[Senate Hearing 116-598]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                       S. Hrg. 116-598

                  EXAMINING TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS
                           IN TRANSPORTATION

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

               SUBCOMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND SAFETY

                                 OF THE

                         COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE,
                      SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                     ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             JUNE 25, 2019

                               __________

    Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and 
                             Transportation
                             
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]                             


                Available online: http://www.govinfo.gov
                
                               __________

                                
                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
52-726                        WASHINGTON : 2023                    
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------                  
                
       SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION

                     ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                  ROGER WICKER, Mississippi, Chairman
JOHN THUNE, South Dakota             MARIA CANTWELL, Washington, 
ROY BLUNT, Missouri                      Ranking
TED CRUZ, Texas                      AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota
DEB FISCHER, Nebraska                RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
JERRY MORAN, Kansas                  BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska                 EDWARD MARKEY, Massachusetts
CORY GARDNER, Colorado               TOM UDALL, New Mexico
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee          GARY PETERS, Michigan
SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia  TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
MIKE LEE, Utah                       TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin               JON TESTER, Montana
TODD YOUNG, Indiana                  KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona
RICK SCOTT, Florida                  JACKY ROSEN, Nevada
                       John Keast, Staff Director
                  Crystal Tully, Deputy Staff Director
                      Steven Wall, General Counsel
                 Kim Lipsky, Democratic Staff Director
              Chris Day, Democratic Deputy Staff Director
                      Renae Black, Senior Counsel
                                 ------                                

               SUBCOMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND SAFETY

DEB FISCHER, Nebraska, Chairman      TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois, Ranking
JOHN THUNE, South Dakota             AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota
ROY BLUNT, Missouri                  RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
JERRY MORAN, Kansas                  EDWARD MARKEY, Massachusetts
CORY GARDNER, Colorado               TOM UDALL, New Mexico
SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia  GARY PETERS, Michigan
TODD YOUNG, Indiana                  TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
RICK SCOTT, Florida
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hearing held on June 25, 2019....................................     1
Statement of Senator Fischer.....................................     1
Statement of Senator Duckworth...................................     2
Statement of Senator Peters......................................    47
Statement of Senator Blumenthal..................................    49
Statement of Senator Thune.......................................    53

                               Witnesses

Steve Ingracia, PE, Deputy Director, Technology and Strategic 
  Planning, Nebraska Department of Transportation................     3
    Prepared statement...........................................     5
Shailen P. Bhatt, President and Chief Executive Officer, 
  Intelligent Transportation Society of America..................     6
    Prepared statement...........................................     8
Patrick Duffy, President, Blockchain in Transportation Alliance..    30
    Prepared statement...........................................    32
Ann Schlenker, Director, Center for Transportation Research, 
  Argonne National Laboratory....................................    34
    Prepared statement...........................................    36
Brent Hutto, Chief Relationship Officer, Truckstop.Com...........    39
    Prepared statement...........................................    40

                                Appendix

Response to written questions submitted to Steve Ingracia by:
    Hon. Maria Cantwell..........................................    63
    Hon. Amy Klobuchar...........................................    63
Response to written questions submitted to Shailen P. Bhatt by:
    Hon. Maria Cantwell..........................................    64
    Hon. Amy Klobuchar...........................................    64
Response to written questions submitted by Hon. Maria Cantwell 
  to:
    Patrick Duffy................................................    65
    Ann Schlenker................................................    65

 
         EXAMINING TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS IN TRANSPORTATION

                              ----------                              


                         TUESDAY, JUNE 25, 2019

                               U.S. Senate,
         Subcommittee on Transportation and Safety,
        Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:34 p.m. in 
room SD-562, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Deb Fischer, 
Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Fischer [presiding], Duckworth, Peters, 
Blumenthal, and Thune.

            OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DEB FISCHER, 
                   U.S. SENATOR FROM NEBRASKA

    Senator Fischer. The hearing will come to order.
    Good afternoon. I am pleased to convene the Senate 
Subcommittee on Transportation and Safety for a hearing today 
titled ``Examining Technological Innovations in 
Transportation.''
    Everyone here today knows that technology is increasingly 
changing how we work, stay in contact with friends and family, 
and go about our daily lives. The transportation sector is no 
exception.
    Technology is already changing how we move people and goods 
across this country and there is potential for new technology 
to improve safety, efficiency, and mobility across our surface 
transportation system.
    But with great potential comes challenges. The process of 
adopting new technologies, especially across a complex system 
like the United States transportation network, can come in fits 
and starts.
    Today, the subcommittee has an opportunity to learn about 
the potential new technologies that can be offered and the 
challenges and changes that could come from their adoption.
    As members of this Subcommittee and Congress more broadly 
are debating and considering legislation to reauthorize the 
FAST Act, it is important to understand innovations within the 
transportation system already happening on the ground.
    This is by no means the first time the Congress has debated 
new technologies in transportation. The FAST Act added 
intelligence transportation systems technology as eligible 
activities under several Federal aid funding programs.
    It also established new programs, such as the Advanced 
Transportation and Congestion Management Technologies 
Development Program, which provides grants to states to deploy 
large-scale transportation technologies.
    I was pleased to see the Nebraska Department of 
Transportation working with the Wyoming and Utah Departments of 
Transportation received a $2.8 million Advanced Transportation 
and Congestion Management Technologies Grant this April.
    Nebraska Innovative Project will incorporate sensors along 
I-80 to support Nebraska's DOT understanding and ability to 
respond to traffic and weather conditions.
    Additionally, recognizing that traffic and weather don't 
correspond to state boundaries, this project will support and 
enable the sharing of road condition information between 
Nebraska, Wyoming, and Utah.
    I look forward to hearing more about this and similar 
projects.
    Just as Federal, state, and local governments could improve 
infrastructure, traffic flow, and safety by adopting new 
technologies, the private sector also is looking to technology 
for improvements.
    Innovations, like digital freight matching and visibility, 
could improve the management of available resources, resulting 
in more efficient uses of our current infrastructure.
    Blockchain also has the capacity to heighten efficiencies 
and optimize costs for transportation and logistics. 
Blockchain-powered smart contracts offer the potential to 
better enforce conditions and validate data through the entire 
supply chain, improving vehicle fleet and freight traffic, 
capacity monitoring, platooning, on-time delivery, payment 
management, and regulatory compliance.
    However, the benefits of new technologies are not a 
foregone conclusion. Technology that is adopted today may look 
very different 10 years from now.
    Today's hearing gives us a chance to understand what 
technologies are available today, their potential for tomorrow, 
and the obstacles that need to be overcome along the way.
    It also provides us an opportunity to consider what role 
Congress should have in technology development and deployment 
as we consider reauthorization of the FAST Act.
    We have several witnesses before the Committee today that 
can speak directly about the current and future deployment of 
transportation technologies. I'm grateful to all the witnesses 
for their willingness to travel to participate in the hearing.
    I am particularly pleased to have Steve Ingracia from the 
Nebraska Department of Transportation here to talk about the 
exciting work happening in my home state.
    I look forward to testimony from all our witnesses.
    I would now like to invite my colleague, Ranking Member 
Duckworth, to offer any opening remarks.

              STATEMENT OF HON. TAMMY DUCKWORTH, 
                   U.S. SENATOR FROM ILLINOIS

    Senator Duckworth. Chairman Fischer, thank you for holding 
today's hearing to Examine Technological Innovations in 
Transportation.
    I would also like to thank our witnesses for participating.
    Given today's hearing topic, it is worth mentioning that 
our national laboratories are the crown jewels of the Nation's 
research and innovation ecosystem.
    I'd like to specifically thank Ann Schlenker, Director of 
the Center for Transportation Research at Argonne National 
Laboratory in Illinois, for being with us today. Welcome.
    Not so long ago, road maps like this were an essential tool 
for anyone driving beyond their hometown. Most of the 
millennials and Gen Zs in my office have no idea what this is.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Duckworth. Yes. Today, GPS-capable devices on our 
phones and cars provide turn-by-turn directions to nearly any 
destination in the world, saving commuters and businesses 
valuable time and resources.
    GPS has become ubiquitous in the transportation sector. 
Every plane and ship uses it to navigate. Thousands of 
businesses and millions of products rely on it and each of us 
has a GPS-capable phone in our pocket. Not many, though, know 
that GPS was developed by our military during the cold war. In 
fact, it's still operated by the United States Air Force in 
partnership with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 
other Federal agencies.
    Like our national labs, GPS is a shining example of the 
Federal Government's long history of supporting research and 
development efforts that promote innovation and are a catalyst 
for economic prosperity.
    Last year, Senator Ernst and I started the Senate GPS 
Caucus to shine a light on how this critical technology 
continues to change our world and, in addition to technologies 
like GPS, advances in data collection, computing, 
communication, and mobile technologies are dramatically 
affecting the ways we travel and deliver goods and services.
    These emerging technologies have the ability to make our 
transportation systems safer, more reliable, and more 
efficient.
    I look forward to learning more from our witnesses about 
the opportunities and challenges associated with the emerging 
technologies in the transportation sector.
    I yield back. Thank you.
    Senator Fischer. Thank you, Senator Duckworth.
    Next, I would ask the witnesses to give their opening 
statements, try to keep those limited to 5 minutes, please, and 
we will begin with Mr. Steven Ingracia, who is the Deputy 
Director for Technology and Strategic Planning with the 
Nebraska Department of Transportation, fairly new in the 
position but not new to the issues.
    So, welcome, Steve.

 STATEMENT OF STEVE INGRACIA, PE, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, TECHNOLOGY 
               AND STRATEGIC PLANNING, NEBRASKA 
                  DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

    Mr. Ingracia. Thank you, Chairman Fischer, Ranking Member 
Duckworth, and members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for the 
opportunity to testify today.
    My name is Steve Ingracia, and I am Deputy Director of 
Technology and Strategic Planning for the Nebraska Department 
of Transportation.
    Our agency's 2,100 employees serve the state of Nebraska by 
operating and maintaining nearly 10,000 miles of roadway and 
3,500 bridges.
    In Nebraska, we have carved out an approach to 
transportation policy that is practical, forward leaning, and 
rooted in fiscal responsibility. Through the leadership of 
Governor Pete Ricketts and then State Senator Fischer, Nebraska 
passed the Transportation Innovation Act and the Build Nebraska 
Act, which gave NDOT the resources to care for and improve 
transportation in Nebraska.
    Technological innovation is happening at NDOT as well as at 
other DOTs around the country and I'm pleased that the 
Committee has asked us how Congress can support the states as 
we know that shifts in technology will certainly alter the 
transportation industry in significant ways over the next 20 
years.
    We're always looking for ways to incorporate technology 
into what we build. The Advanced Transportation and Congestion 
Management Technologies Deployment Federal Grant just awarded 
to NDOT, in partnership with the Wyoming and Utah DOTs, will 
advance technologies that improve mobility and safety across 
the multistate I-80 corridor. This project will build upon 
Wyoming's Connect Vehicle Pilot Program to increase the flow of 
information to freight haulers and will ultimately improve 
safety along I-80.
    We are also incorporating technology into the operational 
side of our business. Systems, like the Maintenance Decision 
Support System and Automatic Vehicle Location, have been 
installed on all 633 of our snowplows, and they allow us to 
make database choices on our application rates and to better 
track quantities of materials used.
    We have taken this one step further by installing cameras 
on the front of our trucks to provide real-time snapshots of 
road conditions to the public through the web, which was 
immediately popular with the traveling public.
    NDOT's implementation of MDSS, along with our public-facing 
cloud tracker site, was recently recognized by AASHTO with 
regional top monitors as a best use of technology and 
innovation.
    NDOT is also active in discussions regarding policy. 
Nebraska lawmakers passed a law in 2018 that opened Nebraska's 
roadways to autonomous vehicles and as a result, the need for 
national AV standards have been at the forefront of our minds.
    I'd encourage continued conversations on best practices for 
standardization and design, maintenance, and operations of the 
roadway. The way a highway appears to an AV is very important 
and clear and concise nationwide standards would go a long way 
to support the development of AVs in the U.S.
    I believe that the path to national standards begins with 
groups of states agreeing amongst themselves to standards on 
key corridors. This multistate approach to standardization 
offers a way forward to test and validate what works and to 
gain an understanding of what needs to be developed in terms of 
national standards or regulation.
    Through a recent INFRA grant proposal, we are part of such 
a multistate coalition. Nebraska's part of a 12-state 
consortium that submitted an INFRA proposal for the Safe 
Acceleration of Automated Freight Infrastructure Readiness 
Project in March of 2019.
    Through this proposal, covering over 3,400 miles of 
interstate highway, including I-80, coast to coast, these 
states would develop and agree to comply with standards for 
striping, work zone design, and data exchange to support 
highway automation readiness.
    This would effectively create a corridor for autonomous and 
connected freight movement across the Continental U.S. while 
also demonstrating the ability of states to collaborate and 
develop, design, operational, and data exchange standards that 
can ultimately become the de facto national standard.
    Chairman Fischer, Ranking Member Duckworth, and members of 
the Subcommittee, I joined NDOT to help our state move forward 
with technology. In the transportation field, I believe we're 
at an inflection point with multiple technologies advancing 
quickly and simultaneously.
    It is only through partnership between the Federal 
Government and the states that we will be able to keep pace 
with these changes and I thank you for your willingness to 
consider the needs of the states.
    I appreciate the invitation to join you today and I look 
forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Ingracia follows:]

 Prepared Statement of Steve Ingracia, PE, Deputy Director, Technology 
     and Strategic Planning, Nebraska Department of Transportation
    Chairman Fischer, Ranking Member Duckworth and members of the 
Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
    My name is Steve Ingracia and I am the Deputy Director of 
Technology and Strategic Planning at the Nebraska Department of 
Transportation (NDOT). Our agency's 2,100 employees serve the state of 
Nebraska by operating and maintaining nearly 10,000 miles of roads and 
3,500 bridges.
    In Nebraska, we've carved out an approach to transportation policy 
that is practical, forward-leaning, and rooted in fiscal 
responsibility. Through the leadership of Governor Pete Ricketts and 
then State Senator Fischer, Nebraska passed the Transportation 
Innovation Act and the Build Nebraska Act which gave NDOT the resources 
to care for and improve transportation in Nebraska.
    Technological innovation is happening at NDOT and nationwide across 
all DOTs, and I am pleased the Committee has asked us how Congress can 
support states, as shifts in technology will certainly alter the 
transportation industry in significant ways over the next 20 years.
    We are continually looking for ways to incorporate technology into 
what we build. The Advanced Transportation and Congestion Management 
Technologies Deployment(ATCMTD) Federal grant just awarded to NDOT, in 
partnership with the Wyoming and Utah DOTs, will advance technologies 
that improve mobility and safety across the multi-state I80 corridor. 
This project will build upon Wyoming's successful connected vehicle 
pilot program to increase the flow of information to freight haulers 
and will ultimately improve safety along I-80.
    We are also incorporating technology into the operational side of 
our business--systems like the Maintenance Decision Support System 
(MDSS) and Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) have been installed on all 
633 of our snowplows to allow us to make data-based choices on 
application rates and to better track quantities of materials used. We 
have taken this one step further by installing cameras in the front of 
our trucks to provide realtime snapshots of road conditions to the 
public through the web, which was immediately popular with the 
traveling public. NDOT's implementation of MDSS, along with our public 
facing Plow Tracker site, was recently recognized by AASHTO with 
regional top honors as a Best Use of Technology and Innovation.
    NDOT is also active in discussions regarding policy. Nebraska 
lawmakers passed a law in 2018 that opened Nebraska's roadways to 
Autonomous Vehicles (AV), and as a result the need for national AV 
standards has been at the forefront of our minds. I'd encourage 
continued conversations on best practices for standardization in 
design, maintenance, and operations of the roadway. The way a highway 
appears to an AV is very important, and a clear and concise nationwide 
standard would go a long way to support the development of AVs in the 
US.
    I believe that the path to a national standard begins with groups 
of states agreeing amongst themselves to standards on key corridors. 
This multi-state approach to standardization offers a way forward to 
test and validate what works, and to gain an understanding of what 
needs to be developed in terms of national standards or regulation.
    Through a recent INFRA grant proposal, we are part of such a multi-
state coalition. Nebraska is part of a 12-state consortium that 
submitted an INFRA proposal for the Safe Acceleration of Automated 
Freight Infrastructure Readiness project in March of 2019. Through this 
proposal, covering over 3,400 miles of interstate highway including I-
80 coast-to-coast, these states would develop, and agree to comply 
with, standards for striping, work zone design, and data exchange to 
support highway automation readiness.
    This would effectively create a corridor for autonomous and 
connected freight movement across the continental US, while also 
demonstrating the ability of states to collaborate and develop design, 
operational, and data exchange standards that could ultimately become 
the de facto national standards.
    Chairman Fischer, Ranking Member Duckworth, and members of the 
Subcommittee, I joined NDOT to help our state move forward with 
technology. In the transportation field, I believe we are at an 
inflection point, with multiple technologies advancing quickly and 
simultaneously. It is only through partnership between the Federal 
government and the states that we will be able to keep pace with these 
changes, and I thank you for your willingness to consider the 
technology needs of states. I appreciate the invitation to join you 
today, and I look forward to your questions.

