County Judge Lists 4 Reasons High Speed Rail has High Hurdles + High Speed Rail 6 Counterpoints.

Limestone County Judge  Daniel Burkeen lists 4 reasons high speed rail isn’t foreeseable:

  • No eminent domain authority- at least not yet
  • No  environmental studies are completed
  • No land has been acquired
  • No permission to cross our county roads

Texas Central Railway’s 6 Point Repsonse:

  • County policy is anti- business
  • County policy is anti- innovation
  • County policy is anti-private investment
  • They will receive no federal subsidies
  • The Company is negotiating in good faith with…

Key Information. Feds Self Driving Car Regulations.

  • voluntary 15-point “safety assessment” for automakers covering:
    • Data Recording and Sharing
    • Privacy
    • System Safety
    • Vehicle Cybersecurity
    • Human Machine Interface
    • Crashworthiness
    • Consumer Education and Training
    • Registration and Certication
    • Post-Crash Behavior
    • Federal, State and Local Laws
    • Ethical Considerations
    • Operational Design Domain
    • Object and Event Detection and Response
    • Fall Back (Minimal Risk Condition)
    • Validation Methods 
  • model state regulations define…

Business Trend. Local Trend. Top 3 Concerns. Self Driving Taxis.

Pittsburgh is home to a new fleet of Uber’s self-driving taxis. For the Ying of self driving taxis, is the Yang of safety experts.

The safety concerns:

  • self driving technology is not ready for primetime.
    • It’s like the safety experts think self driving taxis are the Kaepernick of transportation world. 
  • PA has no self driving car statutes or regs.
    • e.g. Who do we sue if there is an accident?
  • Self driving cars have gone off bridges and Pittsburgh has a lot of bridges
    • building bridges…

Local Ride Share Rules. Red State. 4 Pieces Informed Intel.

 Hillsborough County, Florida is proposing new ride share rules over the objections of Uber. The new rules include:

  • $7 fare minimum
  • 7 minute maximum wait time
  • Ride Share firms would have to conduce regular vehicle inspections
  • Mandatory fingerprint background checks for drivers

Tampa Bay Times | Proposed rideshare rules move forward over objections of Uber/Lyft

INTERIM. TREND. Sharing Economy. Ride Share for Carpooling to Soccer AKA Football.

The Company: HopSkipDrive

The company’s objective: To be the Uber for kids and requires secret passwords for drives and the kids are followed via GPS

Founders: 3 mothers who needed to get their kids to soccer, football, ballet etc…

How it differs from ride share: it schedules rides and is not on demand ride service

Tech Crunch | HopSkipDrive wants to be the Uber for kids

INTERIM. Sharing Economy. Taxing Ride Share Apps. 3 Pieces Informed Intel.

Massachusettes ride share legislation will tax ride share transactions via app.

What you need to know about taxing an app:

  • 20 cents per trip tax, with a breakdown of:
    • 5 cents to taxi industry
    • 10 cents to local governments
    • 5 cents to a designated state transportation fund
  • The app tax revenue will be given to the taxi industry as a subsidy for the purposes of:
    • new technologies
    • advanced service safety
    • operational capabilities
    • support workforce development.
  • Its the first…

Business Trend. Lege Trend. Self Driving Big Trucks Coming Your Way. 3 Pieces of Informed Intel.

What companies are driving the push for driverless big trucks?

Why is the big truck industry moving fast toward driverless semis? Constant shortage of truck drivers

What incremental changes have occurred in trucking? Much like driver aided features in consumer cars, trucking has added “Advanced Driver Assistance Systems”

Tech Crunch | Paving the way for the autonomous truck

Business Trend. Self Driving Cars. American Car Maker Moves Forward. 3 Keys to Informed Intel.

Which company announced its promise to deliver driverless cars within 5 years? Ford

The target audience for Ford’s driverless cars? Commercial  ride share

How will Ford’s cars differ from current self driving cars?

  • No steering whell
  • No gas pedal
  • No breaks

New York Times | Ford Promises Fleets of Driverless Cars Within Five Years