Kirk Steudle has a singular 360-degree view of the ITS trade, having labored over the course of his illustrious profession as a DOT director, personal sector government and now as an unbiased marketing consultant. We get his deep perception into the state of play for transportation expertise because the thirty first ITS World Congress approaches
With over a decade of expertise main one of many USA’s most revolutionary DOTs – Michigan Division of Transportation – from 2006 to 2018, and intensive involvement within the ITS neighborhood, Kirk Steudle brings a singular perspective to the present transportation panorama.
Now working as an unbiased marketing consultant, Steudle has witnessed a number of administrative modifications and expertise cycles, offering priceless insights into each the constants and variables in transportation coverage and innovation. Transitioning from public sector management to unbiased consulting has offered Steudle with each alternatives and constraints. “I actually have the liberty to say what must be stated,” he explains. “It’s very liberating to say, right here’s what it’s essential hear, whether or not you prefer it or not.”
This independence permits him to supply unbiased expertise assessments. “I’ve no battle of curiosity with any of the expertise distributors, so I will be very sincere. A few of my former colleagues and DOT administrators search for that, as a result of they know I’m not linked to any explicit expertise.”
The draw back, nevertheless, is decreased direct implementation functionality. “Once I was a DOT director, I may see an answer and push to get to that answer, and also you had the skills, the sources and all of the means to make that occur. Now if I see that, I must persuade someone else.”
Stay tasks
Steudle is concerned in varied tasks, together with a Nationwide Cooperative Freeway Analysis Program (NCHRP) Moonshot Undertaking, which examines “collective and particular person actions that states can take in direction of a nationwide imaginative and prescient for transportation”
Every state has its personal priorities throughout the Moonshot Undertaking, however certainly one of Steudle’s private highlights is the interstate connectivity venture, which brings collectively a coalition of states led by Nevada’s Tracy Larkin Thomason. Its goal is to attach all I-80 states from California to New Jersey. “They’re working in direction of sharing info throughout state strains, significantly for emergency occasions, climate occasions,”
Steudle explains, citing current examples the place advance warning programs may have prevented vans from being stranded on closed interstates. Steudle has additionally been impressed by Georgia’s innovation with fiber-optic set up, which has carried out a public-private partnership to put in this infrastructure alongside interstates, utilizing a design-build-finance-maintain-operate mannequin. “The DOT goes to pay for the set up and can get possession of a few of these strands of fiber, however the contractor will likely be liable for putting in it, working it and sustaining it into the long run,” explains Steudle.
In the meantime Steudle additionally notes that Texas is creating an autonomous trucking hall between the cities of Houston and Dallas, on I-45, for freight deliveries, a venture that may develop security and notification applied sciences.
Past conventional transportation expertise, states are exploring vitality technology inside right-of-way. Georgia DOT’s partnership with The Ray group for photo voltaic deployment alongside I-85 has been producing each electrical energy and income for years, inspiring different states to implement related tasks. “Michigan and Minnesota raised their arms and stated, ‘We wish to work by means of that course of too,’” says Steudle.
These initiatives signify what Steudle sees as sensible approaches to public-private partnerships that don’t depend on tolling. “Georgia’s public-private partnership doesn’t contain tolls. It’s leveraging one other income,” he says.
Steudle predicts that with the ITS World Congress touchdown in Atlanta, in The Ray’s house state of Georgia, representatives from the testbed will remember to be readily available, probably inspiring much more states to take up their concepts. Flip to web page 38 for a information to the highlights of this yr’s ITS World Congress
“I’ve no battle of curiosity with any of the expertise distributors, so I will be very sincere. A few of my former colleagues and DOT administrators search for that”
What’s subsequent?
ITS is an trade outlined by expertise, so figuring out developments is vital for sensible deployment – Steudle believes that lidar refinement is especially promising. “The superb tuning of lidar, and the additional improvement of that, will assist to drive the associated fee down,” he says. “I feel that’s going to be the subsequent massive leap.”
Concerning AI, Steudle is each enthusiac and cautious. “We don’t know what AI can do but. We will dream about it, however we don’t know what we don’t know but,” he says. His concern facilities on information safety and deployment security: “We have to be cautious, significantly the place our information goes, and what it’s getting used for, and the way can we deploy it in a protected trend.”
In Steudle’s expertise of the brand new expertise thus far he has discovered that states are approaching AI fastidiously, with some prohibiting its use solely whereas others are “dipping their toes in very cautiously.”
As with different applied sciences, together with autonomous automobiles, Steudle believes AI will observe the standard Gartner Hype Cycle. “The hype goes to peak after which we’ll come again down into what they name the Trough of Disillusionment,” he says. “After which finally it’ll turn out to be one thing that’s actually helpful.”
However, whereas new expertise will be thrilling, Steudle emphasizes the significance of sustaining concentrate on the basics of bettering security and lowering congestion. Even in polarised political occasions, he believes these rules will be inspiring for all.
“Transportation has been a bipartisan challenge perpetually, as a result of there aren’t any purple roads or blue roads – Republican roads or Democratic roads,” he says. “Basically, folks perceive transportation is about transferring folks and items, and that’s what you’ve received to get to.”
With the ITS World Congress approaching in Atlanta, Steudle anticipates AI will dominate discussions, however his long-term view which has seen him working in the private and non-private sectors throughout a number of administrations in Washington suggests essentially the most impactful improvements will likely be those who clear up actual issues moderately than merely showcase technological functionality.
Take heed to an prolonged model of this interview on the Transportation Podcast from TTi
This text first appeared within the September challenge of TTi