    Senator Fischer. Thank you, Steve.
    Next, we have Mr. Shailen Bhatt, who is the CEO of the 
Intelligent Transportation Society of America.
    Welcome, sir.

            STATEMENT OF SHAILEN P. BHATT, PRESIDENT

AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SOCIETY 
                           OF AMERICA

    Mr. Bhatt. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Fischer, 
Ranking Member Duckworth, and members of the Committee.
    My name is Shailen Bhatt, and I am the President and CEO of 
the Intelligent Transportation Society of America.
    Our members include automakers and technology companies, 
public sector agencies, such as state and city departments of 
transportation, transit agencies, and metropolitan planning 
organizations, along with research institutions.
    It's an honor to be here today. Throughout my career, I've 
been appointed by three Governors and one president to be a 
leader in transportation. I've always said that departments of 
transportation exist to save lives and make people's lives 
better, which is why I feel so strongly that the next 
transportation reauthorization must reflect the incredible 
benefits technology can deliver to improve the safety and 
efficiency of our system.
    When I began as the Executive Director of the Colorado 
Department of Transportation in 2014, 484 people lost their 
lives on our roadways. When I left in 2017, there were 715 
fatalities and the vast majority of that increase were among 
the most vulnerable users of the system, bicyclists, 
pedestrians, motorcyclists.
    Just last week, NHTSA estimated that while the overall 
number of roadway deaths was generally unchanged in 2018, we 
saw a 10 percent increase in cyclist fatalities from the prior 
year.
    So clearly, there is an epidemic of fatalities on our 
roadways and we believe that technology is the best tool in our 
toolbox to reduce this epidemic.
    Now the first tool I want to talk about are connected 
vehicle technologies, known as V2X or Vehicle to Everything. 
These are technologies that allow vehicles to communicate with 
other vehicles, with the infrastructure, and, most importantly, 
with users of the system, including pedestrian, cyclists, and 
motorcyclists.
    Last year, there were two million crashes on U.S. roadways. 
About 30 percent of those were due to impaired driving. NHTSA 
estimates that V2X can address 80 percent of unimpaired 
crashes, which means that more than 1.2 million crashes could 
have been eliminated or mitigated through connected vehicle 
communications.
    V2X technologies are deployed in dozens of cities in the 
majority of states and require use of the 5.9 gigahertz safety 
spectrums to communicate, this band that has been designated 
for transportation safety-critical communications.
    Preserving this spectrum for these life-saving technologies 
is the top priority for ITS America and our members.
    Investment in technology in the next reauthorization can 
also help speed the movement of freight, whether it's at the 
ports where many of these goods come into the United States, or 
in the vast multimodal network that moves them across the 
country.
    As an example, Wyoming DOT is using connected vehicle 
technology to provide truck drivers with a wide range of 
information, from parking options so they can make the most 
efficient choice about where to safely stop for the night to 
imminent collision warning because inclement weather has closed 
the interstate, and they can share with neighboring states, 
like Nebraska and Colorado.
    Cities, like Las Vegas, are using big data and predictive 
analytics to improve response times to crashes on I-15. The 
Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada uses big 
data and predictive analytics to determine where crashes are 
likely to occur and prepositions emergency equipment.
    This has led to a 12-minute reduction in response time and 
a 17 percent reduction in secondary crashes on I-15. Getting 
someone to a doctor within an hour of a crash significantly 
increases survival chances. It's known as the golden hour. So a 
12-minute reduction is massive.
    V2X is a critical component of operating our system more 
safely, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention that 
cybersecurity safeguards must also be part of the next 
reauthorization bill.
    As our transportation systems become more connected, we 
must ensure states and cities have the necessary tools to fight 
against threats from bad actors.
    Finally, we hear a lot these days about the transformation 
of transportation. Nowhere is that more evident than with the 
Mobility on Demand Initiatives cropping up across the country.
    Last year, I spoke at the ITS Heartland Meeting in Lincoln, 
Nebraska, and one of the things I talked about there was 
deployment of autonomous shuttles in Lincoln to provide micro-
transit first and last mile solutions.
    From Lincoln to Los Angeles, the public and private 
sectors, along with researchers, are working together using 
technology to develop solutions that allow people to move 
seamlessly from place to place, whether that means finding a 
way to use one form of payment for multiple modes or ensuring 
that people with disabilities and older adults have complete 
access to the system.
    The next reauthorization holds the key to unlocking the 
21st Century of transportation in this country for mobility and 
infrastructure improvements to eliminating the epidemic of 
roadway fatalities that claims a hundred lives on our roads 
every day.
    Thank you again for the opportunity to be here. I look 
forward to any questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Bhatt follows:]

 Prepared Statement of Shailen P. Bhatt, President and Chief Executive 
         Officer, Intelligent Transportation Society of America
Introduction
    Chairman Fischer, Ranking Member Duckworth, and Members of the 
Committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide the Intelligent 
Transportation Society of America's (ITS America) perspective on 
``Examining Technological Innovations in Transportation.''
    I am pleased to be joined on this panel with Nebraska Department of 
Transportation Deputy Director of Technology and Strategic Planning 
Steve Ingracia.
    My name is Shailen P. Bhatt, and I am the President and CEO of ITS 
America. Before joining ITS America in January 2018, I served as 
Executive Director for the Colorado Department of Transportation 
(CDOT). In that role, I oversaw the launch of the RoadX program, which 
is focused on deploying innovative technology solutions--including 
connected vehicles--and teaming with the private sector to shape the 
future of transportation. While at CDOT, I also served as the national 
Chair of the Vehicle-to-Infrastructure Deployment Coalition and the 
Chair of the National Operations Center of Excellence. Before CDOT, I 
served as Cabinet Secretary with the Delaware Department of 
Transportation and Deputy Executive Director of the Kentucky 
Transportation Cabinet. I also had the pleasure of serving as Associate 
Administrator at the Federal Highway Administration.
    ITS America's vision is ``A better future transformed by 
intelligent mobility--one that is safer, greener, and smarter.'' Our 
mission is to advance the research and deployment of intelligent 
transportation technologies and solutions to save lives, improve 
mobility, promote sustainability, and increase efficiency and 
productivity.
    Our focus is policy that accelerates seamless mobility technology, 
connected and automated vehicle technologies, and smart infrastructure; 
policy that breathes new life into our transportation infrastructure by 
expanding investments in technologies that support smart communities; 
and policy that encourages new models and modes of transportation, 
including micro-transit, rideshare, carshare, bikeshare, micro-
mobility, and unmanned systems. Investments in these new modes should 
also address issues of transportation equity so everyone gains access 
to mobility and opportunity. That said, our first and foremost priority 
has been, and continues to be, safety.
    Founded as an official advisory board on road technology to the 
U.S. Department of Transportation, ITS America represents state and 
city departments of transportation, metropolitan planning 
organizations, automotive manufacturers, technology companies, 
engineering firms, automotive suppliers, insurance companies, and 
research and academic universities.\1\ Our Board Chair is Malcolm 
Dougherty, Senior Vice President and Practice Lead, Transportation, 
Michael Baker International and former Director, California Department 
of Transportation; our Vice-Chair is Jennifer Cohan, Secretary, 
Delaware Department of Transportation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The ITS America Board is represented by the following 
companies: AAA, AECOM, Arizona Department of Transportation, California 
Department of Transportation, California PATH University of California 
Berkeley, Conduent, Central Ohio Transit Authority, Crown Castle, 
Cubic, Delaware Department of Transportation, District of Columbia 
Department of Transportation, Econolite, Ford Motor Company, General 
Motors, Gridsmart, HELP, Inc., HNTB, Iteris, Kapsch TraffiCom North 
America, MCity, Michael Baker International, Michigan Department of 
Transportation San Francisco Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation 
Commission, National Renewable Energy Lab, New York City Department of 
Transportation, Panasonic North America, Pennsylvania Department of 
Transportation, Qualcomm, Southwest Research Institute, State Farm 
Insurance, Toyota, Texas Transportation Institute, Utah Department of 
Transportation, Washington State Department of Transportation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Over the years since the Fixing America's Surface Transportation 
(FAST) Act was signed into law, automated and connected vehicle 
technologies have advanced, the collection and use of big data has 
become an increasingly valuable tool for decision makers, 
electrification of vehicles of every type from human scale to large-
scale continues, and Mobility on Demand services are transforming how 
we get around. These technologies allow additional freedom of movement 
for those who have limited mobility access, such as people with 
disabilities, older adults, and those living in transit deserts. 
Technology advancements will also help begin to reduce the epidemic of 
fatalities on our roadways.
    For these reasons, ITS America supports a FAST Act reauthorization 
that recognizes the added value of integrating technology into 
transportation infrastructure and services and provides funding for the 
rapid deployment of intelligent transportation technologies quickly and 
uniformly to transportation agencies and providers across the entire 
country.
Moving People, Data, and Freight
    Given the title and focus of this hearing is ``Examining 
Technological Innovations in Transportation,'' and with Congress 
increasingly focused on the reauthorization of the FAST Act, my written 
testimony encompasses ITS America's FAST Act Reauthorization Platform: 
Moving People, Data, and Freight: Safer. Greener. Smarter, which ITS 
America released earlier today. Moving People, Data, and Freight 
bridges new and existing infrastructure technologies and new modes of 
mobility that we see across the country with the utmost importance of 
investments to bring our infrastructure to a state of good repair and 
integrate research, development, and deployment of technology to 
maximize efficiencies and safety and secure the United States' global 
leadership in the development and deployment of advanced transportation 
technologies.
Increase Investment in Research and Deployment of Intelligent 
        Transportation Technologies
    Intelligent transportation technologies advance transportation 
safety and mobility, reduce congestion, improve air quality, and 
enhance American productivity by integrating advanced technologies into 
transportation infrastructure, operations, and vehicles. Only with 
investment certainty will the Nation finally see and benefit from the 
research and the large-scale transformational deployments of 
intelligent transportation technologies that will define the way 
people, goods, services, and information move in the 21st century--and 
most importantly, finally help begin to reduce the epidemic of 
fatalities on our roadways.
    Moving People, Data, and Freight investment policy supports the 
solvency of the Highway Trust Fund; the transition to a long-term and 
sustainable revenue source for transportation; and a national Vehicle 
Miles Traveled (VMT) pilot. In connection with a national VMT pilot, 
the platform recommends including large freight shippers as 
participants and examines whether fleet telematics can be used as a 
method of data collection.
    The platform supports increased funding for research, development, 
and demonstration of intelligent transportation systems technology; 
maintaining Federal programs that allow state, metropolitan areas, and 
city congestion pricing strategies; and increased funding for 
Intelligent Transportation Systems programs to streamline the movement 
of goods beginning at ports and through the multimodal supply chain 
including freight intelligent transportation systems and digital 
infrastructure systems.
    ITS America strongly supports the Advanced Transportation and 
Congestion Management Technologies Deployment (ATCMTD) program. The 
platform supports increasing funding and Federal share to 80 percent. 
It recommends increasing the Federal share to 100 percent for safety 
critical connected vehicle technologies including Vehicle-to-Vehicle 
(V2V), Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I), and Vehicle-to-Pedestrian (V2P) 
under ATCMTD. The association also supports policy that makes V2P 
technologies an eligible activity under ATCMTD and recommends that the 
FAST Act reauthorization authorize and dedicate separate funding for 
ATCMTD. Under the FAST Act, the ATCMTD program has been funded through 
a set-aside from the Highway Research and Development, Technology and 
Innovation Deployment, and Intelligent Transportation System Research 
programs and has resulted in a reduction of transportation research and 
development that has historically propelled United States leadership in 
areas such as connected and automated vehicle development as well as 
the emerging area of artificial intelligence in mobility management.
Safeguard Critical Transportation Infrastructure from Cybersecurity 
        Threats
    As vehicles and infrastructure become more connected, our Nation's 
transportation system faces increasing cybersecurity risks. Given the 
ability to cause loss of life and inflict significant economic damage 
in a highly visible manner, cybersecurity attacks directed at those 
producing or operating technologies travelling over or connected to 
U.S. roadways will intensify. ITS America supports policy that would 
provide states and localities funding and technical assistance under 
federal-aid highway programs, Federal public transportation programs, 
and ATCMTD to safeguard critical transportation systems that are more 
reliant than ever on connectivity to communicate and exchange data from 
cybersecurity threats.
Prioritize the 5.9 GHz Spectrum for Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) Public 
        Safety Transportation Communications and Grow Investments in 
        Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle-to-Pedestrian (V2P) 
        Technologies
    The U.S. Department of Transportation is working with industry, 
safety, and public sector stakeholders to develop and evaluate 
cooperative technologies, equipment, and applications known as 
Connected Vehicle (CV) technologies that operate in the 5.9 GHz band, 
inclusive of V2V, V2I, and V2P--collectively referred to as Vehicle-to-
Everything (V2X). This includes all V2X technologies--Dedicated Short 
Range Communications (DSRC) as well as Cellular vehicle-to-everything 
(C-V2X)--because the band can be configured to enable real-time crash-
avoidance alerts and warnings--offering a significant opportunity to 
achieve a transformation in transportation safety.
    Cable companies and their supporters are seeking additional 
spectrum for enhanced WiFi experiences and are aggressively pressuring 
the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to force public safety 
transportation communications operating in the 5.9 GHz band to share 
that spectrum with unlicensed consumer broadband devices.
    Speed matters when safety information is involved. Sharing the band 
could compromise the speed and put lives at risk. What if a driver 
knew, in fractions of a second, that an airbag deployed in a car in 
front of them? Alternatively, that the car in front, around the next 
curve, was sliding on black ice? Or a person is walking just around the 
next corner? Thanks to V2X, that driver would react--and avoid a crash. 
Deploying V2X that allow cars, trucks, bicycles, motorcycles, 
streetlights and other infrastructure to talk to each other will ensure 
more people travel safely. Safety is the top priority of the Nation's 
transportation system.
    Moving People, Data, and Freight supports policy that makes clear 
the 5.9 GHz band is prioritized for existing, new, and developing 
vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technologies that send hazard alerts to 
infrastructure, motorists, pedestrians, and other transportation system 
users and hold the promise to enhance automated driving systems. The 
platform supports a policy that ensures all three phases of testing for 
the 5.9 GHz band are complete before the FCC rules on whether the 
spectrum can be shared between V2X operations and unlicensed devices 
like WiFi.
    V2I communications, which involves the exchange of safety and 
operational data between vehicles and elements of the transportation 
infrastructure, offer a wide range of safety benefits. V2I provides 
vehicles and drivers information about infrastructure operations--
weather and pavement conditions, how signals are directing traffic, and 
even the location of potential hazards at intersections and other 
critical road safety hotspots. V2I applications include red light 
violation warnings, reduced speed zone warnings, curve speed warnings, 
and spot weather impact warnings. V2I soon will support other 
applications that will disseminate the condition of the infrastructure, 
such as bridge integrity, and may even collect vehicle data that 
describes pavement condition. According to the National Highway Traffic 
Safety Administration (NHTSA), V2I technology helps drivers safely 
negotiate intersections and could help prevent 41 to 55 percent of 
intersection crashes. Another connected vehicle safety application that 
helps drivers with left turns at intersections could help prevent 36 to 
62 percent of left-turn crashes. In addition to the lives saved, just 
these two applications alone could prevent up to 592,000 crashes and 
270,000 injuries each year.
    Fatalities in crashes involving at least one large truck increased 
by an estimated three percent in 2018, according to NHTSA's preliminary 
statistics. As part of the USDOT's Connected Vehicle Pilot Program, 
Wyoming is demonstrating what rural states can do to benefit travelers. 
Wyoming is deploying CV technology along the 402 miles of I-80 where 
winter wind speeds and gusts result in trucks blowing over and often 
lead to road closures. The Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) 
CV pilot focuses on commercial vehicle operators by developing 
applications to support advisories including roadside alerts, parking 
notifications and dynamic travel guidance. WYDOT is equipping 400 
vehicles, a combination of fleet vehicles and commercial trucks with 
on-board units (OBUs). Of the 400 vehicles, at least 150 would be heavy 
trucks that are expected to be regular users of I-80. In addition, of 
the 400 equipped-vehicles, 100 WYDOT fleet vehicles, snowplows, and 
highway patrol vehicles will be equipped with OBUs and mobile weather 
sensors.
    The Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada recently 
became the first in the world to put roadway information into a digital 
format. As connected vehicles drive over the actual roadway, they can 
pick up differences between the ``digital'' road and the actual road. 
This could eliminate the need for agencies to manually examine roadways 
for striping or automatically report potholes instead of waiting for 
enough drivers to incur tire damage before fixing them. These vehicles 
will also give an up-to-the-minute snapshot of the system--how it is 
performing, are there any incidents, and live weather conditions.
    Moving People, Data, and Freight recommends increasing the Federal 
match to 100 percent for installation of V2I safety technologies. We 
also recommend expanding eligibility to include data collection and 
analysis software (including data acquisition through private sector 
partnership), maintenance and operations, fiber, integration, the costs 
associated with systems, and equipment required for V2I communications 
technology.
    Pedestrian deaths increased by an estimated 4 percent and 
``pedalcyclist'' deaths increased by an estimated 10 percent in 2018, 
according to NHTSA's preliminary statistics. V2X will enable deployment 
of safety solutions to protect these vulnerable users of the system. By 
allowing vehicles to communicate with users through sensors or vehicle-
to-device communication, we can significantly reduce the number of 
people killed on our roadways. V2P encompasses a broad set of road 
users--people walking, children being pushed in strollers, people using 
wheelchairs or other mobility devices, passengers embarking and 
disembarking buses and trains, and people riding bicycles and scooters. 
ITS America recommends expanding eligibility under the Advanced 
Transportation and Congestion Management Technologies Deployment 
(ATCMTD) program to include V2P technologies.
Expand Investments in Advanced Mobility Improvements
    ITS America supports expanding eligibility under highway programs 
to include advanced mobility safety improvements including data 
infrastructure and analysis, smart mobility improvements such as smart 
truck parking, smart work zones, smart pavements, predictive analytics 
platform, and build out of electric vehicle charging stations, hydrogen 
fueling infrastructure, natural gas fueling infrastructure, and other 
alternative fuels.
    Due to the lack of truck parking availability information and safe 
and convenient truck parking spaces, tired commercial vehicle operators 
may continue to drive while searching for a place to park and rest, 
resulting in fatigue-associated crashes. Florida, Texas, Arizona, and 
California are among a growing number of states planning and deploying 
smart truck parking technologies for real-time truck parking 
availability. Smart truck parking technology uses a combination of 
inpavement space occupancy detection for the location with mixed 
vehicle type usage and microwave vehicle detection for monitoring of 
ingress/egress at the weigh stations.
    Another example of an advanced mobility improvement is data 
analytics. The Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada 
(RTC) is using predictive analytics to improve safety and efficiency on 
freeways, including key freight corridors and major arterials by 
compiling and analyzing data to report in real-time the location of 
accidents and predict where dangerous driving conditions or congestion 
may occur. This technology enables faster validation and response to 
roadway incidents as well as a more efficient use of resources to 
proactively deploy traffic patrols and abatement efforts with the goal 
of preventing incidents.
Plan for Transformative Transportation Technologies
    States, providers of public transportation, and Metropolitan 
Planning Organizations (MPOs) are expanding beyond traditional long-
range scenario planning, which holds fixed certain transportation and 
land use assumptions, to consider big questions facing the 
transportation system, including whether connected and automated 
vehicles will increase the vehicle capacity of existing highway lanes; 
how automation and active transportation connections might help solve 
the first mile/last mile transit challenge; what roadway investments 
could incentivize the shift to connected and automated vehicles; how to 
make sure the entire transportation system is working together; and how 
to expedite technology safety benefits. Increased funding and 
flexibility will help planners analyze project performance across a 
range of different futures, including ensuring all modes of 
transportation work in concert and will lead to more informed project 
prioritization that maximizes the benefits of connected and automated 
technologies.
    The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), MPO for the San 
Francisco Bay Area, launched Horizon, a new effort to plan for, and 
help shape, a range of possible connected and automated vehicle 
futures. By expanding beyond traditional long-range scenario planning, 
which holds fixed certain transportation and land use assumptions, 
Horizon will help inform big questions facing the transportation 
industry, such as:

   Will connected and automated vehicles substantially increase 
        the vehicle capacity of existing highway lanes? If so, does it 
        make sense to add additional physical capacity today?

   How might automation help solve the first mile/last-mile 
        transit challenge, reducing barriers to transit ridership? What 
        type of investments are needed to get us there?

   What roadway investments could incentivize the shift to 
        connected and automated vehicles and expedite short-term safety 
        benefits?

    Ultimately, this effort could help planners analyze project 
performance across a range of different futures and lead to more 
informed project prioritization. Though the benefits may be 
significant, this planning effort requires substantial time and 
resources. Additional Federal planning funds and flexibility to 
experiment with innovative initiatives like Horizon could support 
transportation planners in efforts to maximize the benefits of 
connected automated technologies.
    Moving People, Data, and Freight supports additional planning funds 
to help regions and states better address complexities around 
transformative transportation technologies and climate change in the 
context of an integrated multimodal transportation system. ITS America 
also supports additional planning funds and flexibility to the planning 
process to prepare for a range of possible connected and automated 
vehicle future scenarios.
Deploy Broadband to Support Intelligent Transportation Technologies
    Telecommunication technologies, such as broadband, are essential to 
the transport of people, data, and freight. Assisting states and 
localities with recovering costs associated with conduit installation, 
maintenance of conduit, and conduit inventory is critical to increasing 
broadband installation, especially in rural areas and economically 
disadvantaged urban areas. Combining broadband conduit installation 
with highway and road construction will result in decreased frequency 
of construction on highways and roads, reduce broadband installation 
costs, increase access to and reliability of broadband networks, 
increase public and economic benefits, and decrease the time needed to 
deploy fiber.
    Moving People, Data, and Freight supports a new authorization that 
supports smart highways and streets with broadband fiber optic cable to 
make roads safer by establishing new Federal funding to assist states 
and localities to coordinate statewide telecommunication and broadband 
plans and state and local transportation and land use plans, including 
strategies to minimize repeated excavations that involve the 
installation of broadband infrastructure in a right-of-way, among other 
activities that promote broadband conduit installation.
Increase Buildout of Alternative Fuel Vehicle Infrastructure to Support 
        a Future of Zero Emission Vehicles
    Alternative Fuel Vehicles are shaping the future of mobility, and 
the United States is poised to lead a global transition to zero 
emission vehicles (ZEV). Nevertheless, U.S. government analysis 
suggests that additional ZEV infrastructure investments will be 
required to satisfy the future of transportation. ZEV sales continue to 
increase year-over-year; however, these new mobility options will need 
21st century infrastructure to continue to spur consumer adoption and 
address consumers' ``range anxiety''. U.S. government analysis suggests 
that current and projected deployments represent only a fraction of the 
estimated demand.
    Moving People, Data, and Freight supports a new grant program to 
support state and local governments' efforts with infrastructure 
providers to invest in electric vehicle charging and hydrogen fueling 
infrastructure along designated alternative fuel corridors. ITS America 
also supports increasing Federal funding under the Surface 
Transportation Block (STBG) Grant program and Congestion Mitigation and 
Air Quality (CMAQ) program to rapidly build out electric vehicle 
charging stations, hydrogen refueling stations, natural gas 
infrastructure, and technologies such as inductive charging to speed 
the deployment. The platform also supports the zero-emission plug-in 
electric vehicle tax credit, an additional allocation of zero-emission 
plug-in electric vehicle tax credits reserved for medium-duty 
commercial delivery vans, and the reinstatement of a zero-emission 
consumer tax credit for the purchase of fuel cell vehicles.
Build Transformative and Adaptive Infrastructure for Deployment of 
        Intelligent Transportation Technologies to Mitigate Climate 
        Change
    States, metropolitan regions, and cities will require substantial 
investment to adapt infrastructure to be resilient in a changing 
climate and responsive to a new mobility paradigm. Federally supported, 
near-term infrastructure improvements will provide the dual benefit of 
immediately mitigating carbon-emitting congestion while preparing our 
Nation for intelligent mobility and smart infrastructure.
    ITS America recommends establishing a new flexible program to make 
transportation networks more resilient in the face of a changing 
climate and more responsive to the technology-fueled transformation in 
how people and goods move. The program should be highly flexible, 
modeneutral and include formula and discretionary components. Eligible 
projects should include capital and operational investments that 
improve both near-term and long-term system safety and performance. 
Examples include programs to support deployment of automated vehicles; 
V2X communications technologies; priced managed lanes; transportation 
demand management programs; strategic micro-transit investments; 
advanced parking freight delivery and incident management systems; 
alternative fuel charging infrastructure and other advanced 
technologies to support a clean transportation system; and climate 
mitigation/resiliency improvements. Moving People, Data, and Freight 
supports policy to make eligible funding for renewable energy projects 
in the Interstate rights-of-way for transportation use by states and 
localities for transportation related purposes.
Establish a Mobility on Demand (MOD) Program for the New World of 
        Mobility
    In the 21st century, mobility is less about moving vehicles and 
more about moving people, data and freight. Long-existing silos among 
cities, states, counties, road and transit agencies are disappearing; 
and private mobility service providers barely existed a decade ago. 
More choices exist now, but for people to fully realize the benefits of 
this new world of mobility, it must be easier to choose which option 
best meets their needs. This also means services that are accessible 
for every traveler and in all communities and neighborhoods.
    In cities, Mobility on Demand (MOD) offers convenient, affordable, 
and, in the case of bikeshare, rideshare or micromobility services, 
more sustainable alternatives to driving within congested environments. 
For suburban areas, MOD offers first mile/last mile accessibility to 
transit, as well as more dynamic on-demand services to get around town. 
While often seen as an urban/metro transportation solution, MOD 
deployed in rural areas also provides first mile/last mile (though more 
like first/last 50 miles) connections to transit, intercity bus and 
rail transport, and essential air service airports. Rideshare and ride 
sourcing is providing support for seniors to access social and health 
services. Micromobility services offer options to travel in town. MOD 
includes bikeshare and scooter share deployments on college campuses. 
New and improved MOD transit and paratransit services also can benefit 
rural communities.
    The framework for aggregating and managing supply and demand 
depends on connected data rather than on a particular technology. MOD 
is powered by technology and mobility services that currently and will 
include:

   Data systems and data analytics platforms, specifically open 
        data platforms, open source technologies, and data sharing 
        agreements that allow public and controlled access to mobility 
        data to plan real-time operations and longer-term planning;

   Asset management systems (parking, curb, freight delivery), 
        specifically to provide opportunity for mapping assets to 
        develop more comprehensive use management strategies and value 
        pricing systems (e.g., assessing a fee for curb-side passenger 
        drop off, or use of designated delivery or drop-off zone or 
        conversely a fee for not using provided zones);

   Security/safety systems: this can be physical technologies--
        like locking systems for bikeshares where bikes must be secured 
        at the end of a trip--or cybersecurity systems. With the 
        potential introduction of automated/autonomous vehicles into 
        MOD services, like rideshare, it will be increasingly important 
        to have systems that monitor performance and track/mitigate any 
        security breaches. It also may be increasingly important to 
        have systems that confirm that the rider is the intended 
        person, and also potentially (in the case of AVs, per say) 
        monitor that riders are safe throughout their trip.

   Geospatial Technology: defined as the collective data and 
        associated technology that has a geographic or locational 
        component; Technology used to acquire, manipulate, and store 
        geographic information. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is 
        one form of geospatial technology. GPS, remote sensing, and 
        geofencing are other examples of geospatial technology.--
        Geofencing, for example, is being used in scootershare and 
        bikeshare programs to monitor use and designate certain areas 
        as no-go or no-park zones.

   Connected vehicle platforms and data, specifically to 
        provide opportunity for real-time operations such as deployment 
        of emergency service providers, rerouting of traffic during 
        major events, and fleet management (public or private);

   Integrated trip planning technology platforms that power 
        travel across a variety of modes, including public 
        transportation, transportation network companies, car and bike 
        sharing services, micro-transit providers, and even private 
        vehicle mobility planning;

   Integrated booking and payment systems that power seamless 
        travel across a variety of modes to include both public and 
        private mobility services;

   Integrated payment systems for transportation adjacencies or 
        value-pricing asset usage (e.g., tolling, congestion pricing, 
        dynamic parking, curb-side pricing, motor vehicle 
        administrative transactions, electric charging stations);

   Integrated payment systems that include other specialized 
        and demand-response transportation (e.g., human service 
        transportation, faith-based transportation, nonemergency 
        medical transportation, paratransit, volunteer-based 
        transportation, closed or open loop shuttle services, employee 
        and campus transportation); and

   Integrated payment systems that could include multiple non-
        transit/non-mobility services (e.g., retail, incentivization, 
        loyalty programs); social programs (e.g., travelers with 
        disabilities, student discounts, transit benefits, social 
        security, senior citizens, veteran benefits, human service 
        programs); and access and authorization (e.g., student cards, 
        government IDs, campus/academic cards, library access, 
        community and facility access, municipal programs, age-based 
        programs).

    In the future, Augmented Reality (AR) enhanced by 5G connectivity 
could make MOD and the delivery of real-time data even more useful. For 
instance, AR can be used to create interactive maps to help people 
navigate transit systems. By using the camera in a traveler's mobile 
device and superimposing digital information on what the camera is 
capturing, AR can make it easier for the user to make more informed 
decisions based on up-to-date information. Holding a mobile device on 
top of a transit map, for example, would allow users to see real-time 
movement of trains and buses near their location.
    Access to transportation means access to jobs, education, and 
healthcare, which is a major challenge for people with disabilities. 
New technologies have in the past and will continue to expand access to 
transportation. According to the U.S. Census, nearly one in five people 
in the United States have a disability. They also represent significant 
pent-up demand for transportation services. As a result, it is 
anticipated that there will be a notable increase in travel should 
fully automated vehicles succeed in expanding mobility access. The 
Policy Institute of AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired 
Persons) estimates that one-third of U.S. residents do not drive. 
Recent research by Carnegie Mellon University suggests that if non-
drivers, such as older adults and people with disabilities, were to 
gain access to automated vehicles, VMT could increase up to 14 percent. 
To put this in perspective, VMT growth usually hovers around one 
percent annually. Nearly everyone experiences disability at one time or 
another, often the result of injury, sickness, or aging. Furthermore, 
access to transportation may also help older adults remain in their 
homes to age in place, and independence in mobility not only often 
improves the lives of those who achieve it but also reduces associated 
burdens and stress on care-giving family members.
    MOD may also promise expansion of accessible transportation. 
Transit agencies are contracting with shared ride and ride hailing 
companies to provide paratransit services. As a result, ridehailing 
services become less like taxi services and more like paratransit. 
Under these contracts, ride-hailing services must provide accessible 
vehicles and driver assistance.
    ITS America has worked with the auto industry, tech companies, 
groups representing people with disabilities, and the Departments of 
Transportation, Labor and Health and Human Services to devise roadmap 
for accessibility in new automated and connected vehicle systems.
    Moving People, Data, and Freight supports establishing a MOD 
program that encourages flexibility within Federal transportation 
programs to meet changing mobility needs, including partnerships with 
companies offering shared-use trips (car, bicycle, new mobility modes), 
data management, and other technology companies for first mile/last 
mile services and improved freight delivery, the integration of 
mobility services and technologies, and new fare and integrated payment 
technologies. ITS America supports a MOD program that establishes a 
data sharing framework that provides standardization for the transfer 
of data among transportation operators and providers to foster the 
efficient use of capacity, enhance management of new modes of mobility, 
and promote the creation of innovative planning tools.
Strengthen the University Transportation Centers Program
    Moving People, Data, and Freight supports reforms in the University 
Transportation Centers program that directs grants to universities with 
research and technical expertise; encourages leading edge as well as 
near-term practical applied research (reduce the time period from 
research concept to completion); encourages broader inclusion of ITS-
related curriculum, degrees, and professional development programs for 
current and future workforce; and increases opportunities for private 
sector funding contributions.
Conclusion
    Just as transportation infrastructure was critical to the 
development of our economy in the 20th century, maintenance of existing 
infrastructure and deployment of intelligent mobility and smart 
infrastructure will be critical for our global competitiveness in this 
century. Advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, and wireless 
communications will define the way people, goods, services, and 
information move in the 21st century.
    New forms of mobility are being deployed even as others are being 
developed. When cars were invented a century ago, Departments of Roads 
were created to build infrastructure for this new form of 
transportation. Those agencies are now Departments of Transportation, 
having grown to include many modes of transportation. Now those same 
agencies are evolving again to provide seamless multimodal mobility and 
to build smart infrastructure that will support the technology-driven 
21st-century economy, which is all about moving, people, data, and 
freight.
    Changes are happening today that will fundamentally affect how 
people interact with transportation in the months and years ahead. ITS 
America is helping cities, states, the private sector, and researchers 
as we work toward our vision of a better future transformed by 
intelligent mobility--one that is safer, greener, and smarter.
    Our members come to one table--ITS America--to shape the next 
generation of transportation and infrastructure driven by intelligent 
transportation technologies.
    Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today, and I am 
happy to answer any questions you may have.
                                  ***
    ITS America acknowledges the contributions of ITS America Smart 
Infrastructure Task Force FAST Act Reauthorization co-chairs John 
Barton, National DOT Market Sector and Senior Vice President, HNTB, and 
Tina Quigley, Chief Executive Officer, Regional Transportation 
Commission of Southern Nevada, and more than 40 members of the task 
force representing the strength of ITS America: states, cities, 
metropolitan planning organizations, automakers, technology companies, 
research universities, and engineering, construction, and technical 
services firms. ITS America acknowledges the assistance of Boyagian 
Consulting.

