Transcripts For CSPAN3 Transportation Officials Discuss Automation Technology 20240713

Eastern. Next, representatives from the faa and the national Highway Traffic Safety Administration join two assistant transportation secretaries to talk about new technology and government regulation. The Transportation Research board hosted this event. All right. Good afternoon, everybody. I hope youre all doing very well today. We are all very much excited to be here with you. On behalf of secretary elaine chao. To present to you on laying the foundation for advanced Transportation Technology. Ill let our panelists introduce themselves in a moment. We want to let you know we appreciate you. Youre a critical audience for us representing researchers and thinking that goes into laying the foundation for a lot of tho these advanced transportation technologies. Trv is a fantastic event. People who attend trv tend to be a wonkier crowd. Understand what were saying more times than not. Hearing from you helps inform everything were doing. Were very much looking forward to this panel today. We appreciate everyone that came to the Human Trafficking panel earlier today. As you can imagine, safety being the secretarys top priority, Human Trafficking is a critical issue we all need to take action on now and we also look forward to you coming back at 3 45. Of course, now well be talking about the secretarys top priority which is to engage with these Innovative Technologies to ensure that to foster innovation while ensuring that the publics legitimate concerns over safety, security, and privacy, are kept on the forefront. So, my name is finch fulton. Im Deputy Assistant secretary for transportation policy ive been working on these issues in the department for three years. Its fascinating and really everything that were looking at today has been my portfolio for the past three years, so im very excited about this conversation. To my left is james owens. Hi. Im james owens. Im the acting administrator of the national Highway Traffic Safety Administration or nhtsa. Obviously, in the innovation space, nhtsa is very active these days because its a very exciting time to be involved in surface transportation, i guess all modes of transportation. Theres so Much Technology and innovation going on right now and theres that presents both opportunities and challenges for any safety agency. Hi. Im jay merkel from the federal Aviation Administration and im the executive director of the uas integration office. So our role is to ensure that uas are safely integrated into our National Airspace and also ensure we keep that as innova innovative as possible. My name is diana roth. Im Deputy Assistant secretary for research and technology so in that role i oversee all the 1. 1 billion worth of research in the different modes, plus the 75 million in the University Transportation centers. I look at technologies such as backup gps in case technologies get knocked out and vehicles and Automated Vehicles. Wonderful. So the run of show for today is were all going to give you brief presentations to show you a foundational background of everything thats going on in terms of policy initiatives, Research Initiatives, regulatory initiatives, laying the foundation for our conversation, then were going to have some backandforth questions then you should see a number of policy staff around the room with notecards. If our policy staffers could hold their hands up, youll sigh these note cards. If you could wave them over, that will allow us to be able to take questions from the odd yaue to continue the conversation were having. Go ahead and submit your questions at any point in time. Theyll bring them up to us and so on. We do this because this is currently being aired live on cspan. So we need to make sure that we take questions, not take statements. If you know what i mean. So were looking forward to this conversation. And to start with how weve been handling these new and emerging technologies, you probably are aware at this point that the secretary announced the nontraditional and emerging Transportation Technology council at the United States department of transportation in march of last year. So weve been hard at work bringing in a lot of the research and initiatives that we have under way but also looking at how do we address new types of technologies that we havent already been established to handle. The technologies that close modes or ask new types of questions. Did start focusing on some of the types of petitions that weve been receiving, you see the hyperloop and nontraditional tunnelling but also making sure were incorporating our Automated Vehicle work in that. The policy initiatives, the outreach initiatives, the regulatory initiatives and the Research Initiatives, making sure we use this to inform the other types of work that were doing in the department and needless to say, our friends at the faa that work on drones are bringing in a lot of Lessons Learned and were trying to figure out how to better utilize the other modes to inform the work that the faa is doing. But theres a lot of learning thats been going back and forth between the faa, between nhtsa, between the federal motor carrier safety administration. All the assets that are looking at these technologies and were not done. This is not supposed to be an exhaustive list. You can think through new technologies. Maybe theres someday we need to include a scooter working group. A question i know diana has been thinking hard about. Any of these new things that may challenge some of the authorities we have or need to make sure we have good Interagency Partnership because we have authorities that touch other agencies. This is a single point of contact for anyone that has something that challenges us in a unique way so they dont get different answers from different modes or dont find the staff is lost. This is a good place for everyone to go. And i think weve had some good success so far and we just put out a request for comment that just closed on friday the 10th. We got 1,300 views of that in 26 official responses from commenters challenging us to be thinking of technology in certain ways so well be reading those. It just closed friday so we have not read them yet. Reading those, taking them in, understanding them, and well take next steps from there. Oh, yeah, thats the request for comment. We had 27 Public Comments. Not 26. So one of the things that hopefully a message that you got from you got from ces was that the secretary attended so that she could announce Automated Vehicles 4. 0, ensuring American Leadership in Automated Vehicle safety. This was announced just this last week, and what this is is it builds on the departments approach for safety for Automated Vehicles. We started with the corner stone of safety that was automated driving systems 2. 0, a vision for safety. This highlighted the 12 safety features that are important for Automated Vehicle developers to be thinking of, considering, posting, voluntary selfsafety assessments of these things, making sure public knows how theyre creating these technologies. This outlined and solidified the corner stone of safety that we use to approach all of these technologies, avs and otherwise. 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 corner stone of safety and laid the foundation for the department of transportation so we have one dot approach for how we engage with automated policies. Further clarified safety focuses and guidelines around safety, what is the federal role, the state role and the local role in these technologies and where do we belong, and where does the federal role and research belong as we work with new and emerging technologies. What you see in Automated Vehicles 4. 