each one of our safety cases comes down to these two things. One of these two things or sometimes both. That is, people and property on the ground and protecting that. Of course, no one wants something falling out of the sky in any reason. And second, protecting air what we call the air risk or two aircraft colliding together. All of our safety cases, and i think youre right, its far more complex on the ground because there are far more opportunities for different interactions. All of our safety cases boil down to, in some form, those two principles. And then we go back and say, how are we mitigating it . We do have the advantage of being able to control behavior and have for years. We call it operations. You call it behavior. Its the same exact thing. How will this vehicle be operated . How do you know its safe . And i think the role for us in the Research Area in these green fields, the challenge in these very innovative fields is that green field i dont know what i dont know challenge. You almost need a few operations to sort of prime the research pump to tell you, here are some fundamental things that are different about this vehicle versus other vehicles weve seen in the past. Or fundamentally this is a different operation which then helps us identify from that, we can start identifying what is the gap between the performance standards, the scientific body of knowledge we have against those standards, the empirical standards, and the need to operate this vehicle safely . And to be able to test that someone can operate it safely. Quhoo while you call it the defect, everyone who runs an airline, has the regulatory responsibility to trk thack tha data, provide it back to us. When there are incidents, vents, of course, of a certain magnitude it goes to the ntsb. We have routine Data Collection own data gathering we use to continuously improve operational safety. So very different words but the exact same principles. I think were at a little bit of an advantage because weve had this comprehensive framework for at least 70 years. I know the faa, you have a closecall program. Yep. The bureau of transportation statistics, we have a closecall program where people can anonymously report problems so that we can see what problems are inherent in what different areas and do something to solve them. We have something for the washington metropolitan transit authority. We have another program for pipeline safety. I think were all interested in better ways to improve date to for safety throughout. Stay tuned. More to discuss there for sure. We should have gotten a number of questions by cards. If we can bring them up, if you have final ones, we have little bit of time left but the question ill ask before we get this is dianas. Helps manage over a billion dollars in research, this is a research crowd, how do you manage that type those types of investments ensuring we get the federal role right usand ho does that plug into something any of these gentlemen can use in an actual rulemaking . Presidethe 1. 1 billion is th research in the individual modes and the secretary has a responsibility to go through all the research and she has assigned me that task and make sure it does not duplicate and it is not and its worthwhile research. And the secretary always says personnel is policy. I have a staffer called aaron wolf whos putting in place Performance Management software to make it easier to track all these digfferent projects of th Research Done in the modes then theres the emergency transportation center. Their research which is about 75 million a year and we have grants to look at specific topics such as congestion management or infrastructure, those are the two latest grants for utcs that we just gave out this past year. The university of south florida is setting up a center which they call n irkicer, Nation Institute for congestion research. And Washington State university is looking for ways to maintain deteriorating infrastructure. These are two very, very important projects. Were very, very happy that congress has allocated us for 5 million for new information University Transportation centers. Were going to be putting out ideas, requests for proposals, in a variety of subjects early this year to get more proposals to have new utcs. Were very grateful to congress for giving us that opportunity. So ive got a few questions here and only have 13 minutes. Of course, we will be available to have these conversations afterwards, and, of course, my final question which im not going to ask yet, would be what does 2020 look like for your mode, your office . The first one i got is safety focused and av 4. 0 has voluntary Safety Standards, not mandatory. How do voluntary Safety Standards ensure the highest level of safety and Autonomous Vehicles . Thank you, finch. So voluntary safety standard lets start with by what its not. Its not a Safety Management system such as what faa uses in a number of circumstances or other modes of transportation use. What it is is an opportunity for the developer to articulate their safety case. That is what were encountering when were having behind the scenes discussions with innovators is how articulating the safety case, baking safety into our Product Design cycle . So the voluntary safety assessment, vssa, is something thats an opportunity for the developers to publicize the efforts that theyre taking to promote safety and also increase transparency with the traveling public so that we can all observe what theyre saying theyre doing and, of course, that helps create a marketplace of ideas among developers about best practices and what more they can do and what differently they can do. Its more for us to be a convening authority with the vssas. We encourage developers to publish their vssas. We encourage them to engage us and the public on the efforts theyre taking to ensure that the technologies that they are designing, the technologies theyre developing and testing, are going to be safety positive. Theyre going to be not just as at least just as safe as vehicles on the road but hopefully even safer than that. Not only have we been paying close attention to what congress stalking about with the rulemakings, encouraging us in the house legislation, the senate