Transcript 0:00 [on hold music] We need to make our city smart. We've been saying that, but are they really smart? We can't afford to wait around for a pandemic to make these decisions for us. 0:15 We need to study the trends happening in our city today, right now. 0:21 We need to better understand how people travel, and then we need to turn to our technology to solve our problems of today and create opportunities for tomorrow. 0:36 [intro music] Welcome to The Peggy Smedley Show, the podcasting voice of IoT and digital transformation with your host, Peggy Smedley. 0:56 Hello, listeners, and welcome to today's edition of The Peggy Smedley Show. As always, I'm your host, Peggy Smedley, and welcome to National Distracted Driving Awareness Month. 1:06 Yes, I know this is typically in April, but due to the pandemic, the National Safety Council and NIST postponed the o-observation of it until October this year. So here we are. This is the hard fact. 1:21 On a typical day, more than seven hundred people are injured in distracted driving crashes. Yes, seven hundred people every single day on our roads aren't safe, and that was even in a pandemic. Go figure that, right? 1:39 So this month, we are going to dig into ways to make our roads and our cities a little bit safer, all with the help of, yes, of course, technology. On today's first segment, I will be looking at what the U.S. 1:53 Department of Transportation is doing to address our critical transportation challenges facing our nation today. But later on in the show, first, I've got to talk to some guests. 2:06 I will be talking to Sridhar Cloudley, program manager at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate, Office of Interoperability with Compatibility Technology Center. 2:20 And then I'm going to wrap up the show with Robert Mankowski, senior vice president of Digital Cities at Bentley Systems. So as always, I've got some really amazing guests. 2:30 So as-- I hope you will stick around, as I always ask you to do. So earlier this summer, the U.S. 2:35 Department of Transportation announced four point nine million dollars or so in grants to fund our new Tier one university transportation centers. The objective here is to advance research and education programs. 2:51 Each UTC, or the University Transportation Center, will conduct its own research in the next eighteen to twenty-four months to attr- to kind of address a pain point. 3:03 The department received sixty-seven grant applications, and from those, selected four. So let me share some information about each of them. 3:13 Over at Ohio State University, it will be researching a highly automated transportation system in consortium with the University of California, Irvine, the University of Texas in Austin, uh, I should say at Austin, and the University of Cincinnati. 3:31 The second grant was given to the University of Pittsburgh. It explores the implications of accessible automated vehicles and mobility services for people with disabilities. 3:43 And this grant is in partnership with the Uniformed Services University of Health Services and the Catholic University of America. Now, third, let's talk about Georgia Institute of Technology. 3:57 This has strategic implications changing public transportation travel trend- trends in collaboration with the University of Tennessee, the University of Kentucky, and Brigham Young University. 4:11 Now, finally, Northwestern University will research communications technology and e-commerce effects on travel demand. They will look kind of... 4:23 and actually they will work with the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Texas, Austin. 4:30 Since we only have a couple of minutes, I want to use this time to kind of dig into just one of these kind of university programs a little bit deeper. 4:40 So let's look at what types of research Northwestern is actually doing, because it says it will address key developments in both the supply of tele activities as well as their impact on the travel behavior and demand for transfer-- transportation. 4:59 So what does this mean? Quite simply, COVID-19 hit, and it has changed the way we travel practically overnight. Okay, let's be honest, it did overnight. 5:10 The University Transportation Center will seek to answer three principal questions, and this is what we're talking about. 5:18 To what extent are the changes in tele activities and e-processes experienced during COVID-19 lockdowns likely to persist once restrictions are lifted and economies are reopened? 5:35 Now, let me tell you, it is an essential first question that must be asked. Next, how is the supply side of e-commerce changed, and how will it likely evolve into the future? 5:49 And finally, it will ask, what is a desirable but attainable level of demand adoption for tele activities and e-services that can serve as a guidepost for planning decisions and policy intervention?As part of that, it will also look at how do these impacts differ across geographic entities, particularly in rural communities. 6:17 Now, here's the bottom line, and this is why I'm really behind the mission here of the University Transportation Center. Our nation is currently undergoing an interesting time. 6:28 Let's face it, we've all been sheltering in place, and it's not interesting. It's just been quite downright tiresome. 6:37 We need to consider how and why we are turning to the use of communication and information technology for tele activities and e-processes. We are working from home. We are learning. 6:53 We are e-learning from home. We are turning to telemedicine. We are e-shopping. Although some of us have been doing this for quite some time, let's be honest, people have gone crazy. 