0 is a continuation of these themes. One of the bits of feedback we got is, well, its what we expected, it should have been. We took comment on av 3. 0, we took a number of questions for comments and we listen and we take those seriously. The engaged Transportation Community should have seen this coming and so its been fantastic the feedback weve gotten and we are putting this out for Public Comment as well because were always better off hearing from everybody and helping us tie the knots together. So one of the main take aways is that as weve been engaging with our inner Agency Partners and our partners at the white house, we didnt really have a perfect idea of how many agencies were involved. My best guess was something around 15. Its 38 federal agencies that are involved. If you dont know all 38 agencies involved, go to transportation. Gov av. As we look for the Transportation Future we want we have billions of dollars being spent on emerging technologies, 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, what it means when they engage in public transit. What it means when he they think through fuel efficiency. There are so many initiatives that are underway that people werent aware of that even i wasnt aware of, somebody that has been pretty heavily focused. Were going to put this out for Public Comment and it should serve as a map for you all, to look at the assets that are in place for you to look as an american innovator, what are the tools in place to connect the dots and utilize the Government Resources to make sure america can continue to lead in innovation of technologies. 36 states plus the department plus the district of columbia are actively engaged in the testing of technologies. Congress has weighed in with the fast act on the types of initiatives they would like to see. The department has been heavily engaged, working with our state and local partners closely. Theres a massive amount of work underway. This outlines the federal role and the federal activities but theres so much more work to be done and we look forward to working with you all in this room on these things. Oh, it does highlight the principles in av 3. 0, 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 we have been engaging but also how we tie the different authorities that we do not ourselves have. You see things like privacy come back into effect, things around system wide impacts coming into effect, of drawing together some of the Cyber Security partnerships that we have with dhs, and tsa and on the dod side on all the work theyre doing, the work the department of energy is doing on systemwide effects of efficiency of vehicles or what happens when you make a connected vehicle. All of these pieces are aligned for the first time under one set of principles. One of the activities that we have been using to inform ourselves, and again, im talking about the policy activities that are underway, will have some of our partners talking about the regulatory activities they have underway, and of course diana will be talking about some of the research and spectrum related activities. Im going to focus on the policy activities and the first is with the 60 million that the congress provided to us to inform and engage the public on Automated Vehicle demonstrations, we have put out grants that focus first and foremost on safety, secondly on generating the type of data we actually need to update our rule makings and standards for the safe integration of this technology, and third, working with our state and local partners on the types of operations they are comfortable with today, bringing them in so we have a coalition of the willing that are working together to explore what this technology can do, how to bring it into the system safely and how we can all Work Together. That is the criteria with which we judge these grants and weve got great results. You can see the map in front of us, the types of operations. They focus on rule operations, urban applications, tieing together different pieces, working with the people, with the communities of people with disabilities and those that have good understanding of these initiatives. Even looking at trucking applications versus transit applications, versus pure Automated Vehicle applications, we got it all. Weve got some fantastic work and probably many of you worked on these grants themselves. So thank you for doing a good job, and that made our life a lot better. Were very proud of these grants and now were in the process of cranking them out, going through the activities with the awardees of these grants. Youll see more things to come. The one thing i would like to flag since jay is here, a lot of things we learned from the successful president s drone integration Pilots Program we brought into this process, not only how we process it but how we execute it. A hot of things we have been doing that are informing our activities and youll see echoes of it, improvements over time as we learn from each other and as we have these conversations assen a agency in a department. One of my favorite initiatives that we have been talking through that the secretary did a great job announcing and her focus on accessibility is starting to drive through, since 2017, we have tripled the amount of research that has gone to accessibility initiatives and on october 29th, the secretary announced not only a number of research and policy driven initiatives but also more of the intergovernment work, bringing together the assets in the federal government, bringing back the coordinating counsel and accessing mobility for the First Time Since the george w. Bush administration, tieing together these knots, tieing together Research Initiatives so we can use all the excitement around technology, Automated Vehicles to ensure that were bringing in the communities of people with disabilities, to ensure were bringing that subject matter expertise so that we can have some of the deployment of these grants whether its the 40 million for the complete trip deployment grants that helps use technology for people with accessibilities that can go from their beds to their vehicles, or to transit to their desk back home, completing every trip they would like to make along the way. Not just working on curbtocurb but door to door and bed to desk. Its important in that technology here today, deploying that and taking 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 of the innovators, to all of the universities to Work Together, taking the standards that are already developed, creating new standards, helping bring in this community of knowledgeable people with the actual engineers and Decision Makers of the innovation community, the oems and Tech Companies together to work on challenges so that were thinking proactively about the common sense challenges people with all sorts of accessibility needs, whether they be cognitive, visual, auditory, mobility challenges, bring them in so that 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 accessibility. We want to take those Lessons Learned in that program, and apply to todays technology so were not waiting on Automated Vehicles to solve all problems, and not looking for silver bullets. One of the things that we highlighted and you see this in av 4. 