[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


    Senator Fischer. Thank you very much.
    Our next panelist is Mr. Patrick Duffy, who is President of 
Blockchain in Transport Alliance.
    Welcome.

            STATEMENT OF PATRICK DUFFY, PRESIDENT, 
             BLOCKCHAIN IN TRANSPORTATION ALLIANCE

    Mr. Duffy. Thank you. Chairwoman Fischer, Ranking Member 
Duckworth, and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for 
holding this timely hearing.
    I'm grateful for the opportunity to submit my testimony to 
the Committee's hearing on Examining Technological Innovations 
in Transportation and for allowing for me to appear here on 
Capitol Hill.
    I look forward to the opportunity to share my thoughts 
regarding the massive opportunities associated to the 
digitization of analog and legacy processes across the supply 
chain of the transportation sectors, including blockchain's 
impactful role.
    Numerous emerging technologies are transforming the surface 
transportation realities for operators and users of over-the-
road trucking and rail industries in the United States, moving 
from the antiquated analog systems through the exploration of 
technologies, including artificial intelligence, blockchain and 
machine learning, to cite a few.
    This process of digitizing the data associated with supply 
chains that leverage the services of transport providers on the 
Nation's roads, highways, interstates, railroads, at sea and 
air routes, holds the promise of greatly improving commercial 
efficiencies but may also help produce more resilient data 
systems and impact the safety and security of our conduits of 
commerce.
    One of the biggest drivers of digitization in the freight 
industry today is the rapid deployment of blockchain technology 
to solve some of transportation's biggest headaches. Blockchain 
is the tip of the spear in the fight to digitize some of the 
antiquated systems and practices used in the transportation, 
logistics, and supply chain sectors.
    Among the major catalysts for digitization are the value-
deriving benefits that can be realized by increasing trust 
between counterparties.
    One of the technologies that can enhance trust between 
counterparties is distributed ledger technology, often referred 
to as blockchain and sometimes as the blockchain. So what is 
blockchain? Is it a currency, a code, a server?
    In reality, blockchain is simply a type of database 
functioning as a ledger in which transactions are stored as 
blocks of data that are recorded in a protected manner. The 
introduction of new data or the modification of existing data 
can only be done with the agreement of those individuals or 
organizations on that ledger. That agreement is needed before 
previously recorded data can be changed, overwritten, or 
deleted.
    While cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a wide 
spectrum of all coins leverage blockchain technology to record 
transactions, it's important to recognize that blockchains are 
not cryptocurrencies. Blockchain is, however, an ideal 
technology for security because it is an immutable distributed 
ledger. This ledger records every transaction or change. 
Transactions cannot be obscured, hidden, or erased after the 
fact.
    So how will this technology be useful in the context of 
over-the-road transportation in the United States? Take the 
customs process. It's slow with components often reliant on the 
transfer of paper documents and the use of fax machines, a 
situation ripe for human-induced error.
    By leveraging technologies like blockchain and through the 
digitization of analog processes required to leverage 
blockchain in a meaningful way, it may be possible to mitigate 
data-driven situations before they become problems.
    For instance, consider the romaine lettuce scare in the 
United States that we experienced in 2018. Dangerous E.coli 
bacteria was introduced into the Nation's food supply. Moving 
through the supply chain that contaminated lettuce was used in 
fast food and white tablecloth restaurants and homes across the 
United States, whether in a salad or as a topping for a 
cheeseburger or a taco, the lettuce was eaten by unsuspecting 
consumers. This situation resulted in deaths, many consumers 
were sickened and financial hardships occurred.
    Even though that contaminated romaine lettuce was a small 
percentage of the total romaine lettuce in the market, all 
romaine lettuce was pulled from grocery store shelves and 
restaurant coolers.
    The dangerous bacteria infiltrated the agricultural supply 
chain and because of legacy and analog processes, the 
contaminated legacy provenance was not easily identified by 
regulators. They faced an arduous task to identify the 
contaminated produce.
    Because that data could not be quickly determined, 
regulators were left with no other choice but to remove the 
product from U.S. commerce.
    If the lettuce had been registered on a blockchain, track 
and trace would have been relatively easy. Many of those 
sickened might not have been and time and costs of the 
investigation would have been less. That's the power of 
blockchain.
    Digital breadcrumbs indicating the who, what, when, and 
where and why of a supply chain enhanced through the use of 
technologies, including blockchain, may provide an opportunity 
to catch challenges before they become a crisis.
    It's my honor and privilege to be here today representing 
the Blockchain in Transportation Alliance, most commonly 
referred to as BITA. Our mission is to help educate 
stakeholders advocate for the adoption of innovative 
technologies and through collaboration among member companies 
and organizations and their talented staff members to establish 
standards around the data components that comprise the world's 
supply chain and transportation technologies.
    These companies come together generating standards that 
will drive innovation in the digitization space for decades to 
come. BITA has moved faster than anyone expected to release its 
first standards in February and has three more in the pipeline 
that we expect to unveil later this summer.
    In normal time, many of these companies working to develop 
these standards work in fierce commercial competition, but they 
come together in agreement in our rooms.
    Using blockchain in the near future, we'll have answers to 
questions, such as was a vaccine kept at a correct temperature? 
When were aircraft parts damaged in transit? Where were these 
salmon caught, and what was their path to consumer? These are 
problems that the industries struggle to solve with every day 
and consumers are asking for answers.
    With blockchain digitization, they have an immutable ledger 
that can hold up in court. In short, we'll be able to state 
with certainty that a certain thing has happened at a certain 
time and place.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Duffy follows:]

            Prepared Statement of Patrick Duffy, President, 
                    Blockchain in Transport Alliance
    Chairman Fischer, Ranking Member Duckworth, and members of this 
Subcommittee, thank you for holding this timely hearing.
    I'm grateful for the opportunity to submit written testimony for 
the Committee's hearing on ``Examining Technological Innovations in 
Transportation,'' and for allowing me to appear today on Capitol Hill.
    I look forward to the opportunity to share my thoughts regarding 
the massive opportunities associated to the digitization of analog and 
legacy processes across the supply chain and transportation sectors, 
including blockchain's impactful role.
    Numerous emerging technologies are transforming the surface 
transportation realities for operators and users of over-the-road 
trucking and rail industries in the United States--moving from 
antiquated analog systems through the exploration of technologies, 
including artificial intelligence, blockchain and machine learning, to 
cite a few.
    This process of digitizing the data associated with supply chains 
that leverage the services of transport providers on the Nation's 
roads, highways, interstates, railways and sea and air routes holds the 
promise of greatly improving commercial efficiencies, but may also help 
produce more resilient data systems that impact the safety and security 
of our conduits of commerce.
    One of the biggest drivers of digitization in the freight industry 
today is the rapid deployment of blockchain technology to solve some of 
transportation's biggest headaches. Blockchain is the tip of the spear 
in the fight to digitize some of the most antiquated systems and 
practices used in the transportation/logistics/supply chain sectors.
    Among the major catalysts for digitization are the value-driving 
benefits that can be realized by increasing trust between 
counterparties.
    One of the technologies that can enhance trust between 
counterparties is distributed ledger technology, often referred to as 
``blockchain'' and sometimes as ``the Blockchain.''
    So what is blockchain? Is it a currency? A code? A server? In 
reality, blockchain is simply a type of database, functioning as a 
ledger in which transactions are stored as blocks of data that are 
recorded in a protected manner. The introduction of new data, or the 
modification of existing data can only be done with the agreement of 
those individuals or organizations on that ledger. That agreement is 
needed before previously recorded data can be changed, overwritten or 
deleted.
    While cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a wide spectrum 
of alt-coins leverage blockchain technology to record transactions, it 
is important to recognize that blockchains are not cryptocurrencies.
    Blockchain is, however, an ideal technology for security because it 
is an immutable distributed ledger. This ledger records every 
transaction or change. Transactions cannot be obscured, hidden, or 
erased after the fact.
    So how will this technology be useful within the context of over-
the-road transportation in the United States?
    Take the customs process. It's slow, with components often reliant 
on the transference of paper documents and the use of fax machines--a 
situation ripe for human-induced error. By leveraging technologies like 
blockchain, and through the digitization of analog processes required 
to leverage blockchain in a meaningful way, it may be possible to 
mitigate data-driven situations before they become problems.
    For instance, consider the romaine lettuce scare the United States 
experienced in 2018. Dangerous e. Coli bacteria was introduced into the 
Nation's food supply. Moving through the supply chain, that 
contaminated lettuce was used in fast-food and white tablecloth 
restaurants and in homes across the United States. Whether used in a 
salad, or as a topping on cheeseburgers or tacos, the lettuce was eaten 
by unsuspecting consumers.
    This situation resulted in deaths, many consumers were sickened and 
financial hardships occurred. Even though the contaminated romaine 
lettuce was a small percentage of total romaine lettuce in the market, 
all romaine lettuce was pulled from grocery store shelves and 
restaurant coolers.
    The dangerous bacteria infiltrated the agricultural supply chain, 
and because of legacy and analog processes, the contaminated lettuce's 
provenance was not easily identified by regulators. They faced an 
arduous task to identify the contaminated produce. Because that data 
could not be quickly determined, regulators were left with no other 
choice but to remove the product from U.S. commerce.
    If the lettuce had been registered on a blockchain, track and trace 
would have been relatively easy. Many of those sickened might not have 
been. The time and cost of the investigation would have been less. That 
is the power of blockchain.
    Digital `breadcrumbs' indicating the who, what, when, where and why 
of a supply chain, enhanced through the use of technologies including 
blockchain may provide an opportunity to catch challenges before they 
become a crisis.
    The real-life example used involved romaine lettuce, but it could 
be baby formula--as recently occurred in China--or the agricultural 
inputs associated with antibiotics.
    Looking back we should consider ourselves lucky; a breakdown in an 
arcane process led to deaths and illnesses, but it could have been 
much, much worse--and the next outbreak of contaminated foods or faulty 
products may lead to serious harm for millions of U.S. citizens.
    It's my honor and privilege to be here today representing the 
Blockchain in Transport Alliance, most commonly referred to as BiTA.
    Our mission is to help educate stakeholders, advocate for the 
adoption of innovative technologies, and through collaboration among 
member companies and organizations, and their talented staff members, 
to establish standards around the data components that comprise the 
world's supply chain and transportation technologies.
    Since its inception in 2017, BITA has moved expeditiously to 
identify use cases where the standardization of data would be 
beneficial for parties involved in supply chain and transportation. And 
it's important to realize that this work is not being done in silos or 
by a group of interested ``techies.'' BiTA is comprised of hundreds of 
member companies representing more than $1 trillion in revenue 
annually. The membership base spans the spectrum from technology 
companies like Google, IBM, Microsoft and Salesforce, to some of the 
world's most important conveyors of goods like BNSF, Delta, FedEx, J.B. 
Hunt and UPS, and all types of companies and organizations that either 
leverage their services or provide ancillary products and/or services.
    These companies together are generating standards that will drive 
innovation in the digitization space for decades to come. BiTA has 
moved, faster than anyone expected, to release its first standard this 
February, and has three more in the pipeline that we expect will be 
unveiled later this summer.
    In normal times, many of these companies working on developing 
standards are fierce commercial competitors. But we've seen them put 
aside their differences and work together to improve the way we 
transport everything from bullets to baby formula. Blockchain 
technology will improve safety in the supply chain, increase 
transparency, unlock value across the commercial ecosystem, empower 
small businesses and give regulators the tools they need to make the 
best decisions.
    The essential goal of BiTA is to help guide and promote the 
creation of open source blockchain systems in the transportation 
industry. Blockchain in transport may function as a digital referee 
capable of providing high-fidelity data to enable users to make better-
informed decisions.
    The technology is quickly moving from the experimental--being 
looked at in universities and research organizations--to being 
implemented within the technology stacks, and business processes, of 
the world's largest companies and organizations.
    So why talk about standards? Because all too often new technologies 
are delayed because of the development of multiple proprietary systems 
that are not designed to work with each other. Take Windows versus Mac, 
or Blu-Ray versus HD-DVD, or Betamax versus VHS. And how many different 
shapes and sizes of cables have we used over the years to charge our 
mobile phones or plug in our computers?
    The purpose of the Blockchain in Transport Alliance is to bring all 
freight industry stakeholders together to create a global language 
around the data components that comprise the supply chain and 
transportation technologies that power the global economy.
    Using blockchain, in the near future we will have answers to 
questions such as: Was a vaccine kept at the correct temperature? When 
were the aircraft parts damaged in transit? Where were these salmon 
caught and what was their path to the consumer?
    These are problems that the industry struggles to solve every day, 
and consumers are asking for answers. With blockchain digitization, 
they have an immutable ledger that can hold up in court.
    In short, we will be able to state with certainty that a certain 
thing happened at a certain time and a certain place.
    Thank you.

    Senator Fischer. Thank you, sir.
    Next, we have Ann Schlenker, who is the Director of the 
Center for Transportation Research at Argonne National 
Laboratory.
    Welcome.

             STATEMENT OF ANN SCHLENKER, DIRECTOR,

              CENTER FOR TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH,

                  ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY

    Ms. Schlenker. Thank you. Chairwoman Fischer, Ranking 
Member Duckworth, and members of the Subcommittee, thank you 
for the opportunity to appear before you today.
    It is my honor to talk to you about how the U.S. Department 
of Energy, National Laboratories, bring prosperity and security 
to all Americans by making transportation more affordable, 
efficient, accessible, and safe.
    I am Ann Schlenker, Director of the Center for 
Transportation Research at Argonne DOE's multidisciplinary 
National Laboratory near Chicago.
    I am privileged to lead a team of scientists and engineers 
working on a research portfolio that ranges from components to 
vehicles to transportation as a holistic system. My passion for 
transportation runs deep and long.
    I serve as co-chair of the Systems and Modeling for 
Accelerated Research and Transportation, or SMART, Mobility 
Consortia. The consortium is an initiative of the Vehicle 
Technologies Office within DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency 
and Renewable Energy.
    The consortia, which includes Argonne, Idaho, Lawrence 
Berkeley, National Renewable Energy, and Oak Ridge National 
Labs, studies transportation across many rapidly changing 
facets, including connected and automated vehicles, urban 
science, advanced fueling infrastructure, decision science, and 
multimodal transportation.
    The program is creating new knowledge, insights, tools, and 
technology solutions that increase mobility and energy 
productivity for individuals and businesses. Our scalable smart 
mobility projects target opportunities to greatly increase the 
efficient and affordable movement of people and goods.
    That phrase ``movement of people and goods'' is 
significant. Mobility is the foundation of how humanity 
interacts. It is fundamental to our quality of life. 
Transportation gives us access to opportunities for good food, 
good jobs, quality education, superior health care, and leisure 
moments with nature.
    Now more than ever before, we have the potential to not 
only move more but move smarter; that is, more affordably and 
cleaner and with ever more increasing choices.
    The DOE National Laboratories use integrated scalable 
models, tools, and field experiments to study the effects of 
advanced vehicle and infrastructure changes, new business 
models, transportation modes, and other factors for the 
transportation systems.
    The result is expanded understanding from the vehicle to 
the city level. We can tailor our assessments for regional 
outcomes, such as vehicle miles traveled, vehicle hours 
traveled, passenger miles traveled, energy used, cost 
effectiveness, greenhouse gas emitted, productivity gains, and 
more.
    The aging U.S. population, urbanization, shared 
transportation usage, and expectation of on-demand goods and 
services and real-time information availability drive traveler 
activities and decisions.
    Transportation researchers seek automation, 
electrification, and other mobility solutions to address these 
new realities while remaining cognizant that as a nation, we 
are not fully connected and advancements need to fit broadly.
    The range of solutions is broad and poised to impact 
efficiency and safety in dense urban areas as well as in rural 
locations. Automated vehicles equipped with sensors for 
situational awareness and connectivity help us glean 
information from other cars on the roadway for rural benefits 
of improved efficiency and reduced collisions.
    In an urban setting, we can use vehicle-to-vehicle and 
vehicle-to-infrastructure connectivity to improve safety and 
increase traffic flow with smart traffic signals and smart 
parking apps.
    Shared services and automation will provide today's 
underserved population with increased access and affordability.
    Our ability to understand the complex interactions between 
all these systems, technologies, business models, and emerging 
travel modes is paramount to achieving secure and robust smart 
mobility.
    Applying the DOE National Laboratories' computational 
horsepower, artificial intelligence, and data analytics is in a 
scenario-based framework for analyzing the potential mobility 
future. We come away knowing how to guide implementation of new 
solutions that maximize benefits while minimizing the downside.
    Research recently conducted by Argonne in the Chicago 
region demonstrates the kind of insights DOE laboratories can 
provide stakeholders to help them prepare for these new 
futures.
    Research showed that, for example, private ownership of 
highly automated vehicles, the vehicle miles traveled could 
increase by greater than 40 percent, in turn causing network 
speeds to decrease about 15 percent as a surrogate of 
congestion.
    Conversely, in a transportation network with high-sharing 
behaviors, that is, greater reliance on mass transit and ride-
sharing services, vehicle miles traveled could be reduced by 13 
percent and energy usage reduced by over 25 percent, while 
still netting that exact same mobility to serve our population.
    This type of analysis is possible to capture the upside and 
manage any downside in mobility futures.
    Collaborations across government agencies are another 
example of key partnering. DOE and the Department of 
Transportation partner on many automated, connected, and 
efficient shared mobility projects. DOE complements DOT 
research, development, demonstration, and deployment portfolio 
by offering tools and capabilities in modeling and simulation, 
managing and analyzing data, and quantifying technology 
benefits.
    DOE also has partnered on the DOT Smart City Challenge. 
DOE's National Laboratories are a powerhouse of science, 
technology, and engineering. They are principal agents of 
execution on missions of national importance, including the 
effort to provide greater mobility in the vehicle and travelers 
within the transportation system.
    Work at the National Labs continues to make mobility more 
affordable, efficient, safe, and convenient.
    Thank you for your time. I welcome any comments you might 
have.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Schlenker follows:]

