Hydrofoil ferries have arrived in Stockholm. The ferries cut commute times in half and cut emissions by 94%.
Liability of self driving car accidents
Remember how we talked about whether a self driving car can receive a ticket from law enforcement in San Francisco?
Iowa Legislature took note. House Study Bill 598 would hold the owner of a self-driving vehicle liable in the event of a crash or traffic law violation. GM opposes.
Iowa Capital Dispatch | Autonomous cars in Iowa would need human drivers under proposed bills
State control over transportation technology | RFP watch
At the Adobe Government Forum, the Chief Customer Officer of the Washington Metro Transit Authority said they want to have more control over transportation technology rather than allow for vendor control of technology. Why? Because transportation technology is changing faster than vendors can keep up with.
Route Fifty | Transit agencies look to ‘rewire’ tech infrastructure
Ride hailing for teens
Lyft announced its new program to allow ride hailing for teens. To access the Lyft for teens program, the account must be set up by parent/guardian; drivers have additional safety and background checks; permission can be given for additional teens; and audio recording of the ride along with real time tracking.
100% domestic EV chargers
“The Federal Highway Administration proposed to raise the domestic content requirement from 55% to 100% in its “Buy America” waiver for EV chargers.”
Renewable energy experts say this is not feasible with today’s global supply chain.
Manufacturing Dive | Trump administration moves to require 100% domestic materials in EV chargers
Can Texas counties use automated traffic enforcement?
This week, the Texas Attorney General released a slew of opinions, in th mix is whether counties can use automatic traffic enforcement equipment to issue tickets? That’s a solid NO. KP-0510
Uber AV updates
Uber has a new CFO, its former VP of strategic finance and investor relations. The change is seen as a focus on Uber’s autonomous vehicles. The writing on the wall (the internet): “With large and growing free cash flows, over the coming years we will invest with discipline across a multitude of opportunities, including positioning Uber to win in an AV future,” Krishnamurthy wrote in a statement detailing the company’s Q4 results.
TechCrunch | Uber appoints new CFO as its AV plans accelerate
Underwater AV + offshore wind
Meet Apeiron which just landed $9.5 million in funding for underwater autonomous vehicles. Why does this matter? Mapping sea floors and gathering data is complicated and is necessary information for industries from onshore wind and oil to fisheries.
TechCrunch | Apeiron Labs gets $9.5M to flood the oceans with autonomous underwater robots
Smart phone data & distracted driving RFP
A program in Ohio collects data on how often drivers interact with their phones while driving. The state partnered with “ Cambridge Mobile Telematics to assess the behavior of Ohio drivers collected from smartphones and other sensor-enabled devices. ”
This data shows that Ohioans tapped their smartphones 21.9 times per 100 miles on average compared with the national average of 23.6 times per 100 miles & that Ohio drivers spent 0.78% of their driving time engaging in handheld calls, lower than the national average of 0.82%.
Route Fifty | Smartphone data helps Ohio ‘be smarter’ about reducing distracted driving
Road sensors to manage traffic
Utah has installed sensor systems at six out of eight entry ports and at one of three smaller ports managed by the Utah Highway Patrol. The goal is to gather trucking data and more to manage traffic flow and safety.
The sensor data will utilize large language models to learn and adapt to improve safety and efficiency.
Route Fifty | Sensors in Utah’s roads aim to improve commercial vehicle safety and efficiency