0 and the lot of works that james owens is doing at nhtsa is we have to do a better job of communicating what a technology is, what level it is or otherwise but what its real capabilities are. People riding in a vehicle, regulating this, members of the public that are seeing these things going on but dont know what they mean, they can understand if they get into a vehicle, this is a level 2 vehicle and what does that mean, the Driver Assistance vehicle. Youre always in charge or is this a level 4 vehicle. Youre not supposed to be hands on the wheel but paying attention. There is not a truly selfdriving vehicle on the road today. Nothing available for sale today. That still remains the case but we have lower levels of automation, increasingly being brought in vehicles that are improving safety today but we cannot let things happening with technologies be conflated with selfdriving technology. Not only does it ruin safety today and gives people Unrealistic Expectations of what their vehicle can do. It takes away the public trust of the technology in the future that can deliver the safety outcomes that we care about. Its important that we get our terminology correct, that we simplify it so we have everything understanding what we mean, if were talking to the engineers and the smart people in the room versus the policy wonks who understand what it means to be a level one vehicle versus a level four vehicle, we need to reach the general public, so they know the difference between Driver Assist functions and automated Driver System functions or av functions or we have to clarify what that is, and make sure everyone understands so that we cannot lose the public trust. So this is something you have seen us work on. We have worked with some of our partners with sae, pave, Consumer Reports and aaa on their document that they recent produced. We are happy they came and talked to us beforehand and we had a lot of discussions with them, so we were very happy with that, and that does to us 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 as the d. O. T. And partners in congress. Were all in this together. We are still working on our Automated Vehicle work force report. As we think proactively about the impacts these technologies can bring, we need to make sure were engaging and bringing in the community of people that feel like they will be impacted. One of the main outreach initiatives we have been doing with the blessing and funding of congress is Automated Vehicle work force report and looking at the impacts to the Trucking Community and the transit community, first and foremost because they are some of the ones we are seeing as likely to bring technologies into their systems first. We have had workshops, brought them in. Wonderful engagement with partners that you may not normally expect to be working with. We have been working with the teamsters and uaw. Bringing them in, coming in, and having workshops with them firsthand, so we can understand their needs and making sure we are proactively thinking of and addressing these things. We brought in four agencies, a department of labor, of course, health and Human Services and commerce. So hopefully we can have something produced for you soon. It really is a very interesting thought process were going through when trying to protect the future and impacts for specific people. Stay tuned on that one. Lastly, Automated Vehicles comprehensive plan. This has received funding from congress but it is the most devilishly tricky problem we have because we have to predict the future and the future of what our regulations are going to say which no lawyer is comfortable doing. We have to predict what research we have to do, tie all these things together and thats why it was critical it put out av 4. 0, so we have outlined what the departments roles are, what were focused on, what were doing, you have our regulatory agenda out in public that omb produces routinely. You see what our plans are for regulations and you have all of these policy initiatives. How do we tie them together, how do we get where we are today where we have a number of rules being put forth for consideration, Research Initiatives and policy initiatives, how do we get from where we are today to the full and safe integration of Automated Vehicles into our National Transportation system. Thats what this project is. When we ask for comments on the 4. 0, were try to start thinking about how we tie the pieces together so we have a truly comprehensive plan and its not going to be right, were going to try and be as not wrong as possible. We cant predict the future but were going to try. Its going to be fantastically interesting and my colleagues on the stage, maybe excludeing jay, this is something were going to be working on over the next number of months. With that, i leave you my information. Im 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, and were all going to be working together on this, and we will be calling for you to make Public Comment on this document right here, and on other things. Nothing we do is not done with taking Public Comment and making sure were looking around every corner at what the impacts may be or how we should be shaping our actions. With that, ill turn it over to you james. Thank you, finch. 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 stake holders. We believe very much in reaching out to the public and getting feedback so that we can make ideally the best decisions possible or the decisions best in light of the information we have been given. So let me start by noting that nhtsa is as you all know, first and foremost, a safety agency. As the nations Vehicle Safety agency, everything we do is focus on protecting the people in our roads whether they be in vehicles, on foot, on bicycles or using some other mode of transportation. This is also an exciting time to be in transportation and particularly so in Motor Vehicles. We are witnessing a revolution in technologies that promise to make our cars safer than they have ever been. 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 suggest 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 we have 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 cha os leadership, nhtsa is focused on doing what we can do to save lives and 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 seat belts, 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 crash worthy, 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 are able to develop safety enhancing technologies here at home. Under the leadership of secretary chao, nhtsa is facilitating the safe testing and employment of advanced vehicle technologies including but not limited to automated driving systems or ads. Nhtsa is closely communicating with developers, conducting research into emerging technologies 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 performance based 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 uses a vital fact about current technologies. All vehicles sold in America Today are and require a driver to be fully attentive and cognitively engaged in a 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 selfdriving. 