       Prepared Statement of Ann Schlenker, Director, Center for 
          Transportation Research, Argonne National Laboratory
    Chairwoman Fischer, Ranking Member Duckworth, and members of the 
subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. It is 
my honor to talk to you about how the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) 
national laboratories bring prosperity and security to all Americans by 
making transportation more affordable, efficient, accessible, and safe.
    I am Ann Schlenker, director of the Center for Transportation 
Research at DOE's Argonne National Laboratory, one of America's first 
and largest multipurpose science and engineering laboratories, located 
in Lemont, Illinois, near Chicago. Prior to joining Argonne in 2009, I 
worked for Chrysler, LLC, for more than 30 years, most recently as 
Director of Advanced Vehicle Engineering and Alliances. During my 
career in industry I held a variety of executive engineering positions 
in research, regulatory development, and front-line product 
development. My passion for transportation runs deep and long.
    As director of the Argonne center, I am privileged to lead a team 
of scientists and engineers working on a research portfolio that ranges 
from components to vehicles to transportation as a holistic system. We 
are improving engine fuel efficiency, evaluating vehicles in virtual 
and experimental contexts, studying low carbon fuel potentials, 
improving and validating vehicle electrification interoperability and 
security with the Smart Grid, and studying complex transportation 
systems.
    I serve as co-chair of the Systems and Modeling for Accelerated 
Research in Transportation, or SMART, Mobility Consortium. The 
consortium is an initiative of the Vehicle Technologies Office within 
DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy. The consortium, 
which includes Argonne, Idaho, Lawrence Berkeley, National Renewable 
Energy, and Oak Ridge national labs, studies transportation across many 
rapidly changing facets, including connected and automated vehicles, 
urban science, advanced fueling infrastructure, decision science, and 
multi-modal transportation.
    The SMART Mobility Consortium is part of DOE's Energy Efficient 
Mobility Systems (EEMS) Program, which envisions an affordable, 
efficient, safe, and accessible transportation future. The program is 
conducting cutting-edge research at the vehicle, traveler, and system 
levels, creating new knowledge, insights, tools, and technology 
solutions that increase mobility and energy productivity for 
individuals and businesses. Our scalable smart mobility projects target 
opportunities to greatly increase the efficient and affordable movement 
of people and goods.
Mobility Underpins Quality of Life
    That phrase, ``movement of people and goods,'' is significant. 
Mobility is a foundation of how humanity interacts. It is fundamental 
to our quality of life. Transportation gives us access to opportunity 
in the form of healthy food, good jobs, quality education, superior 
health care, and leisure moments with nature. Now, more than ever 
before, we have the potential to not only move more, but move smarter--
that is, more affordably and cleanly and with ever increasing choice. 
It is natural that the DOE national laboratories, with our mission to 
accelerate the science and technology that drive U.S. prosperity and 
security, have a critical role in realizing the potential of smart 
mobility. The laboratories possess tools, teams, and expertise that 
exist nowhere else and deliver impact through use-inspired solutions 
that address the complex, long-term challenges we face.
    To understand the transformational power of smart mobility 
solutions, we need only look at previous transportation revolutions. I 
began my career working on emissions in the days of brown clouds and 
hazy skies as the Clean Air Act was being implemented. My fellow auto 
and oil industry researchers and I developed solutions that achieved a 
99 percent improvement in vehicle emissions for tangible air quality 
gains while at the same time doubling fuel economy. Research and 
development drove a similar transformation in automobile safety, 
starting with the passive solutions of seat belts and air bags and 
evolving to active safety innovations including anti-lock braking 
systems, electronic stability controls, and safety sensors and cameras. 
These active systems are standard today and are paving the path to 
further vehicle automation.
    The knowledge and technology we are creating now have the power to 
create the next transportation revolution, one of smart mobility. We 
use integrated, scalable models, tools, and field experiments to study 
the effects of advanced vehicle and infrastructure technologies, new 
business models, transportation modes and other factors on 
transportation systems--the result is expanded understanding from the 
vehicle to the city level. We can tailor our assessments of complex 
transportation mobility systems to desired regional outcomes such as 
vehicle miles traveled, vehicle hours traveled, passenger miles 
traveled, energy used, costs affected, greenhouse gases emitted, 
productivity generated, and more.
Transportation is Changing; New Solutions Can Meet Emerging Demands 
        Across All Areas
    Despite all the ways in which we can connect virtually, we are 
traveling more today, on a variety of modes, than ever before. Trips on 
what is called micromobility--scooters, bikes, e-bikes--doubled in 2018 
to 84 million trips in a single year. Transportation network companies 
such as Uber, Lyft, and Via weren't operating 10 years ago; today in 
the U.S. they account for an annual 4.2 billion trips and counting.
    The number of annual vehicle miles traveled continues to increase, 
with incremental increases in travel times due to congestion now 
totaling some 42 hours per year--that's an average of $1,300 in 
financial terms--per traveler. Transportation costs are now second only 
to housing expenses. The aging U.S. population, urbanization, and a 
shift toward shared transportation usage also drive the need for 
creative thinking and solutions to meet new mobility demands.
    All these transportation trends are borne of changes in traveler 
choice and consumer behavior. We now expect on-demand services and 
goods, as well as real-time information to guide our way of life and 
activities--witness the navigation and routing apps that allow us to 
choose the greenest, cheapest, or fastest option, or even delay or 
cancel a trip in light of real-time traffic information. Transportation 
researchers like me seek automation, electrification, and other 
mobility solutions to address these new realities while remaining 
cognizant that as a nation we are not fully connected and advancements 
need to fit broadly.
    The range of solutions that inform traveler choices and optimize 
our movement and the movement of our goods is broad and poised to 
impact efficiency and safety in dense urban areas as well as in rural 
locations. Automated vehicles equipped with sensors for situational 
awareness and connectivity help us glean information from other cars 
and the roadway for rural area benefits of improved efficiency and 
reduced collisions. In an urban setting, we can use vehicle-to-vehicle 
and vehicle-to-infrastructure connectivity to improve safety and 
increase traffic flow with smart signal intersections. Smart parking 
apps enable us to improve our energy use by reducing the amount of time 
we drive around, instead directing us to open spots with reliable 
information. Shared services and automation will provide today's 
underserved population with access and affordability.
    It is important to note that this connectivity requires the high-
speed 5.9 gigahertz spectrum that has been reserved for vehicle-related 
safety applications. Without this spectrum, the promise of future 
mobility technology could be significantly reduced.
    Solutions that make ride hail companies more complementary to mass 
transit and other solutions that enable seamless intermodal (for 
example, between air and ground or bike and bus) transportation 
increase our efficient movement, while multimodal freight solutions do 
the same for our goods. Our ability to understand the complex 
interactions between all these systems, technologies, business models, 
and emerging travel modes is paramount to achieving secure and robust 
smart mobility.
National Laboratories Perfectly Positioned to Lead
    DOE national labs leverage distinguishing capabilities in science, 
unique user facilities, and external collaboration networks to execute 
pioneering research into solutions that will satisfy consumer mobility 
needs in a technology-rich and on-demand service-oriented economy. We 
are applying our established expertise in advanced computer science, 
visualization, data, decision science and analysis, and systems 
engineering and integration--as well as our capabilities in artificial 
intelligence, big data, computation, and predictive analytics--to the 
tough mobility challenges the public and private sectors face.
    Applying the DOE national labs computational horsepower--some of 
the world's fastest supercomputers are located at Argonne and other 
labs--to our transportation system modeling and simulation underpins 
our smart mobility work. This capability gives us a scenario-based 
framework for analyzing potential mobility futures, allowing us to 
easily and quickly adjust various parameters. The result is greater 
insight into impacts with broad knowledge transfer and applicability. 
We come away knowing how to guide implementation of new solutions that 
maximize benefits while minimizing harms.
    Research conducted by Argonne in the Chicago region demonstrates 
the kind of insights DOE laboratories can provide stakeholders to help 
them prepare for various mobility futures. Research showed that with 
private ownership of highly automated vehicles, vehicle miles traveled 
could increase by greater than 40 percent, in turn causing network 
speeds to decrease about 15 percent; such a scenario represents 
substantial congestion. Conversely, in a transportation network with 
high sharing behaviors--that is, greater reliance on mass transit and 
ride sharing services--vehicle miles traveled could be reduced by 13 
percent and energy usage reduced by more than 25 percent while giving 
travelers the same level of mobility. This type of analysis is possible 
with strong private-public partnership relationships, data sharing, and 
strategic planning, to capture the upside and manage any downside of 
mobility futures.
    The commitment of the national laboratories to rapidly bring 
technologies and knowledge into real-world application also takes the 
form of collaborations across government agencies. For example, DOE and 
the Department of Transportation partner on many automated, connected, 
and efficient, shared mobility projects, including coordination with 
the Federal Transit Administration to understand the energy 
implications of using mobility services to enhance transit. The Federal 
Highway Administration and DOE also are conducting leveraged work on 
connected/automated vehicle systems, such as truck platooning and eco-
driving approaches. DOE complements DOT's research, development, 
demonstration, and deployment portfolio by offering tools and 
capabilities for modeling and simulation, managing and analyzing data, 
and quantifying technology benefits. DOE also has partnered with DOT on 
the Smart City Challenge, which underscored the fact that cities, 
regardless of size, identify the same set of critical issues for their 
communities; air quality, safety, accessibility, congestion, curb 
management, parking, payment systems and multimodal transportation 
issues.
    Use-inspired, collaborative, comprehensive, and innovative--these 
terms generate enthusiasm, passion and full engagement among the many 
transportation DOE researchers who are addressing a spectrum of needs 
for future mobility. This mobility revolution also requires workforce 
development, and Argonne is spearheading the EcoCAR Mobility Challenge 
program for DOE, with a 30 year history of advanced vehicle technology 
competitions, representing 20,000 university graduates for a highly 
skilled domestic workforce.
    DOE's national laboratories and their facilities are America's 
powerhouses of science, technology, and engineering. They are principal 
agents of execution on missions of national importance, including the 
effort to provide greater mobility to the vehicles and travelers within 
the transportation system. The work of the labs continues, applying 
expertise and coordinating the myriad of private and public 
stakeholders to make mobility more affordable, efficient, safe, and 
convenient, and bring prosperity and security to all Americans.
    Thank you for your time. I welcome any questions you may have.

    Senator Fischer. Thank you, ma'am.
    Our next panelist is Brent Hutto. He's the Chief 
Relationship Officer for Truckstop.com.
    Welcome, sir.

                   STATEMENT OF BRENT HUTTO, 
           CHIEF RELATIONSHIP OFFICER, TRUCKSTOP.COM

    Mr. Hutto. Thank you, Chairwoman Fischer, Ranking Member 
Duckworth, and Members of the Subcommittee.
    We appreciate the opportunity to testify at today's 
hearing. I'd also like to thank the FMCSA and Administrator 
Martinez for his great work he's done in the past couple years 
in really connecting with our industry and our partner, the 
American Trucking Association, and their CEO, Chris Spear.
    My name is Brent Hutto, and I'm the Chief Relationship 
Officer at Truckstop.com. My responsibilities include working 
with hundreds of transportation technology partners and that 
gives me a unique insight into the entire freight marketplace.
    We were founded as a company in 1995 as the very first 
online load board. Today, we are the largest web-based digital 
freight-matching marketplace in North America and the companies 
that use us represent more than a million trucks on the road 
and the brokers retain capacity for 500,000 unit loads every 
day.
    My purpose in testifying today is to provide insight into 
the emerging technology trends within the transportation 
industry and to provide a basic framework for understanding how 
digitization could ultimately challenge or evolve existing 
business models and impact our freight market and surface 
transportation infrastructures.
    I'd like to start by defining the marketplace a little bit 
for you guys. It's a very, very large market. Fifty percent of 
all the freight in the world is in North America and 70 percent 
of that freight is moved by a truck every single day.
    It is an expanding marketplace. With rising population and 
urbanization and the consumer demand for expedited delivery, it 
continues to expand. It is very fragmented when it comes to how 
it communicates. Freight is moved today via an inefficient 
system where shippers, brokers, and carriers transact using 
outdated technology and at times none at all.
    For example, the byproduct of this is that 40 percent of 
the carriers that own trucks have empty trailers as they go up 
and down the highways. So there's only a 60 percent utilization 
of all the trucks in America at any given time.
    How can this improve? Recognizing an opportunity to 
eliminate inefficiencies and capitalizing on one of the 
Nation's most lucrative marketplaces, new and existing 
companies have dramatically increased their investment in and 
adoption of new digital technologies. These technologies are 
simplifying and automating information between carriers and 
brokers.
    The process allows carriers to use digital technology, 
typically today it's a mobile app, to book freight at the click 
of a button. This automated process eliminates current manual 
costly tasks, like on-boarding paperwork and payments. It 
digitizes the paperwork. It increases truck productivity and 
reduces waste, like deadhead miles and detention.
    And why is this beneficial? Well, automation reduces truck 
driver fatigue, which makes the truck driver more safe on the 
road. Transparency and visibility of the data and information 
increases consumer satisfaction. Improved carrier profitability 
leads to more efficiency which leads to better safety on our 
highways.
    In order to realize these benefits, a couple things need to 
happen. We must have an affordable connected universal system 
where all players can participate. It is imperative that all 
software service providers within this universal system remain 
neutral and transparent, enabling all the players to succeed.
    This transparency will ultimately enable greater trust and 
safety throughout the freight industry.
    In conclusion, digital technology will drastically improve 
the transportation and freight industry efficiency and safety 
on the road. However, without supporting surface transportation 
infrastructure, any gains achieved through digital improvement 
will be minimized by congestion, parking availability, hours of 
service corrections, fuel costs, and wear and tear on the 
trucks due to poorly maintained roadways and bridges.
    We, Truckstop.com, are committed to improving the noisy, 
chaotic, multisystem freight industry by automating connections 
so carriers and brokers, regardless of their size, can move 
freight more efficiently.
    In closing, our industry is ready, the freight industry is 
ready to transition to digital technology, but it will take 
time and we look forward to working with the subcommittee on 
bringing that to our industry. We appreciate being here.
    We thank you for the opportunity and we're happy to respond 
to any questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Hutto follows:]

