Category Archives: regulatory trend

TREND. 2018. The Year of Self Driving Cars. TAMU + 5 TX Cities.

The self driving car program: The U.S. Department of Transportation’s national Automated Vehicle (AV) Proving Ground

The Texas designation as an AV Proving Ground:  Texas AV Proving Grounds Partnership 

  • Texas Department of Transportation
  • Texas A&M Transportation Institute
  • The University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Transportation Research
  • Southwest Research Institute
  • 32 municipal and regional partners

Are there others in the U.S.? Yes, 9 in total

The real world roadway scenarios to…

TREND & Procurement Opportunity: Smart Roads.

What is a smart road? A road rired with fiber optic cable, cameras and conencted devices

What are the goals of smart roads? 

  • Alert drivers to accidents, weather, and adjust speed limits
  • Communicate with self driving cars
  • Help all cars move as quickly as possible & as safely as possible

Where are we seeing smart roads?  

  • Virginia I-66 smart road  is up and running
  • In 2016 Ohio pledged to spend $15 million for 35 miles of smart road on Rt. 33
  • Utah is testing it on Salt Lake…

Finger Print Compromise from Maryland. The Nuts & Bolts from Legislators & Regulators.

The Legislative standard: No finger print requirement for ride share, if ride share comapnies could shoe regulators that their background checks were just as effective.

The regulators respond with: Increased safety measures and reporting requirements for ride share companies, such as:

  • Annual background checks on all drivers

  • Auditing and accrediting by an arm of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners

  • Alerting regulators to any changes to their…

2 Reasons a Judge Questions Whether Taxis are Harmed in Ride Share Regulations.

The lawsuit: Federal lawsuit over whether California regulations on ride share unfairly disadvantage taxis

The issues raised by a Judge questioning whether ride share regulations harm taxi cabs:

  • “In economic regulation groups are favored all the time. It’s always about favoring one over the other. Animus is the purpose of harming a group, not favoring a group.”
  • favoritism toward Uber and Lyft does not equal the sort of hostility toward taxi drivers

Courthouse News Service…

Business Trend: Ride Share for Big Trucks. Bonjour Regulatory Fight.

Which company is looking at a ride share for trucking? Amazon

Business goal for trucking:  global freight broker

How would ride share for rucking work?

  • App based 
  • Capable of matching available trucks to shipments
  • Could move cargo from a seaport hub to a distribution center or move cargo from a warehouse to a parcel-delivery facility.

What other transportation moves has Amazon made in 2016?

  • Leases on 40 cargo jets
  • Registered to arrange ocean cargo
  • Build out of its last mile…

New rules. Regulations to Require Cars to Talk to each other?

The future is here. U.S. Department of Transportation is proposing new rules to require new cars to talk to each other.

What will cars be saying to each other? Cars will be required to broadcast data to one another about:

  • speed
  • location
  • direction

What’s an example? To ward off collisions, cars would be able to:

  • Use wireless technology to detect if another vehicle around the corner & 100s of yards away was going too fast in its direction & if they were headed for a…

Western State Revises Self Driving Car Rules. The Info you Need:

California revised its state regulations for self driving cars by adding:

  • Require cars to comply with the federally proposed 15 point NHSTA assessment
  • Permits no human driver or steering wheel if the car is in 2 way communication
  • Car manufacturers are not pleased as the NHSTA requirement impacts current and scheduled self driving car testing

California’s revised rules

Fortune | Toyota Tech Director Calls California’s Proposed Self-Driving Car Rules Preposterous

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…