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 ensuring that adas technologies are used in a way that enhances safety. In addition to Driver Assistance technologies, we are seeing significant investments in more advanced automated driving systems or ads that might one day allow vehicles to drive themselves and 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 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 policies 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 see 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 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 humans to the driving systems or Automated Systems themselves. The agency is gathering information to support decisions about 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 we adopt new standards, as we evaluate these new technologies, our load star 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 reviewing those comments. Were also working on an nprm on a rule that would address fmvss requirements in high level ads vehicles, ensuring occupant protection and vehicles without conventional driver controls such as steering wheels. High level ads vehicles may 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 telltails, instinct tors and warnings in vehicles without n conventional controls. We are taking several actions to streamline the existing requirement by improvements to the existing processes, we hope to facilitate testing and enhance 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 underway 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 progress would identify future Regulatory Frameworks for ads equipped 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. We are 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 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 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 stake holders 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 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 the 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 echo system 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. Excuse me. 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 uas registered and that registration just began in 2015. You can see in two years we have greatly exceeded the number of commercial aircraft. We have also seen a rapid growth in a new form of pilot. And those are our remote pilot or remote pilot operators, and these have are now roughly 160,000 since weve started registering those as well. So this is a dramatic increase, and people have often asked me, well, why do we think they were seeing such a great change in aviation that for roughly a hundred years stayed very much the same. And i think theres two key components here. One, these aircraft are much more affordable and weve really democratized the ability 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 changed who can have access to aviation. The other thing that changed is because these air craft behaved so differently from traditional, particularly winged aviation, we are using parts of the airspace that were never really utilized before. Roughly the airspace that was used prior to the introduction of uas was an airport, the approach and departure pads around the airport, and then the upper airspace that was used for transitioning long distances. Were now seeing these aircraft operate 400 feet below routinely in areas that manned aviation just really didnt go into, suburban communities, urban areas, and theyve really opened up the airspace 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 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 part 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 frame work, 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 airspace 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 take aways 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 we have had to do is deconstruct our very our, oops, 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. Our prescriptive rule structure. Specific was close. Thank you for taking me down that road. Our prescriptive rules, we have to look at them, and 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 manuals for the aircraft on board the aircraft. Now, we could certainly digitize all the uas manuals, and we could 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 this deconstruction 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 ondemand 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 air craft 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, with 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 technologies, but its really been, how do we engage the public and help them embrace these very Innovative Technologies. We have seen in other countries where they didnt do as good a job embracing the community, and that community was very quick in shutting down those operations, so thats a Real Advantage that we have seen here. So the ipp or Integration 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 bcenefits of beyon visual 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 system a pilot provides a function, where the pilot is responsible for seeing other aircraft and avoiding them. 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 other aircraft. And the technology of detect and avoid, and aircraft reliability, and durability will be the things that we continue to, wo on with our partners. We arent stopping there. You may have heard that we have issues a notice 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 licensed 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 continue to safely evolve the ecosystem around drones. Its 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 air craft outside of the conformance of the rules, its very difficult to track them down, to identify them and define the operator. A Remote Identification will allow drones to see other drones in the airspace to 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 have to have actual credentials to be able to get that to Police Departments and aviation safety inspectors and such will have it. But others will not. I strongly encourage you if youre interest instead this area to please go comment on the rule, on the Public Comment period will close on march 2nd and its 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 merging and thats urban air technology. These are aircraft that fill the void from 30 miles to 300 miles, between the small drones and commercial aircraft we know today. And probably the biggest question i get on this 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 air craft 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 that the pilot requirements, the Airline Operating requirements, and then were also beginning to work on the airspace 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 council and others, were very excited and seeing how we bring all of these technologies together. It is both 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 short range surface transportation, and one of the popular Ride Sharing Companies is doing some business modeling right now with traditional helicopters and on their application you can connect with their 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 sight, 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 kpu 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 Battery Powered 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 theyll have to redesign elevators to get passengers to these areas and up there safely without interrupting other activities. So this is a brief overview of all the very exciting and innovative things sort of 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. Great, and as you pass the clicker over to diana, ill note that is interesting work that the council can do because these urban air mobility features need to take off and land somewhere, transit centers, parking decks, which other modes do we need to bring into this discussion, and i know its something were actively thinking about because its fun to think about. Diana. Thank you very much. I know its in the midafternoon when everyone is having their post lunch 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, america suffers more than 36,000 fatalities and 2. 