legislation, were faying very close attention to ensure that our regulations that are being updated that ensure at least the level of safety we have today and improvements, very much in line with that mantra, not only using this in order to share information among each other and Industry Partners about approaches to safety but trying to encourage and enable the voluntary gathering of Industry Partners with Safety Partners and coalitions on organizations. Were seeing new and exciting standards being developed today based off some of the foundational standards weve seen in the past. Its important to have transparency needs to so the consumers know what theyre buying, they go and buy a car, they know theyre paying a sudden amount more and getting an automatic brake system or backup camera. They know theres different gradations of safety and can spend money on these different technologies. Bringing all this together, were seeing a wririch outcome Industry Partners ruchb s rushi improve safety, rushing standards for this, iaaa or the 4600 standard. Did you think of this, how did you resolve it . Creating the routine checks the industry can adopt and we can continue to work with them on so we have a holistic approach to safety as technology develops. Were set a performancebased structure so that we can have the best technology and so the world will gravitate around our approach to safety. Talking about the exemption process which is defined by federal statute. If youre looking to change that policy, do you need approval from congress and essentially whats happening with the way Automated Vehicle manufacturers are using that exemption process today . Thats also a great question. Youre getting the easy ones. The statute provides us latitu latitude, we will exercise the latitude in a way we believe maximizes safety and accommodates appropriate innovation. For instance, theres a cap of 2,500 vehicles that can be exempted and thats something that we cant change as regulatory matter. Thats something for congress to decide. On the other hand, when we are we cant streamline the process. I think this administration as a whole is very interested in streamlining processes. Lets focus on things that matter and reduce the innecessary paperwork and time delay. Lets get to the substance as quickly as we can. For us the exemptions process is primarily about safety equivalency. How do we determine whether whether the proposed new design of a vehicle which does not meet our Safety Standards, which we established over the years, how do we determine that has an e qu equivalent, equivalent level standard . Its another area where the two modes are overlapping in terms of the opportunities and challenges that innovation present. Much like jay described, were looking back at what was the intent, the initial intent, the safety innocent, of the standard, and, you know, at a granular level and fundamental level, and how is that safety case, how is that being resolved in the proposed petition, the petition for an exemption. Its something that does take time, recognize it does take a while. Were also in our first few here. If anything, what the learning curve will mean things will probably move faster. Right now, we do, we want to exercise appropriate care and caution to ensure that when if we approve a vehicle, up to 2,500 vehicles, they can enter the stream of commerce. We want to make sure consumers, other entities, you or i may get into one of these vehicles, lets say its a rideshare company, we want to make sure you are just, and i am just as safe in that vehicle as if you and i were in any other vehicle that complies with our standards. Its a bit of a challenge right now, but i can say our focus on a research side, rulemaking side, chief counsels office, is really on the fundamentals. What is the safety issue being resoched in the standard, how are we resolving that in this position . Ill come to my last question. Ill highlight a point not only are we talking to congress, testifying before congress, again, when we talk about the bill that was passed by the house and the one being considered by the Senate Commerce committee, were very clearly paying attention to what theyre looking for, what their understanding of their own authorities are. The former administrator of nhtsa is at the Senate Commerce committee today. Were working closely with our partners in congress to make sure were all aligned and thinking the same way. I would say thats something i feel comfortable with. Final question, what does your 2020 look like . Who would like to start . Ill start. So our 2020 looks very busy, and im very grateful for that. It looks like were closing out our integration Pilot Program and really finishing what we started there and then also preparing for what are the next set of challenges in terms of beyond visual line of sight and getting operations up and running. And then i would say the third component is preparing for the integration of urban air mobility. So our 2020 looks very exciting. I didnt talk about this before but were putting in place, weve been asked to look at a backup system for satellitebased gps, so if the satellites get knocked out by some e lek to magnetic storm, some military action, or your phones, the Navigation Systems on y your cars are still going continue working. We put out a request for proposal. We got 20 different technologies. Were testing 11 of them on buzzards bay on cape cod. In may well have the results of the tests then dod, dhs and our department will get together and decide which is the best technology or combination of technologies. That process will be finish b iy congress and Hope Congress will fund whatever the three departments have picked. This is the most important thing i think we are doing in the office of research and technology. Is has National Security implications. The second important question, are we going to protect the 5. 