    Prepared Statement of Brent Hutto, Chief Relationship Officer, 
                             Truckstop.com
Introduction
    Chairwoman Fischer, Ranking Member Duckworth and Members of the 
Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify at today's 
hearing. As the Nation's first digital load board and online freight 
marketplace, Truckstop.com has been serving carriers (owner-operators 
and small fleets), freight brokers (third-party logistics providers or 
3PLs), and shippers for nearly 25 years (see appendix). As a result, we 
have unique insight into the state of transportation and logistics 
within our Nation.
Introduction of Brent Hutto
    I joined Truckstop.com six years ago, I serve as the Chief 
Relationship Officer for Truckstop.com which includes ensuring the 
health of all of Truckstop.com's external relationships with the 
hundreds of transportation technology companies that we have integrated 
with. In my 22 years in the transportation and logistics industry, I 
have developed extensive experience covering the market including 
positions of leadership in sales, marketing, media, and communication. 
I have specific experience with carriers, brokers, shippers, industry 
suppliers, technology leaders, media companies, and financial firms. 
Presently, I serve on the Boards, Committees, and have membership with 
Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), National Strategic 
Shippers Transportation Council (NASSTRAC), Specialized Carriers & 
Rigging Association (SC&RA), Women In Trucking (WIT), American Trucking 
Association (ATA), Truckload Carriers Association, National Private 
Truck Council (NPTC), Intermodal Association of North America (IANA), 
and National Industrial Transportation League (NITL).
Introduction of Truckstop.com
    Truckstop.com was founded in 1995 as the first online load board. 
Prior to Truckstop.com, carriers (truck drivers and trucking companies) 
and freight brokers (third-party logistics providers or 3PLs) 
transacted freight via a system of physical bulletin boards, TV 
monitors, and fax machines at truck stops throughout the country. 
Today, Truckstop.com is one of the largest digital freight matching 
marketplaces in North America, with more than 500,000 unique load 
posted per day. In addition to load board services, Truckstop.com 
provides a neutral marketplace with real-time visibility into freight 
capacity, availability, market rates, and truck location. Truckstop.com 
offers freight management services ranging from carrier onboarding to 
insurance and payments.
State of the transportation and freight industry
    My purpose in testifying today is to provide insight into the 
emerging technology trends within the transportation industry and 
provide a basic framework for understanding how digitization (the 
introduction of new digital technologies) could ultimately challenge or 
evolve existing business models and the impact on current freight and 
surface transportation infrastructures.
    Understanding the transportation and freight industry requires a 
quick examination of the milestones that have led to our current state. 
In 1980, The Motor Carrier Act, partially deregulated the trucking 
industry, resulting in a dramatic increase in the number of trucking 
carriers in operation (less than 20,000 in 1980 to around 1.2 million 
today)\1\ and paving the way for 3PLs. The highly fragmented market 
created by deregulation made it possible for 3PLs to offer value-added 
logistics services, increasing competition and productivity within the 
trucking industry and benefiting the American consumer by reducing 
costs.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Legacy Supply Chain Services. The Evolution of 3PL and How it 
Can Solve Your Business' Supply Chain Challenges; https://
legacyscs.com/evolution-of-3pl-supply-chain-challenges/
    \2\ Moore, Thomas Gale (2002). Trucking Deregulation; http://
www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/TruckingDeregulation.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Two decades later, the introduction of the internet, ``dot-coms,'' 
and e-commerce changed the traditional shipping model once again. The 
rush to free delivery and the increased purchasing of unpredictable 
sets of items from online retailers, required the transportation 
industry to adapt to a new set of shipping practices. This change in 
consumer behavior and the desire for expedited delivery, helps explain 
increases in the American Trucking Associations' trucking tonnage 
index, which has steadily risen since 2001 except for the recession in 
2009.\3\ According to the CSCMP's Annual State of Logistics Report, e-
commerce continues to create multiple challenges for parcel carriers. 
These include:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ Yardeni, Dr. Edward (2019). US Economic Indicators: ATA Truck 
Tonnage Index; https://www.yardeni.com/pub/atatruck.pdf

   Delivery density. With more residential deliveries--often 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        single-package stops--routes are longer and less effective.

   Variability. Shipments in the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas 
        window are about twice non-holiday levels. Volumes also 
        fluctuate across weekdays as a flood of weekend orders are 
        picked up Mondays and delivered Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

   Volume profiles. As e-commerce expands to larger and 
        irregularly shaped items (mattresses, patio furniture) that 
        won't gift on standard sorting equipment, special handling is 
        required.

   Click-to-door requirements. Same-day, two-hour, rush, 
        critical, urgent--customers have a seemingly insatiable demand 
        for getting their packages as fast as possible.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ CSCMP (2019). Annual State of Logistics Report: Cresting the 
Hill; https://legacyscs.com/evolution-of-3pl-supplychain-challenges/

    Today, more than 70 percent of all freight is moved via road in 
North America. Of this, the for-hire market accounts for 60 percent, 
with nearly 34 percent of that market in turn accounted for by spot 
brokerage (shippers broadcasting loads to freight brokers in order to 
find capacity at a competitive rate).\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ Paul, Silpa (2019). Expect Fast Adoption of Digital Freight 
Brokerage Solutions; https://www.trucks.com/2019/03/26/expect-fast-
adoption-digital-freight-brokerage-solutions/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    However, under the current system, empty miles (trucks traveling 
without freight) and lengthy idle times (sitting in traffic, wait times 
for loading/unloading) have led to decreased safety and low margins for 
the trucking industry. This results in fuel waste, non-productive 
emissions, lost driver hours, inflated operational costs, and 
unnecessary road congestion.
    As it turns out, of all the miles that truck drivers travel across 
the country, 40 percent of those trucks are empty. Let's think about 
that--40 percent of the carbon impact from trucks today is because of 
empty mileage.

   For every 1 percent improvement in truck routes and 
        utilization, we can save:

     Nearly 400 million gallons of fuel from being 
            consumed.

     100 million productivity hours from being wasted.

     3 billion miles from being driven each year.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ https://convoy.com/about-us/

    To put all of this in perspective, spending in the U.S. logistics 
and transportation industry totaled $1.64 trillion in 2018 (8 percent 
of U.S. GDP).\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\ CSCMP (2019). Annual State of Logistics Report: Cresting the 
Hill; https://legacyscs.com/evolution-of-3pl-supplychain-challenges/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Enter the digital transformation era. Recognizing an opportunity to 
eliminate inefficiencies and capitalize on one of the Nation's most 
lucrative markets, new and existing companies have dramatically 
increased their investment in, and adoption of, new digital 
technologies, including digital freight brokerage apps.
    It is important to note that while multiple industry segments 
(including finance, healthcare, and retail) have been early adopters of 
digital technologies, the transportation and logistics industry has 
traditionally been slower to adopt new technology. A survey of 200 
executives working for terminal operators, carriers, logistic 
providers, shippers, and other supply chain companies found that only 
31 percent of respondents believed their industry was as good or better 
than other industries at adopting new technologies.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \8\ Morley, Hugh R. (2017). Industry Skeptical of Pace of Logistics 
Tech Adoption; https://www.joc.com/international-logistics/logistics-
providers/industry-skeptical-pace-logistics-techadoption_20170620.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    To further emphasize the increased interest in technology adoption, 
we look at global funding for digital brokerage solutions which passed 
$1 billion in 2017 and exceeded $3.6 billion in 2018; a 260 percent 
year-over-year increase.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ Zwahlen, Cyndia (2019). Freight Tech VC on Track to Top 2018's 
Record $3.6 Billion; https://www.trucks.com/2019/04/29/freight-tech-vc-
top-record-3-6-billion/


    With the U.S. population expected to grow by 38 million between 
2015 and 2030, consumer demand will increase the amount of pressure on 
the transportation and logistics industry to deliver goods in a timely 
and efficient manner. Digital technology adoption will play a huge role 
in transforming the industry as we know it today.
Digital freight matching and automation
    Digital freight matching allows carriers to use digital technology 
(typically a mobile app) to ``tap and go.'' That means the carrier 
pushes a button to accept a load at an offered rate and they are on the 
road. No more time spent manually researching available loads, 
negotiating on the phone, etc.
    The carrier starts by setting up a profile with their list of 
preferences in their preferred digital freight matching app. For 
example, they select their preferred lanes (the routes they routinely 
travel or service), their truck's capabilities (flatbed, refrigerated, 
etc.), any additional certifications (hazmat, over-sized, etc.), and 
load information. An offer would come through as an alert on their 
phone. The driver can then choose to accept the load if the price, 
location, haul, and timing are right for them.
    Behind what the driver sees, there is a shipper or broker posting 
the freight they need moved. For freight to be moved at the push of a 
button, extensive details about the load must be included. Without 
knowing information like weight, rate, distance, appointment times, and 
pick-up and delivery locations, a carrier cannot confidently commit to 
moving the load.
    Ideal digital freight matching experiences should have the ability 
to predictively and proactively push load matches out to its users. It 
should prioritize a user's preferred business partners. It should have 
wide geographic coverage and automatically track loads, so shippers and 
brokers know exactly where their freight is, estimated time of arrival, 
and when it is delivered.
Benefits of digital freight matching
    Digital freight matching is evolving the transportation and 
logistics landscape by bringing attention to current inefficiencies and 
outdated practices. Digital freight matching addresses issues 
associated with empty miles, maximizing truck utilization (capacity), 
and wasted time, but it also has the potential to reshape some of the 
more painful parts of the freight negotiation process for both carriers 
AND brokers. For example:

   It can shorten the amount of time spent between getting a 
        load posted and having it filled by a carrier.

   It can reduce or remove time spent making phone calls trying 
        to find or book a load.

   It can automate processes for finding qualified partners, 
        rates, and loads so users have greater confidence and insight 
        into the entire freight process from initiation to final 
        delivery and payment.

   It can replace outdated systems like fax machines and paper 
        documents for carrier onboarding.

   It can automate proof-of-delivery and document management to 
        increase the trust between parties and decrease the time needed 
        for verifications before payments are made.

   It can increase overall efficiency by eliminating redundant 
        manual tasks and allowing employees to focus their time and 
        energy on more value-added work.

   It can decrease idle time and improve overall asset 
        utilization.

   It can increase available data points and records allowing 
        for better reporting and analytics.

    Ideally, digital freight matching will do more than simplify the 
negotiation process. In fact, it should:

   Provide digital messaging and paperwork like bills of 
        lading, invoices, contracts, etc.

   Connect partners seamlessly.

   Provide insights for business growth and profit.

   Have a quick-pay solution.

   Provide predictive matching so drivers stay loaded.

   Auto-match capacity (find trucks faster) for brokers.

   Integrate into a transportation management system (TMS) or 
        on any mobile device.

    As it stands, there isn't a complete technology solution that can 
do everything it should when it comes to digital freight matching. 
However, as noted previously, increased attention on current 
inefficiencies are rapidly driving innovation, which will have a 
dramatic effect on the current transportation and logistics system we 
know today.
Effects on the transportation industry
    E-commerce will continue to increase the number of short-haul and 
final-mile trips (movement of goods from a transportation hub or 
warehouse to the final delivery destination), which will increase the 
volume of traffic in densely populated urban areas. So, while digital 
technology has the potential to help the transportation and logistics 
industry address many of the inefficiencies outlined above, the 
ultimate success of digital adoption and successful delivery of goods 
will be closely tied to a reliable and sustainable surface 
transportation infrastructure that can handle increased capacity while 
simultaneously ensuring driver and public safety.
    The FMCSA Electronic Logging Device (ELD) Mandate has introduced a 
wealth of new data to the marketplace. This data opens the door to 
getting better data on transit times and carrier locations and more. As 
additional technology is applied and more end points are added, data 
flowing from computers to computers (sensors, mobile devices, logging 
devices, etc.) will reduce, and in some cases eliminate, the use of 
telephones to match loads with truck capacity reducing the time it 
takes to move and deliver freight. It will allow for better prediction 
of when trucks will arrive despite weather, traffic, and other 
unpredictable events creating more transparency and visibility for more 
efficient load matching and pricing.
    For shippers and brokers, automation will drastically reduce the 
number of repetitive processes that have to occur regularly including 
things like carrier onboarding. For carriers, automation means better 
loads at more attractive rates--using digital technology to coordinate, 
track, and manage documents with full transparency--ultimately making 
them more efficient.
Conclusion
    According to a September 2018 report by Goldman Sachs 
Transportation, 3PLs and freight brokerages handle 23 percent of all 
loads moved in the U.S., a share that has grown 5x since 2000. As 
technologies continue to evolve, the digitization of the highly 
fragmented freight brokerage marketplace has the potential to 
drastically improve the transportation and freight industry. Technology 
can provide a promise of increased efficiency, however, without 
supporting surface transportation infrastructure, any gains achieved 
through digital improvement will be eliminated by problems of 
congestion, parking availability, hours of service corrections, fuel 
costs, and wear and tear on trucks due to poorly maintained roadways.
    Ultimately, digitization has the potential to improve the entire 
freight matching process, and that translates to increased safety on 
the road. The safety benefits of digital freight matching include:

   Automation replaces the hours spent making manual phone 
        calls thus reducing truck driver fatigue.

   Increased efficiency reduces truck driver workload allowing 
        the driver to concentrate on the road and become more 
        profitable while driving fewer miles.

   More profit means less need to bend the rules thus 
        increasing safety.

   Real-time tracking and monitoring of freight movement, 
        increases consumer satisfaction and allows for on-the-fly 
        updates to avoid traffic congestion due to accidents, weather 
        delays, and more.

    Truckstop.com is working to smooth the noisy, chaotic, multi-system 
interface between freight and capacity by automating connections so 
carriers and brokers (regardless of size or resources) can move freight 
more efficiently. We believe it's imperative that Truckstop.com and 
other software service providers remain neutral and not classified as 
licensed freight brokers to help ensure a neutral and transparent 
marketplace enabling all players to succeed--to find, rate, manage, 
optimize, track, insure, and pay for freight.
    We are deeply committed to efforts to continuously improve the 
success of transportation and logistics operations including 
relationships between carriers, brokers, and shippers. We believe that 
adopting digital technology will ultimately improve our Nation's 
trucking infrastructure leading to improved safety on the roads and 
happier consumers. We look forward to working with you and National and 
State officials to help advance the understanding and adoption of 
digital technologies within the transportation industry.
    Thank you, again, for the opportunity to be here today. I am happy 
to respond to any questions.

[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


    Senator Fischer. Thank you, sir.
    Welcome again to all the panelists. We will begin with our 
first round of questions and I will start.
    Mr. Ingracia, so nice to see you here. Welcome. You 
mentioned the Advanced Transportation and Congestion Management 
Technologies Deployment Grant that Nebraska won along with 
Wyoming and Utah Departments of Transportation.
    Can you elaborate on the goals of this project and the 
types of technologies that the Department of Roads will deploy 
along I-80?
    Mr. Ingracia. Yes, thank you, Chairman.
    Wyoming has obvious winter weather issues and as we do in 
Nebraska. They have a lot of blow-overs in the winter and their 
initial idea was let's build a system that communicates blow-
over risk, wind speed, weather conditions directly into the cab 
of the truck.
    Our idea with the ATCMTD Grant that we applied for and were 
awarded was let's take that technology that Wyoming was 
successful in deploying and let's get it on a larger section of 
I-80 and then let's try to find ways to amplify that technology 
by doing things like predictive road closures. Let's not 
predict a 60 percent chance of snow. Let's predict a 60 percent 
chance of road closure on this segment. Let's get that into the 
cab of more trucks. Let's inform them because it's a major 
safety issue.
    Senator Fischer. How can regular drivers benefit from this? 
When I was in Nebraska during March with the blizzards and then 
the flooding and such, I went to the website and I saw just a 
lot happening across the state on the map.
    How many people visit the website and what other means do 
you have to get information out to not just truckers but 
travelers on the road, as well?
    Mr. Ingracia. So the primary method that we use is our 5-1-
1 app as well as the associated website. Anyone can go there. 
They can view road closures and, you know, as you're aware, 
with the flooding, with the blizzard that occurred in March, we 
had a third of our roadways, our state roadways closed for the 
better part of several days. Certainly it's an issue. We had a 
lot of them hit.
    Normally we'll have 2.8 million hits a year on our 5-1-1 
site. We had that amount in a matter of 6 days during this 
event. So people were really driving to the website. They can 
call 5-1-1 on their phone. We also have a two-way push of data 
into Waze which goes to Google and so if people are using 
Google Maps, if there are detours, that information goes there, 
as well. So it's distributed widely.
    Senator Fischer. Thank you.
    Mr. Hutto, given the broad information load boards that 
Truckstop.com have on their freight transportation network, 
what insights can you provide on challenges and bottlenecks in 
the surface transportation system and how do you incorporate 
that information into the services that you provide because I 
know there's deep concern about the future with the projected 
increase in the number of trucks that are going to be needed to 
continue commerce here in the United States, but there's also 
concern on bottlenecks at known specific points around the 
country, but how do you get that information out?
    Mr. Hutto. How do we get it out or what's the solution?
    Senator Fischer. Well, tell me first what services you 
provide. Then if you have a solution, we'd all be excited to 
hear it.
    Mr. Hutto. We provide data and information to all the 
players that are moving spot market freight, which is 20 
percent of the freight on the U.S. highways every day.
    We are a data resource for every single player and the 
solution I think that I would suggest to you, to the Committee 
would be for systems to be connected. One of the challenges you 
have is you have an unwariness of the marketplace and what's 
going on in metropolitan areas because systems are not 
connected.
    You have certain systems at certain parts of the truck 
driving universe in North America that has the availability to, 
and then the other parts don't have access to it or don't use 
it, because they're not connected to what they use every day. 
So I would say that connecting systems together would be the 
most important--connecting transportation freight systems 
together would be the most impactful way to reduce congestion 
in metro areas as freight moves through those areas at 
different times of the day.
    Senator Fischer. To tie this in with FMCSA recently asked 
for comments on driver detention times during the loading and 
the unloading at shipping facilities.
    Did Truckstop.com have any insights on that driver 
detention time?
    Mr. Hutto. We did not comment on any detention but 
detention is something we intend to solve.
    Senator Fischer. OK. Thank you.
    Senator Duckworth.
    Senator Duckworth. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    With your consent, I'd like to hold on my questions and to 
allow our colleague from Michigan, the great state of Michigan, 
to ask his questions.
    Senator Fischer. Thank you.
    Senator Peters, please.