7 Million Deaths on the roads. Well, two decades ago, in 1999, the federal communications commission, an independent agency, wisely set aside 75 megahertz of spectrum in the 5 gigabytes band. This is a safety band. Spectrum air wave 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 signals that can help avoid accidents in the smallest fraction of a second. Some examples of 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 safely 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 standardizing 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 shortrange communications. In 2017 Certified Technology enabled cars to communicate not only with other cars but also with traffic signals, with cyclists and with pedestrians. New technologies including Autonomous Vehicles will rely on the safety band, if it is allowed to continue. The safety ban technologies are now being pilot tested and preparing for wide deployment. Toyota has announced its deploying in japan. Volkswagen has announced that 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. Ive 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, i hope this year to visit texas a m, the Transportation Technology center there. This morning i met with henry lou who is standing here. Can you please stand, i met with henry 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 this spectrum, over half and give it to unlicensed wifi. The remaining 30 megahertz would be divided into 20 megahertz for 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 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 passengers should be no less important. The integrity of the safety band should be preserved. If the safety band remains close 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 slide, and many others are on our web site at dot. We have a whole web site devoted to the safety band. In the audience, there is michelle janice, 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 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 off limits to unlicensed devices. In contrast there is 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 anymore spectrum for Traffic Safety. Second, communications between 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 bands in the 5. 9 bands. Many of you are at work on improvements that will make moving people and freight faster, safer, cleaner and more efficient. Canada and mexico have set aside 75 megahertz on the same band. It would be tragic if drivers in mexico were protected but when they would drive to the United States they are no longer protected because the connectivity doesnt 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, then 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 stake holders at the department. Our main stake holder is the American Public. While the original commitment of airways for Transportation Safety was and still is a prudent decision. Preserving this capability is important for the United States so remain the world 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 band in december. This notice of proposed rule making will be open for comments for 30 days and then reply comment for 60 days. This will give the traveling public Emergency Responders, 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 youve enjoyed this part of the discussion on vehicletoeverything technology, tomorrow james owens and diana roth will be on the its American Panel at 9 30 in the fargut north room, this is an important conversation we want to continue. We hope to see you there. The secretary of transportation elaine chao will be in this room on wednesday at 12 45 after the chairmans lunch and of course we make sure she has interesting things that were excited about. If you want to be here to see those in person, we think thats a great idea. We think youll enjoy it, and were very excited about her comments, and i was going to start with a lighter question but i think the thing 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 billed grants our infa grant, our advanced traffic mitigation through the technology logical deployment grants and our protected vehicle programs, not only are we testing out this technology and getting Realtime Data back from places as farfetched as wyoming, and tampa, we can use this technology, sound like a good thing when you talk about signal phase and timing, Controlling Traffic lights and all of that, but what we have seen in some of the research that has come to my attention recently is it can make a big impact for First Responders. I dont know james or diana if you want to talk about that at all. I think this is a question for james. Thanks finch, thanks diana. Yes as many of you know, one of nhtsas big stake holders after the American People are First Responders. We work very closely with ems 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, you know, ems is a critical part of our Highway Safety infrastructure. If you are in a serious crash, time 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 we have learned in discussing matters and Technology Matters with First Responders is that theres 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, often navigating difficult traffic, difficult weather, 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. 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 i should say 2018, we believe we lost nearly 150 people as a result of these crashes, so these this is a serious issue, and we believe that technology can be part of the solution, a technology where an Emergency Responder can right now if you think about it, Emergency Responders rely on two modes, two methods of alerting drivers around them that theyre coming, lights and sirens. 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 vieehicles that hit ea other often coming into an intersection responding to same or different types of incident. Vehicle to Vehicle Technology could help prevent those accidents, those crashes from occurri occurring. We think that this is something that is that can be invested 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 when theyre 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 exciting about. We think that the technology is there or getting there. The time is ripe 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 other Resources Available for the technology to work properly. American heroes are getting hurt and killed responding to American People to keep them safe and theres something we can do about it. Seems like something we should double down on. Its not just american heroes, for example, a car thats in the path, someone who might be deaf talking about accessibility, its the American Public as well as the heroes. Absolutely. I have one more thing, which is to note 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, well, actually, if there is a technology, a Communications Technology thats already working, then that is one possible avenue in which ads technologies could be integrated with the First Response community. Exactly. And Virginia Tech has even enabled technology that connect a motorcycle with vehicles and with infrastructure. So motorcycles where, you know, crashes tend to be more common, they would be able a motorcyclist would be able to get a notice in the helmet if hes trying to change lanes, theres a vehicle there or theres a stuck vehicle ahead or even if hes going too fast. So this is fascinating technology, and i saw this Motorcycle Helmet when i visited Virginia Tech. So lets continues talking about safety, but looking at how different modes in particular can address it using the authorities that they have when congress created the faa and obviously the idea was these are airplanes. They are up there. Someone else thats 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. How you do it, who can maintain it. Everything. Congress provided that authority to the faa. The