7:06 I gotta tell you, I'm Christmas crazy. I'm kind of curious how this is going to change. Let's face it, Jeff Bezos has already been wealthy. 7:14 The guy's gonna be so wealthy, he's not gonna know what to do with all this money when the holiday season comes because everyone's going to be e-commerce crazy. 7:22 But generally, we are seeing a greater reliance today on e-commerce and home delivery than ever before. This has changed our mobility patterns dramatically and candidly overnight. 7:38 This research being done here aims to access how communication technologies and e-commerce processes will impact the demand for travel and mobility in the future. And right now, look, it's changing us. 7:53 This insight is vital. The center will then develop a general framework to characterize any particular domain of the tele activity and the e-process. 8:06 The framework will likely include a supply side of developments that will shape the range for offerings for all of us consumers. This will include delivery channels and modes. 8:18 The framework will also work to include things like adoption and usage trends and the impact of COVID-19 and aftermaths on both supply side and reorientation and innovation that it will also include demand-side adaption and resilience. 8:37 And how do you all look at this? It will also anticipate things such as models for adoption, retention, use patterns, and engagement, and most likely scenarios and forecasts as a basis for planning and policy design. 8:56 We are in a very, very interesting times indeed. We all know that. As I have been saying on this show for the past six months, the pandemic has sped up the need for digital transformation. 9:11 We all know it, we are all seeing it, and we are all certainly feeling it, and this certainly fits in line with that, and this research is really very interesting, and it is changing the way we see, perceive, and engage things, the way we are e-learning, for sure. 9:29 None of us have ever imagined we would consider the way we are doing things in e-learning. No one ever imagined we would consider home learning and working from home the way we're doing it. 9:42 So here's my opinion for today. Transportation is one area in particular that is changing faster than ever before. 9:50 Leaders need to tap into information to make decisions about how to continue to build and advance our transportation in-- for years to come. We can't wait around to make decisions. 10:04 I really like what this University Transportation Center is doing to explore transportation patterns and the long-term impact that e-commerce will have on it. And here's my tip for today. 10:18 We need to evolve our transportation systems. We need to advance our vehicles. We need to make our city smart. We've been saying that, but are they really smart? 10:33 We can't afford to wait around for a pandemic to make these decisions for us. We need to study the trends happening in our city today, right now. We need to better understand how people travel, 10:52 and then we need to turn to our technology to solve our problems of today and create opportunities for tomorrow. It is really, truly that simple. It will take a little bit of hard work. 11:08 We all know that. But if we come together, if tech players work together, and if government enables this to happen, well, we all know what's going on when government tries to come together. Well, okay, but they can. 11:24 We have a huge opportunity to become connected. We've proven we can come toge-- to get together connected one city at a time. We have been talking about this here for years. 11:40 We need to take the steps to move forward. 11:43 I'm going to continue this conversation for the rest of the month, so make sure to, to g-- engage with me on this because we talk about the problems of distracted driving, and we've been talking about it for years. 11:58 Look, we've been sheltering in place. Who would have ever said the numbers of distracted driving injuries would have been higher during the time we were all sheltering in place? But they've been, because you know what? 12:13 We take for granted things. This is why research is so vital, because we need to learn to come together state by state, community by community, line over line, state over state. 12:27 We need to break down the barriers, break down the borders. We need to work together aisle over aisle. I know we can't do that, come across the aisle because politics. But you know what? 12:38 We have to set aside politics for the good of all of us. When we do that, amazing things happen, and you know what? Technology can bri- can bring us all together. That's what's so exciting. 12:51 And I don't want the conversation doesn't have to stop here. It can, can only continue here. So I hope you'll continue to join this conversation because there's so much more. But you know where we can continue it? 13:02 On social media. Tweet at me at ConnecttoWMag. I want to hear what you think, but it's only a beginning. All month long, we're going to continue this conversation. Check out our website. 13:12 We've put up a new article at connectedworld.com. Check out our show website at thepeggyסmedleyshow.com. We've got a lot of discussions there. We want to hear from you. That's the most important. All right. 13:24 I'm going to take a quick commercial break, and after that, we're going to be right back. But remember, this is The Peggy Smedley Show, the podcasting voice of IoT and digital transformation. 13:33 And remember, with great technology comes great responsibility. Go get that quick cup of coffee because we'll be right back with some great interviews. So stick around. 13:41 We've got more to come right here on The Peggy Smedley Show.