                STATEMENT OF HON. GARY PETERS, 
                   U.S. SENATOR FROM MICHIGAN

    Senator Peters. Thank you.
    Senator Fischer. My former Ranking Member.
    Senator Peters. I know, exactly.
    Senator Fischer. We tossed you over for a new addition.
    Senator Peters. You did very well. You did very well.
    Senator Fischer. Glad you're still here.
    Senator Peters. Good to be here. Thank you, Madam Chair. 
Ranking Member Duckworth, thank you for yielding. To all of the 
folks who are testifying, very interesting testimony.
    We truly are living in very exciting times and the types of 
technological change we're going to see in the years ahead are 
truly transformational and I'm thinking of one of those 
technologies, which many of you mentioned, which is self-
driving cars, something I've been very involved in and believe 
that the changes we'll see in the auto industry and to our 
society are probably every bit as big as when the first car 
came off of the assembly line and think how that changed our 
world dramatically and created the American middle class and 
really truly created mobility for the first time in human 
history in a significant way. So my questions relate to how we 
go forward with this.
    Mr. Bhatt, I certainly appreciated ITS's past support for 
the AV START Act that I'm working on with Senator Thune who's a 
part of this Committee, as well, but right now I'm in the 
process of working with our House colleagues. We are trying to 
work through some of the aspects of the legislation that we 
developed here in the Senate and coordinate that with what came 
out of the House. I certainly am grateful for your work with us 
on that.
    My question to you is let's take a step back from any 
specific bill right now. If you could just talk about why we 
need legislation versus just maintaining the current status quo 
under NHTSA's existing authority, and what we need to be doing, 
and why we need to be doing it? If you could just kind of 
outline that for the Committee, please?
    Mr. Bhatt. Thank you, Senator Peters, and thank you for 
your work along with Senator Thune and all the other leaders 
who have been trying to wrangle this very complicated issue.
    I think that from an ITS America perspective, we have a 
diverse range of membership. We have automakers, we have 
cities, we have technology companies, we have states, and I 
think the area that we all sort of find common agreement on is 
this idea that, you know, when you drive from New York City to 
Los Angeles and go across the country, the interstate you drive 
on is the same all the way across the country. That's a safety 
benefit, and it's an operational benefit. So as we deploy new 
technologies, such as driverless vehicles, we want to make sure 
that there's a national standard, just like we have for 
highways or transit or aviation, around what is a driverless 
vehicle, and what the components ofare. You know, that you have 
one regulatory agency overseeing what that is as opposed to 50 
states and countless jurisdictions sort of putting their take 
on it.
    So standardization at the Federal level around what the 
vehicle is but still allowing for locals to enforce things like 
speed limits and their licensing. I think those are sort of the 
higher-level frameworks that we're looking at because our 
competition globally is racing ahead in this sphere and we want 
to make sure we stay with them.
    Senator Peters. Which is why we need to have national 
legislation and move beyond the current exemptions that may 
exist under current NHTSA rules. This is about seizing the 
technology, the innovation, but allowing companies also to 
scale up quickly so that we can deploy this, is that accurate?
    Mr. Bhatt. Yes, I think that the exemptions were a good 
start when the numbers were still fairly small and as the 
technology matures and the market matures, we want to make sure 
that the legislation is there to keep pace as the market 
becomes more robust.
    Senator Peters. The other point, and you made this in your 
testimony, to remind us how dangerous our highways are, that 
well over a hundred people will die today as we speak, and that 
the promise of this technology is that we can dramatically 
reduce those deaths as well as dramatically reduce the 
injuries, some of those debilitating injuries, so those can be 
reduced.
    So I would sense that getting this law passed quickly is 
very important. It literally means saving lives. Every extra 
day it takes to move this industry forward another hundred 
people may die that many of them could have been saved, is that 
accurate?
    Mr. Bhatt. I would say that there's a broad swath of 
technologies that are deployable available today and I'm really 
grateful that this hearing has been convened to inform the next 
authorization because every day that we delay another hundred 
people die on our roadways and NHTSA estimates that connected 
vehicle technologies could mitigate 80 percent of unimpaired 
crashes. That's 1.2 million crashes that could be mitigated 
every year, tens of thousands of lives. So, yes, the sooner we 
can speed the deployment of technology we think it'll be a 
positive outcome.
    Senator Peters. Two weeks ago, Chairman Pai from the FCC 
suggested once again that transportation stakeholders were not 
taking advantage of the 5.9 gigahertz band and that the FCC 
should go forward in perhaps sharing it or giving it to other 
entities.
    In your written testimony, you acknowledge that there are 
divergent views held by transportation stakeholders and the 
cable industry. What are the real risks to public safety if the 
FCC were to move forward with their idea of sharing 5.9 bands 
without the benefit of all the studies that are going on?
    Mr. Bhatt. Yes, I would just quickly say I have a lot of 
respect for Chairman Pai and I think he has a diverse set of 
stakeholders that he needs to listen to.
    I would simply say that all of the connected vehicle 
technologies require the 5.9-gigahertz spectrum, whether it's 
DSRC, CV2X. You need that spectrum. We're open to sharing, as 
long as the testing is completed with unlicensed devices, and 
we encourage the rapid completion of that, but we want to be 
clear that whether it's Nebraska, Florida, Utah, New York City, 
there is deployment today and people who say that it's not 
being used it's just not an accurate statement.
    Senator Peters. Thank you.
    Senator Fischer. Thank you, Senator Peters.
    Senator Duckworth.
    Senator Duckworth. Again, I'd like to hold my remarks and 
yield to Senator Blumenthal so he can get his questions in if 
that's all right.
    Senator Fischer. Senator Duckworth is the nicest person we 
know, and you two owe her big time.
    Senator Blumenthal.
    Senator Duckworth. Thank you.

             STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, 
                 U.S. SENATOR FROM CONNECTICUT

    Senator Blumenthal. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank 
you, Senator Duckworth, and I agree totally. She is one of the 
nicest persons I know and since my wife would regret if I said 
the nicest person I know and we're on the record, but thank 
you, Senator.
    You were just talking about, Mr. Bhatt, life-saving 
technologies that are available right now. We'll be debating 
the legislation that might further driverless cars, but 
automated emergency braking technology is available right now 
and it could literally stop 80 percent of the rear-end 
collisions that we have in this country.
    So my question is couldn't this technology be made 
available in 2019 or 2020 models, and shouldn't the automakers 
of America provide this kind of technology as a standard 
feature on all cars?
    Mr. Bhatt. Thank you, Senator.
    I think that, yes, automatic emergency braking not only 
prevents rear-end collisions but also in this increasingly 
distracted world in which we live, in which drivers are 
distracted, pedestrians are distracted, and other and new forms 
of mobility options, like scooters, come out there, a 
technology like automatic emergency braking can prevent rear-
end collisions and also greater tragedies.
    In fact, at the ITS America annual meeting, Ford 
demonstrated how their connected vehicle platform using CV2X 
was able to detect a scooter and how the vehicle stopped 
because it recognized that the scooter was coming into its 
field of view.
    So in terms of technologies, like automatic emergency 
braking or lanekeeping, it is critically important and it's 
being deployed on more and more models, just as many safety 
features are, and we'd love to see it deployed on more models.
    Senator Blumenthal. Anybody on the panel disagree?
    [No disagreement.]
    Senator Blumenthal. Great. No one is disagreeing, let the 
record show.
    I know this is primarily an automotive panel, I think, but 
in terms of rail safety and technology, I've been a strong 
advocate of positive train control. The deadline for 
implementing it has been set back a couple of times. The trains 
of America are under a 2020 deadline.
    Anybody here see any reason that trains should be excused 
from meeting that deadline? It is a form of technology that 
also can save lives on trains. I gather no one does see any 
reason that it should be delayed further.
    [No disagreement.]
    Senator Blumenthal. We all understand the reasons why it 
can help save lives because it will stop trains when they're 
going to hit another train or when they're going too fast and 
that's very important, long overdue.
    I am introducing the Used Car Safety Recall Repair Act with 
Senator Markey. As you may know, there are a lot of innovations 
in transportation, a lot of advances in technology, but the 
safety of our roads will continue to be in jeopardy as long as 
we resell cars that are under recall.
    Incredibly, most Americans have no idea that there is no 
provision in Federal law that requires that consumers be told 
those cars are under recall or why and so there are about 70 
million vehicles on the road today with open recalls. That's 
double the number last year and one in four of all cars and 
many are sold by used car dealers unrepaired with safety 
defects.
    Let me ask all of you what other ideas--I assume that you 
would support this legislation. If anyone on the panel 
disagrees, I hope you'll tell me why?
    [No disagreement.]
    Senator Blumenthal. No takers. Let me ask the panel what 
other ideas you have about how we can reduce the number of 
vehicles on the road with open recalls? Anybody have other 
ideas?
    [No response.]
    Senator Blumenthal. These are safety defects, as you all 
know, being driven today on the roads. They endanger not only 
the drivers and the passengers in those cars but others who are 
on the road with them. They have bad brakes or a Takata airbag 
that explodes. They can endanger other vehicles.
    Ms. Schlenker. I would just say that a tracking of the 
subsequent owners from the first purchase into the second, 
third, fourth as they move into the used vehicle, the tracking 
system today, I think, is inadequate to be able to reach out to 
those subsequent owners for address and e-mails, et cetera, to 
be able to connect them to understand about the recalls that 
are open.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thank you. Mr. Bhatt.
    Mr. Bhatt. Senator, I would say on the positive train 
control, when I was in the Secretary of Transportation in 
Delaware, sat on the Northeast Corridor Commission and saw a 
lot of need for PTC and pledge your efforts on that, and on the 
used vehicle fleet, there are about 300 million vehicles in the 
fleet and so some form of a big data application. It shouldn't 
be that hard to--using VIN numbers and being able to track and 
maybe it's potentially a Bitcoin application. I think there are 
opportunities to make it safer.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thank you. Great panel. Thank you, 
Madam Chairman, and thank you again, Senator Duckworth.
    Senator Fischer. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Duckworth. OK. My turn. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Senator Fischer. I thought you were going to yield to me.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Duckworth. Ms. Schlenker, in your testimony, you 
talked about smart mobility as the next transportation 
revolution that we can expect. You also mentioned the mobility 
challenges facing the public and private sector today.
    What are the major challenges facing the advent of smart 
mobility technologies and what, if anything, can Congress do to 
address those barriers?
    Ms. Schlenker. So as we talk about smart mobility, it's 
about data availability, the Internet of things and all the 
modes of information that are available to us.
    As we reach out for the Department of Energy National 
Laboratories, frequently the metropolitan planning 
organizations, the MPOs, the city DOTs, the states, they're 
aware of all these changes in technologies and new micro-
mobility modes coming out, the way people interact with 
transportation, transit viability and how important it really 
is, and so they're, I don't want to say paralyzed, but they're 
seeking new information what the future could really be and 
where they should invest and how they should better prepare.
    One example is in Chicago, they're going to try curbside 
management. As you start to think about the demand for the 
curb, whether it be taxi or TNC transportation network company 
drop-offs, whether it be bike lanes, whether it be scooters 
that are there, a bus lane, maybe it's the beer delivery truck 
that's at the curb or the FedEx truck. So how you manage that 
whole curb as an example and really it's trialing different 
solutions--whether they be price signals, time of day signals, 
other incentives potentially, you know, some other downside 
risks that you're trying to mitigate, and having that best 
practice and sharing globally and certainly across all the 
different regions here in the U.S. to be able to share those 
learnings.
    Senator Duckworth. Thank you. I also see tremendous value 
in, as you're talking, about big data to make more informed 
planning decisions, just like you're mentioning, and maximizing 
the return of infrastructure investment.
    Can you talk a bit about the collaborations you're engaged 
with to improve this decisionmaking process, like the Utopia 
Mission, the Urban Technology Optimization and Planning in 
America Mission?
    Ms. Schlenker. Absolutely. So big data, as we look at many 
of the cities and regions, some of them are now adopting chief 
information officers beyond sustainability officers or mobility 
officers, trying to manage all that data that comes in, whether 
it be from red light cameras, whether it be from signal phase 
and timing, whether it be all these new detectors that are out 
there, so trying to move toward predictive analytics and not 
just collision avoidance but also health effects and other 
things that we want to take a look at from that big data. So 
open source, data standardization, providing it back to 
academia, to industry, understanding you're protecting privacy 
at the same time.
    I think this is one of the ways that we really will improve 
the future for all of us.
    Senator Duckworth. Thank you. Mr. Ingracia, according to 
the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 122 law 
enforcement officers have been killed in traffic-related deaths 
along U.S. roadways over the past 10 years.
    In the first three months of this year alone in Illinois, 
two officers in Illinois were tragically killed after being 
struck by vehicles that failed to move over as they were 
conducting routine traffic stops, and I appreciate everyone's 
interest in addressing long-term transportation issues like 
autonomous vehicle deployment, on-demand services, but how are 
state DOTs using new technologies today to address critical 
safety concerns like roadside accidents?
    Mr. Ingracia. I would have to apologize. It's not something 
I've really been briefed on and we can certainly respond to the 
Committee in writing on that.
    Senator Duckworth. OK. Great. Thank you.
    Mr. Hutto, what innovative tools and practices are 
available to truck drivers to make our roadways safer?
    Mr. Hutto. Well, thank you for the question, Ranking Member 
Duckworth.
    The products that are available to increase safety on the 
highways are through the connected systems and what I mean by 
that is that we have recently worked on products with the FMCSA 
and Wisconsin DOT and we've been working on this since 2017 on 
an e-credentialing product where all the permits that our 
truckers are required to have and to display during inspection 
have been authorized to be able to show to the highway officer 
through a digital product, through a phone or a digital 
display, and our initial test on that for the last two years on 
it with the truck fleet of 157 trucks, we were able to 
determine that we could reduce the stopped time by 20 minutes 
the highway officer would be exposed to being on the highway 
and that is a massive increase in efficiency when it comes to 
their safety on the road with not being exposed while making 
these inspections.
    It's also a cost reduction for the fleets, but, most 
importantly, it's a safety issue.
    Senator Duckworth. What's the average length of time of 
those stops, if you're dropping it by 20 minutes? Is that like 
50 percent per drop or?
    Mr. Hutto. That's a good question. I don't know the 
percentage drop.
    Senator Duckworth. Thank you. I yield back, Madam Chair.
    Senator Fischer. Thank you, Senator Duckworth.
    Senator Thune.