faa has authority from the moment the vehicle leaves the ground to when it leaves our air space. So they have all of the control, and their regulatory structure reflects that. Nhtsa focuses on Vehicle Safety. When Congress Gave nhtsa power, they looked at what sorts of authorities they needed, and they really focused on the specifications for new vehicles. Vehicles are something we drive ourselves. Theyre something you can touch. You dont want to go to the federal government to try and get them to change the speed limit in your nabeighborhood. Theyre fundamentally handled differently, but we see kmo commonalities and similarities with vehicle technologies and faa technologies, drone technologies and the like. Can you tell me a little bit more about how you deal with these authorities and what they mean in terms of the rule making theyre seeing coming out from a drone point of view and from advanced traffic points of view, advanced vehicles points of view. Sure, 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 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 skill. I dont have to test them to that. Thats been a challenge for 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 Traffic Controller 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, jack. Well, nhtsas environment is very different, but as jay mentioned, i think in some respects the Technology Challenges that were receiving are the Technology Challenges and opportunities were seeing i think are starting to overlap in some very interesting respects. To start off with the basics, i believe jay, you mentioned theres some 60 some thousand aircraft. 6,000 commercial aircraft. And 1. 6 million drones. There are more registered vehicles in the United States than there are licensed drivers. So were talking about 250 million plus vehicles in the United States of many different ages. Unfortunately, our fleet is the oldest its ever been. Almost 12 years old is the average vehicle on our roads today. That creates a very different regulatory challenge. Faa and ive had the opportunity in the past here at d. O. T. To work closely with jay and others at faa, and faa puts a lot of very good work into evaluating new aircraft designs are from the getfwgo, 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, more than 50 new models, refreshes or entirely new models being introduced every year. So its a very different challenge in terms of the quantity and in terms of how the regulations have to work. Traditionally unlike faa, nhtsa, the operation of the vehicle is governed by the state and local governments and of course the equipment is what we regulate, but you know, what is starting to change is the technology, and thats, you know, the challenge that faa, i think, has with drones is beyond visual line of sight, which requires an aircraft to monitor and operate in a safe manner. The surface i think its safe to say the surface transportation environment is more challenging than the aviation environment. Your speeds are not as high but your distances are much closer and you have many more objects you could potentially hit. I know our Innovative Developers are encountering those challenges right now, and that is something were all going to overcome together. Its going to be a very interesting challenge to see how this comes together. We rely on our Safety Standards. We establish standards typically when we have established standards, these equipment this equipment, these standards are already in the fleet because it takes us a long time. When nhtsa 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 repeatable test metric so that 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 it takes many years to get it right. We cant change our rules over you know, willy nilly 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 our defect authority will kick in. We exercise that authority when we have to and when appropriate and necessary. Its a very large part of what nhtsa does, but its a very important part of what nhtsa does. Our defect authority plugs into our standards. That is to say our defect Authority Means that we dont have to issue standards prematurely because we can fall back on our defect standards to ensure 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. Not only do we have our authorities, where nhtsa jumps in if it impacts safety, but the ftc has their authorities, if its miscommunicating, they could be perceived as trying to more sales. Youll see this entire government approach watching these technologies. 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 sector working together to hold each other accountable for what these technologies can do and what they cannot do. I think 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 extent, but the idea of what you would do if you could start from scratch, whether its safety principles that you highlighted that are already on our regulatory agenda or creating new categories for delivery vehicles or other types of operations, how do you approach that challenge . 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 that were creating the Performance Measurements and the 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. Our Research Group does a tremendous amount of great work, but at the end of the day, what we dont know we dont know. So for something were talking about more traditional vehicle equipment issues such as cra crashworthine crashworthiness, those are standards we know how to create right now through hard won experience. Nhtsa was created long after the Auto Industry had pinned it in place, and in large part because of some serious safety issues that had arisen in the marketplace. And so we know what were looking for when it comes to crashworthiness. When it comes to behavioral issues, thats new ground for us, and that is something that were very carefully researching, and were very carefully learning from in a dialogue. Learning from developers to learn what theyre doing and 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, can you drive above 45 miles an hour on this boulevard . And so thats something that now, you know, its as it becomes 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 that we get it right. We cant get it wrong. So when were working on when were working on new areas, greenfie green field areas such as vehicle behavior. We step back and we want to make sure we establish the right prince p principles first, what are the basic principles of what a vehicle should do in order to be safe . Then we will work from there into more detail, more granular level to determine what is specific issues may arise in the future. But right now, our focus has to be on what is it that we would hope that all developers would bear in mind, the load stars so to speak, of their developments so that we can ensure that those vehicles are behaving, operating in a way that is consistent with motor Vehicle Safety. Its really interesting that you say that, james, about the need to have empirical evidence because all the empirical evidence, all these deployments i was showing you on the safety band on the map they are all dsrc, and yet the fcc in its discussions in december had 20 me megahertz, and only ten mega hertz for dsrc, the proved technology. As you say, its really important to have the right empirical evidence before one signs up to a technology that people are going to be relying on for their safety. So i would add that while we use slightly different language, we follow roughly very close the same methodologiemethodologies. 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, and second, protecting air what we call the air risk or two aircraft colliding together. All of our safety cases. 