9 ban for safety . The Comment Period is going to be open. We hope in the end the entire 75 megahertz will be kept for Traffic Safety so the traveling public can be safer and have more intelligent systems, have lower emissions. Were also very excited about our new center for highly Automated Systems excellence. Its being run by the office of research and technology. It will be a resource to all of the different modes, questions for automation safety. Were very much looking forward to setting it up and working with our team in boston which has the highest level some of the highest level Transportation Researchers in the country. Those are three things that are on our list. I didnt even repeat what i said before about the new University Transportation centers that were also very, very enthusiastic about. Well, its hard to follow that one. Ill repeat whats been said. This is an exciting year. Theres a lot of opportunities this year. Specifically on the innovation space for nhtsa. We got, as i mentioned before, about ten rulemakings that are ongoing right now. I hope well have published by the end of this year, by this time next year, so to speak, i hope we will have published several nprms, maybe even a file rule or two. Were working very hard on that front. Thats something thats very exciting. I think related to this, something i havent talked about much here today, is the new car assessment program. So we announced a few months ago that were taking a fresh look at ncap. We believe that ncap is a tremendous opportunity to advance safety in ways that are not regulatory because it taps into Market Forces which are way more powerful than any regulation. Consumers value safety. Automakers know consumers value safety. When the Safety Standards, ncap standards, fivestar safety ratings you know and love, when those are updated the automakers will change their manufacturing processes, their designs according accordingly. That will lead to safer vehicles, car worthiness, advanced Safety Technologies will be incorporated and this hopefully well find a way to, as best we can, future proof it so we dont have to reset the grades every ten years. Its a very difficult process. The team showed me the roadmap to completing the upgrade of ncap and its i cant even imagine how many publications it involves. It really is an arduous process but its a deliberative one, its very exciting were working on it. Our team is really excited and its one of the few things that i as the acting administrator at nhtsa get to announce in which i have the oems, the developers, and the sacht tsafety advocates call me and say, congratulati congratulations, theyre excited about it. On that note of bringing everybody together, this is nhtsas 50th anniversary this years so were very excited about that. I like to tell my team, you know, hey, you know, we have a long way to go. 36,560 fatalities is unacceptable. But sometime s on an anniversar, you stop and take stock asht whe about where you came from. Look back 50 years ago when nhtsa was first formed coming out of federal highways, there were more than 50,000 fatalities on our roads. At that time, more americans were being killed every year on our roads than were killed in vietnam. And the fatality rate today is about onequarter of what it was 50 years ago. If you do that math, if i do the math correctly, thats well over 100,000 fatalities we would be experiencing today every year if we still had the fatality rate of 50 years ago. Not james, its still true that more americans are being killed on the roads than killed in vietnam. Thats all true about a year and a half now. Its still appallingly high. To put into perspective, america, of course, was a much smal smaller country 50 years ago than today. We are excited about this because you want to step back, you want to remind yourself everything weve done. Its not just nhtsa. Its state Highway Safety departments. Its our First Responder friends. Its the developers because newer cars are, in fact, safer cars. Its the consumer advocates like m. A. D. Who did a tremendous job of making driving under the influence unacceptable, not just legally unacceptable but socially unacceptable. Think back 50 years ago, it was pretty common for people to drive under the influence and wasnt taking all that seriously around the country. Today its something thats taken much more seriously and we brought those numbers down. Long way to go, but weve come a long way, too. On that front, i will note theres some things that went happen this year but are coming in are arriving in the coming years. Not only some of our a. D. S. Technologies and adas technologies, im very excited about those, were also excited about somethings like the d. A. D. S. Program which is a technology thats designed to passively detect alcohol on a drivers breath. Ten years from now, were going to im convinced were going to look back and were going to say, you know what, we effect e effectively have put driving under the influence to an end because the promise of the technology is tremendous. Still have a lot of research. A lot of work to do on that. But were getting a lot closer. I work closely on that program. Its something thats near and dear to me. And thats an opportunity to save 10,000 lives a year. So its an exciting year at nht nhtsa. Were going to do events around the country, have an opportunity to plug into different communities and remind everybody about not just Traffic Safety but all the great things that weve all accomplished as a nation over the last 50 years on the on our roadways. All right. Im excited about the safety work well be doing together. The efforts that the councils taking as we approach new transportation technologies. The work of the uas, taking the lessons weve learned and shaping what the future looks like and comprehensive plan where we tie together the research, policy, and rulemaking policieies together. Under our nations transportation system. Probably the thing im most excited about is in this room on wednesday at 12 45 after the chairmans lunch, secretary elaine chao will be speaking and providing a great number of interesting discussion and talking points. On wednesday we hope to see you all there. Please join me in thanking my fellow panelists and thank you, all, for being here. [ applause ] the Transportation Research board holds a discussion today on the administrations 2020 transportation and infrastructure policy priorities. Watch that live at 3 45 p. M. Eastern on cspan3. Online at cspan. Org
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