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 principl 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, but 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 greenfield i dont know what i dont know challenge. You almost need a few operations to sort of prime the research 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. While you call it a defects program, we have the same earn who certifies their aircraft, everyone who runs in the airline has a regulatory responsibility to track that data and provide it back to us, and when there are instants, events, of course, of a certain magnitude, it goes to the ntsb but we have routine Data Collection and data gathering that 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. And i know the fau have a program, the bureau of transportation statistics, we have a close call 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, and we have another program for pipeline safety. I think were all interest instead better ways to use data to improve safety throughout. Stay tuned, there will be more to discuss there for sure. So i will say we should we should have gotten a number of questions by cards. If we can bring them up, and if you have any final ones, we have just a little bit of time left. The question ill ask before we get this is diana, ostr helps manage over a billion dollars in research, and this is a research crowd. How do you manage that type of that type those types of investments ensuring that we get the federal role right using the utcs and how does that plug into all the way from i did generation all the way up from being able to be something that either of these gentlemen can use in actual rule making . Well, the 1. 1 billion is the 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 different projects of the Research Done in the modes. Then theres the University 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 theyve called nicer, National Institute for congestion research, to look at ways of using pricing to reduce congestion, 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 5 million for two for new University Transportation centers, and were going to be putting out ideas, requests for proposals in a variety of subjects 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 we only have 13 minutes, so i will say, of course, well be available to have these conversations afterwards. And of course my final question, which im not going to ask yet will be what does 2020 look like for your mode, your office. The first one ive got is safety focus. Av 4. 0 has voluntary Safety Standards, not mandatory. How do voluntary Safety Standards ensure the highest level of safety in the Autonomous Vehicles . Thank you, finch. So voluntary safety standard is i mean, it is not let me start 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 used, but what it is is an opportunity for the developer to articulate their safety case, and that, i think, is what we are encountering when were having behind the scenes discussions with innovators is how are they articulating the safety case, how are they baking safety into their Product Design cycle . So the voluntary safety assessments, the vssa is something that is 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, you know, 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 or what differently they can do. So we are here thats more for us to be in 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 that 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. And i think we also not only have we been paying close attention to what congress is thinking about with the rule makings, theyre encouraging us whether its the house legislation or the senate legislation, were paying very close attention to ensure that our regulations that are being updated that ensure at least the level of safety we have today in improvements, thats very much in line with that mantra. Were also using this not only to share information among each other and Industry Partners about approaches to safety, but were trying to encourage and enable the voluntary gatherings of these Industry Partners with Safety Partners and safety coalitions on the Standard Development organizations, and were seeing new and exciting standards being developed today based off of some of the Foundation Standards weve seen in the past. Yeah, its also very important to have transparency in these so the consumers know what theyre buying just as when they go and buy a car, they know that theyre paying a certain amount more and theyre getting an automatic brake system or backup camera. So they know theres different gradations of safety and they can spend money on these different technologies. And bringing all this together, i think were just seeing a rich outcome of a lot of Industry Partners rushing to prove safety, and rushing to figure out better ways to do it, and rushing to set standards for this whether its sae, iaaa, thats a very simple, did you think of this . How did you resolve it . Did you think of that . How did you resolve it . And creating these routine checks the industry can adopt and we can continue to work with them so that we have a holistic approach to safety as the technology develops skshs wean not taking a command and control are approach. Were setting a performance based structure so that we can have the best technology and so that the world will gravitate around our approach to safety, which i think has been our message all along. The second one is also for you, james, 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 that latitude in a way that we believe maximizes safety and accommodates, you know, appropriate innovation. For instance, we, there is a cap of of 2,500 vehicles that can be exempted and thats something that we cant change as a regulatory matter. Thats something for congress to decide. On the other hand, you know when we are we can streamline the process. You know, i think this administration as a whole is very interest insteed in streamg processes. Lets focus on the things that matter and lets reduce the unnecessary paperwork and time delay. Lets get to the substance as quickly as we can. For us, the exemptions process is primarily about safety equivalent psy. How do we determine whether the proposed new p design of a vehicle, which does not meet our Safety Standards, which weve established over the years, how do we determine that has an equivalent level of safety. This is another area where i think the two modes are overlapping in terms of the opportunities and challenges that innovation present. So we are, i think much like what jay described, we are looking back at what is the intent . What was the initial intent the, the safety intent of the standard, and at a granular level. At a fundamental level, how is that safety case . How is that being resolved in the proposed petition in the petition for an exemption, so thats its something that does take time, or recognize that it does take a while. Were also in our first few here, and were learning our process, and you know, over time, like anything the learning curve with mean things will probably move faster. We want to exercise appropriate care and caution to ensure if we approve a vehicle and these 2,500 vehicles are up to 2,500 vehicles, they can enter the stream of commerce. So we want to make sure that consumers or other entities, you know, people who may get you know, you or i may get into one of these vehicles. Lets say its a ride share company. We want to make sure you are just as and i am just as safe in that vehicle as if, you know, you or i were in any other vehicle that complies with our standards. Its a bit of a challenge right now. I can say that our focus on a research side, rule making side, our chief counsels office is really on the fundamentals. What is the safety issue being resolved in the standard, and then how are we resolving that in this petition . So ill come to my last question. I will highlight a point that not only are we talking to congress, not only are we testifying before congress, but 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 intent is, what their understanding of their own authorities are, and the former administrator of nhtsa is over at the Senate Commerce today, were making sure those communications are open and the Senate Commerce, we need to make sure were all in line and thinking the same way. I would say thats something i feel comfortable with. The 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 channels 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 satellite based gps, so if the satellites get knocked out by some electromagnetic storm or some military action, or your phones, the Navigation Systems on your cars are still going to continue working. We put out a request for proposal. We got 20 different technologies. Were testing 11 of them at our center in buzzards bay on cape cod, and by may we will have the results of these 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 finished by august, and then we Hope Congress will fund whatever the three departments have picked. So this is the most important thing, i think, we are doing in the office of research and technology. Because it has Just National security implications. A second important question is are we going to be able to protect the 5. 9 band for Traffic Safety. The Comment Period is going to be open, and we hope that in the end, the entire 75 megahertz will be kept for Traffic Safety so that the traveling public can be safe and will have more Intelligent Transportation systems, will have lower congestion and lower emissions. Were also very excited about our new center for highly Automated Systems excellence. Its a new center for excellence that is being run by the office of research and technology. It will be a resource to all of the different modes for their questions for automation safety. This was in our latest budget allocation, and 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. So those are three things that are on our list, and 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. So weve got i mean, but this ill repeat whats been said. This is an exciting year. I think theres a lot of opportunities this year. Specifically on the innovation space for nhtsa, weve got as i mentioned before, about ten rule makings 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 aprms and maybe even a final 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 incap, the new car assessment program. We announced a couple of months ago were taking a fresh look at ncap. We believe that ncap is a tremendous opportunity to advance safety in wears that are not regulatory. It taps into Market Forces which are way more powerful than any regulation. Consumers value safety, automakers know consumers value safety. Win the Safety Standards, the ncap standards, the fivestar safety you know and love. When those are updated, the automakers will change their Manufacturing Processes or designs accordingly. That will leave to safer vehicles, more crashworthiness, more advanced safety technologies, and this you know, and 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. My team showed me the road map to completing the upgrade of ncap, and its i cant even imagine how many publications it involves. It really is an arduous process. 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 Safety Advocates all call me and say congratulations. Were very excited about it. Its nice to bring everybody together. On that note of bringing everybody together, this is nhtsas 50th anniversary this year. So were very excited about that. I like to, you know, tell my team, you know, hey, you know, we have a long way to go, 36,000 560 fatalities is unacceptable. Sometimes on an anniversary you stop and take stock of where youve come from. When you 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 a fatality rate of 50 years ago. James, its still true that more americans are being killed on the roads than being killed in vietnam. Year and a half. Its still appallingly high. To put into perspective, america of course was a much smaller country 50 years ago than it is today. Were excited about this. You want to step back and 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 madd who did a tremendous job of making driving under the influence legally unaccept skab and socially unacceptable. Today its something thats taken much more seriously, and weve brought those numbers down. A long way to go, but weve come a long way too. On that front i will note theres some things that wont happen this year but are coming are arriving in the coming years, not only our ads technologies and adas technologies, im very excited about those but were also exci excitedabout the dads program, a technology designed to passively detect alcohol on a drivers breath. Ten years from now, im convinced were going to look back and were going to say, you know what, we effectively have put driving under the influence to an end because the promises technology is tremendous. Still have a lot of research, a lot of work to do on that. Were getting a lot closer. I work closely on that program. Its something thats near and dear to me. Thats an opportunity to save 10,000 lives a year. Its an exciting year at nhtsa. Were going to do some events around the country. Were going to have an opportunity to plug into different communities and rep mind everybody about not just Traffic Safety but all the great things that weve all accomplished as a nation over the last 50 years on our roadways. All right, and then im excited about the safety work well be doing together. The efforts that the council is taking as we approach new transportation technologies. The work of the usaipp, and the comprehensive plan where we tie together all of the Research Policy and rule making initiatives together for the full and safe integration of technologies of Automated Vehicles under our nations transportation system. But 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 ] coming up on cspan3, governors delivering mayors state of the state addresses. First, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers who spoke about jobs and access to health care. And then governor kevin stits of oklahoma gives a speech of Health Care Flexibility and the states teacher shortage. And michigans Governor Gretchen Whitmer spoeksed on infrastructure, and health care. And utah governor Garry Herbert who gave his 11th and final state of the state address in salt lake city. Tonight on cspan3, a hearing with state department and usa i. D. Officials on Security Assistance to mexico. Members of a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee learn about how the u. S. Is working with the Mexican Government to combat drug and arms trafficking by cartels and the current humanitarian crisis in the country. Watch the hearing tonight on cspan3 beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers spoke to lawmakers at the state capital in madison. He talked about jobs, access to health care, and transportation infrastructure at his state of the state address. [ cheers and applause ] thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Honorable Supreme Court justices, tribal nation leaders, constitutional officers, member of the