                 STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN THUNE, 
                 U.S. SENATOR FROM SOUTH DAKOTA

    Senator Thune. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I appreciate 
this hearing and all of you being here today and the 
opportunity to talk about technology and transportation and how 
they are integrated, especially as we think about the 
reauthorization of the FAST Act, which expires at the end of 
next year and which we all need to be focused on, but I'm 
hopeful that this highway bill can incorporate and integrate a 
lot of these new technologies into enhancing our supply chain.
    I just had a couple of quick questions. Mr. Duffy, you 
mentioned in your testimony the potential for blockchain to 
greatly enhance supply chain visibility, enabling efficient and 
cost-effective freight transportation and more targeted 
responses when supply chain issues arise.
    We often hear about the pitfalls of cryptocurrencies, like 
Bitcoin and Ethereum, which leverage open decentralized 
blockchain platforms. Could you describe how a permissioned 
blockchain platform proposed for use in the transportation 
sector would be differentiated from such platforms?
    Mr. Duffy. Yes, thank you for the question, Senator Thune.
    It's important to differentiate blockchain from 
cryptocurrency. While cryptocurrency is leveraged, blockchain 
technology to keep records of the transactions that occur 
leveraging those cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology can 
leverage U.S. dollars or regular currencies or not be 
associated with financial transactions at all.
    As Mr. Hutto was just talking about with the e-
credentialing technology, it's another great use of blockchain, 
ensuring that the accuracy around driver credentials, whether 
that's health records or insurance or driving records, that 
that data is high-fidelity data, and hasn't been corrupted or 
modified through time, and so supply chain in transportation 
industries are notoriously low margin and so much of that 
margin capture is associated to creating trust between 
counterparties.
    By leveraging blockchain technology, we can increase the 
trust available between counterparties and allow for 
collaborative commerce to emerge and so I think there's value 
unlocked to be had by leveraging that technology, an economic 
benefit but also energy efficiencies, as Ms. Schlenker had 
referred to, and even safety efficiencies when we start talking 
about records of safety.
    Senator Thune. For companies who already have advanced 
supply chain management systems, could you speak more to the 
feasibility of incorporating these existing technologies into a 
blockchain smart contract-based system?
    Mr. Duff. Yes, sir. So the Blockchain in Transportation 
Alliance represents hundreds of companies spanning the globe, 
representing almost a trillion dollars in annual revenue, and 
we're quickly moving from the experimental into the real world. 
So we're seeing enterprises move from proof of concepts into 
implementing this technology in real world practices.
    So whether that is tracking containers as they move across 
the globe into U.S. commerce, that's a great use case but also 
around creating visibility between supply chain partners. So on 
a containerized good movement from East Africa into the United 
States, there may be up to 40 different counterparties 
associated with that move and hundreds or possibly even a 
thousand pages of documentation.
    It's a situation ripe for human error. So leveraging 
advanced technology, including blockchain, is a way to minimize 
that, those human-induced errors, and create better trust 
between counterparties.
    Senator Thune. You briefly discussed a set of blockchain 
standards being developed by your member companies, including 
one released this February.
    How do you think the development of these standards will 
help companies integrate blockchain into the supply chain 
management systems?
    Mr. Duffy. I think we're really reaching kind of a critical 
mass moment in terms of the needs for the adoption of standards 
and Mr. Bhatt and Mr. Ingracia mentioned the need for national 
standards around highway safety technologies.
    Our technology and our standards associated to the 
technologies around them for which they'll be applicable, it's 
global, global in nature, and so it's really important to 
understand that our member companies when developing these 
standards represent every transportation mode, air, road, rail, 
ocean, and they're all coming together in a collaborative way 
to agree upon these standards and I think that's really going 
to move the ball forward from the experimental into an 
ecosystem level adoption over the next 36 months to 5 years.
    Senator Thune. Mr. Hutto, you mention in your testimony 
many of the enormous improvements that can be made through the 
use of technology in the supply chain.
    Given the strain on our current infrastructure from a 
growing economy, new technologies that optimize the efficiency 
and capacity of the supply chain are needed now more than ever.
    So could you just speak to some of the challenges facing 
the adoption of the new technologies in the transportation 
sector?
    Mr. Hutto. Yes, sir, thank you for the question, Senator.
    Some of the challenges with adoption of it are availability 
to them. A lot of systems that are being created today are 
privatized and are only available for those that have massive 
resources.
    When you look at the transportation industry, it is 
proliferated by small players and we as a technology, we 
started in 1995, were built for the small player in the 
marketplace, the small carrier, the small fleet, the small 
brokerage company, and really its the access to that system and 
for that system to have universal availability of data to an 
entire marketplace.
    So the biggest challenge is being able to get at the data 
and as the market begins to move into a digital process, which 
is where you've got predictive and proactive information being 
pushed to them, it's got to be available for all players. 
That's the biggest problem. It should not just benefit those 
that readily have the resources to do it because they are a 
large company.
    Senator Thune. So what would you say Congress can do to 
encourage the adoption or deployment of some of these 
innovative technologies? What role do we play in all of it?
    Mr. Hutto. The role that you play would be to help to make 
our roadways and highway systems the most efficient possible 
because that allows more players to come in the marketplace 
which enables more trucks to move freight.
    Senator Thune. I get that, but I'm just wondering, you 
know, how we enable that to happen because, like you said, a 
lot of this is happening in the private sector, in the private 
economy, and is only adopted by those who have the resources to 
do that.
    So as we think about the reauthorization of the highway 
bill, do you have any suggestions about that, things that we 
could be doing on our side?
    Mr. Hutto. Well, the one thing that jumps in my mind is 
to--and I know I may go back to this a couple times, but the 
Number 1 thing that puts a small trucking company out of 
business is a major mechanical failure and when you think about 
the wear and tear on the road that goes into a vehicle, a 
truck, and you consider that's the Number 1 thing that puts 
them out of business, a smooth surface to roll on and a 
dependable surface to roll on is probably the most important 
because it's the Number 1 thing that puts them out of business.
    Senator Thune. OK. An old technology and a new technology.
    Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Senator Fischer. Thank you, Senator.
    Mr. Hutto, would you say that driver shortage is also a 
concern that you have and that the Federal Government could 
help if we had an age--looking at lowering ages for drivers to 
be able to drive interstate, not just intrastate?
    Mr. Hutto. Thank you for your question, Chair Fischer. I 
apologize. I think earlier I did refer to you improperly, so I 
apologize about that, ma'am.
    Senator Fischer. I don't know. I'd have to go back and 
look.
    Mr. Hutto. I do appreciate you getting my name correct. 
Thank you very much.
    That is a hot topic that has been around for a long time 
and certainly it's one that could alleviate part of the 
problem. I know that it's a principle that the American 
Trucking Association is looking at as far as what's the 
feasibility of that.
    Our marketplace certainly needs more drivers to operate the 
trucks but also needs technology systems connected where the 
capacity utilization of the truck is at its greatest amount. 
When you have 60 percent utilization of something, you've got 
to have a big solution on that end.
    Senator Fischer. OK. Thank you.
    Mr. Hutto. Yes, ma'am.
    Senator Fischer. Mr. Duffy, you noted in your testimony 
that blockchain is the tip of the spear in digitizing some of 
the most antiquated systems used in the transportation sector.
    In what ways do blockchain-powered distributed ledgers 
offer new solutions for a supply chain in ways that other 
technology, like RFIT is limited?
    Mr. Duffy. Can you repeat the last part of that?
    Senator Fischer. The question?
    Mr. Duffy. Just the last part, the RFID?
    Senator Fischer. The R-F-I-D, RFID.
    Mr. Duffy. Oh, R-F. So blockchain technology isn't 
necessarily special. You know, it's a specialized type of 
database. Every database is in a blockchain but it is allowing 
for collaborative commerce to emerge where companies are 
otherwise operating in silos.
    Those data silos create massive inefficiencies. So whether 
you're talking about detention and demurrage time around ports 
or around trying to create higher fidelity data points inside 
systems, like the automated customs environment that CDP 
leverages, creating standards around the data components that 
operate in the technological systems levered by the supply 
chain in transportation intermediaries across the globe will 
increase the efficiencies, which will also allow for all sorts 
of opportunities to emerge.
    Senator Fischer. Thank you.
    Mr. Bhatt, you recommended several times in your testimony 
that ITS technologies should be considered eligible projects 
for Federal support.
    What are some of the key programs or grants within the 
Department of Transportation that limit eligibility or do not 
provide support for ITS projects, such as smart traffic signals 
or data collection and analysis software?
    Mr. Bhatt. Thank you, Chairman Fischer.
    I actually think there's a great deal of flexibility that 
was introduced in the FAST Act to allow for states and cities 
to deploy these technologies. I think what we're looking for is 
probably--I think the biggest challenge that faces the next 
reauthorization is the amount of funding that is available. 
States and cities have to make tough choices about preserving 
the system, expanding capacity, and making important 
investments in technology.
    So I think there's a lot of flexibility that exists. It's 
just making sure that there are enough resources within the 
program so that we don't have to make tough choices between 
those two priorities.
    Senator Fischer. Mr. Ingracia, do you agree with that? Does 
the State of Nebraska have enough flexibility when you're 
looking at Federal funding and grant programs to support your 
efforts so that we can start deploying more of these 
technological advances that we're seeing?
    Mr. Ingracia. I generally feel like we do. The ATCMTD Grant 
Pilot Programs in general, that is the way for us as a state to 
take an appropriate level of risk and try something new and 
that's really as a technology guy, that's what I get more 
excited about, is the opportunity to participate in a pilot 
program.
    To the extent that we learn something and we're able to 
disseminate that knowledge to other states, to the extent that 
we can even partner with other states on the project, like we 
are with ATCMTD, it's a very powerful thing.
    Senator Fischer. Do you have any other examples you can 
share with us where Nebraska is doing that or where you've 
maybe learned something from another state that's participated 
in a pilot program? I'm putting you on the spot here.
    Mr. Ingracia. Yes, that's a very good question. You know, I 
think data analytics might be the best example of that. We have 
a project right now that's another one of these things where 
it's new technology.
    We're bringing consultants in to help us understand what 
our data can tell us about the roadway and we've done all kinds 
of projects with regard to pavement condition and what 
influences pavement condition and when you have years and years 
and years of data, you're able to distil that down into some 
very counterintuitive sometimes results, even to our business 
processes, and what gets us better bids, what reduces bid 
prices, over years and years of data, and you're able to distil 
that down and get good results.
    Senator Fischer. Great. Thank you.
    Senator Duckworth.
    Senator Duckworth. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Mr. Bhatt, I agree with you that many of the transportation 
decisionmakers cling to outdated functions and policies that 
sometimes dampen or undermine implementation of new 
technologies and far too often transportation decisions are 
made behind closed doors, leaving the average taxpayer to 
question whether or not their hard-earned dollars are being 
spent wisely.
    Generally, I agree with your testimony about providing 
transportation planners the flexibility to experiment with 
innovative initiatives, like the Horizon effort in San 
Francisco, but we must be careful not to waste taxpayer 
dollars.
    Are there specific Federal planning policies that you think 
are rigid that are in existence right now?
    Mr. Bhatt. Thank you, Ranking Member Duckworth.
    I think the entire planning process, which was pretty 
innovative at the time, came out of ISTEA and some of those 
like mid-1990s transportation authorizations, are still being 
used today. I think some of the projects that we're building in 
Colorado and Delaware, but we're using 1980s-based planning 
method and not looking at new technology and how it's going to 
change.
    So there are examples around the country where MPOs and 
other planning organizations are starting to bring in the 
advent of new technology and what the impact is, just thinking 
about things like autonomous vehicles and connected vehicles 
and what that does to driver demand, new mobility options, so 
we don't necessarily just have to go out and widen roadways. We 
can perhaps move more people, data, and freight with existing 
roadways.
    So I think there's a lot that we can do using things like 
big data and other things to improve that planning process.
    Senator Duckworth. Are there policies that are preventing 
us from doing that? I mean, why are we not--is it just because 
this is how we've always done it since the 1990s or are there 
actual policies in place, whether Federal or otherwise, that 
are keeping us from being able to do that?
    Mr. Bhatt. I'd be happy to check with some of our MPO 
partners to see if that is the case. I think it is an element 
of, you know, you have to have certain levels of public 
engagement and are there better ways to do public engagement in 
this new digital age?
    I think we sort of go out and do a 25-year plan and say 
let's take our traffic counts from today and extrapolate those 
out, but the technology is advancing at such a rapid pace that 
maybe that's not the best way to do it. Maybe we want to look 
at scenarios of different rates of deployment of technology.
    So I think we want to tweak it. I think it's still 
delivering a good product, but I think it needs to be freshened 
up for the 21st Century.
    Senator Duckworth. Is there a cost component that's acting 
as a barrier to sort of adopting some of these new 
technologies, big data, or that? I mean, once you get it, then 
it's helpful in the planning process, but there's a cost 
barrier to starting to use it, whether it's acquisition costs?
    Mr. Bhatt. I actually think that your question is probably 
even two steps down the road from where we are. We talk about 
big data, but it's a question of what is the actionable 
information that I need? Is it origin and destination data for 
travelers in a metropolitan region? Is it traffic counts? You 
know, are there different measures of mobility? Scooters are a 
fairly new invention and they are transforming a lot of urban 
landscapes. They're not in any transportation plan that I've 
seen that was done before 2 years ago because they didn't 
exist.
    And so I think that we want to look at where our planning 
dollars are being spent and what the outcomes are that we're 
looking at, but again we'd be happy to check with some of our 
planning partners and come back and say here's some things that 
we could definitely try to look at in the next authorization.
    Senator Duckworth. OK. Thank you. I yield back.
    Senator Fischer. In case we have any subcommittee members 
or committee members who are watching and would like to come 
down and ask questions, Senator Duckworth and I will ask a 
couple more questions to keep the hearing open so they can make 
it here.
    Ms. Schlenker, in your testimony, you mentioned that rural 
areas can also benefit from technological solutions that inform 
traveler choice and optimize movement.
    In your opinion, what are some of the key challenges rural 
areas face in adopting and deploying these technologies and how 
might they benefit from them?
    Ms. Schlenker. Thank you.
    In rural areas in particular, just the density of the 
population sometimes brings forward a lag in the technology 
that's available into that particular community. You can 
witness that now in dense urban areas where you see the 
scooters erupting. You see the ride health services coming 
there just because of the market pull.
    So in the rural areas, you have to understand that one of 
the big issues, I believe, is the connectivity and having a 
connection both to the infrastructure and vehicle to vehicle is 
key.
    I think that information is going to help on traffic 
accidents and I think it will also help on some of the 
efficiency or the movement that we have through the particular 
areas.
    When you think of a rural neighborhood or a rural corridor, 
rural streets, and sometimes they're dark, they don't have the 
street light benefit, et cetera, and we have collisions with 
wildlife and blind corners with headlights not glaring in 
particular from passengers and travelers and so the opportunity 
with that connectivity, I think, is one of the big assets that 
we'll have with rural densities.
    Senator Fischer. Thank you.
    Mr. Ingracia, what are some of the challenges that we see 
in Nebraska in rural areas when they're looking at adopting and 
implementing new transportation technologies?
    As you know, I come from a county of less than one person 
per square mile and we have 6,000 square miles. So tell me my 
challenges?
    Mr. Ingracia. Thank you, Chairman Fischer.
    That's a question that I really appreciate. I also grew up 
in a very rural area in Southern Missouri and moved to Nebraska 
after college.
    I would say, you know, connected vehicle, autonomous 
vehicle, electric vehicle, all these conversations have been a 
very urban level conversation. They have not been centered on 
rural areas and yet I think that rural areas stand to benefit 
as much, maybe even more, from these kind of technologies.
    If you think about, even in your own experience, you know, 
driving to the grocery store, what if your car goes and get 
groceries and brings them back for you and that saves you three 
or four hours out of your day. That's a life-changing thing.
    We support as a state, as NDOT, we support rural mobility 
options where folks need to get to the doctor. They're in rural 
areas. It's a long trip. They have a long wait to get picked up 
and a long wait to go back home. The idea that an autonomous 
vehicle could take them there on their own time table would be 
a life-changing thing.
    So we have recently sponsored research at the University of 
Nebraska to go out and have them survey folks in rural areas, 
talk to people who have experienced autonomous farm equipment, 
and what have their experiences been like. I don't think 
anyone's asking them those questions. Are they learning when 
does this work, when does it not work, what are the weather 
effects? You know, are there things that we can learn when we 
talk even about urban autonomous vehicles? Are there things we 
can learn from the rural community and then also to ask them 
how is this going to change your life? You know, how would this 
change your commute? How would this change your day?
    I think these technologies will transform rural areas just 
as much as urban.
    Senator Fischer. Thank you.
    Senator Duckworth.
    Senator Duckworth. Thank you.
    Mr. Duffy, your written testimony talks about how the 
digitization of outdated analog systems is an important step to 
being able to take advantage of current technologies, like 
blockchain, for the transportation sector.
    What analog systems need to be prioritized for digitization 
in order to support blockchain and other technology deployments 
in the transportation sector? Are there priorities of analog 
systems that you think, you know, we should be looking at?
    Mr. Duffy. I don't have a specific list or an ordering of 
the technologies, but in the case of the lettuce situation that 
I mentioned previously, you know, that's associated to a pen 
and paper-based process.
    You know, there are instances of pen and paper, fax 
machines, old technology being leveraged where modern 
technology could definitely be available. So whether that's 
actual bill of lading input through a smart phone at the farm 
site, that might be an easy way to mitigate risk there.
    Senator Duckworth. Do you know of any important datasets, 
for example, that are maintained by the Department of 
Transportation or other Federal agencies that should be 
digitized?
    One of the things we talked about already is perhaps 
sharing of the VIN numbers for the sale of used cars and along 
those lines.
    Are there other datasets that you can think of or maybe 
someone else on the panel can think of that should be priority 
for digitization so that we can take advantage of blockchain 
technology?
    Mr. Duffy. Again, I don't have a specific list. I'd defer 
to any one of the panelists.
    Mr. Bhatt. Ranking Member Duckworth, again this concept of 
the data, there's performance data that we collect on the 
system, so it's how many vehicles per day is moving in a 
certain area, what is the on-time performance of transit. There 
are all kinds of performance indicators, condition performance, 
so what are the potholes on our roads, what are the conditions 
of bridges.
    So again our challenge right now, we are awash in the sea 
of data. It is figuring out what is that actionable 
intelligence that we can get and then how do we translate that 
for states and cities to operate their system more effectively.
    But happy to come back with some very specific datasets 
that we either have or we should have in order to work that 
into the next authorization.
    Senator Duckworth. So that's exactly what I'm wondering, is 
we have so much data, how do we winnow it down? Is there a 
process that we should be following? Is that something we 
should be developing? How do we winnow it down and say, OK, 
these are the top 10 that we need to digitize now and this is 
going to make the biggest difference for the trucking industry 
for highway safety? You know what I'm asking?
    Mr. Duffy. A hundred percent and so just on the mobility 
piece, we're having a robust discussion. We have our Mobility 
on Demand Alliance that is a mix of public sector agencies and 
private sector transportation providers who are trying to 
figure out what data is it that the private sector companies 
have, what data is it that public sector agencies have.
    There is some reticence around sharing some of the data 
right now because some of it could be linked to competitive 
issues, but we're working through some of that stuff. On the 
crash system, we have FARS data that is pretty accurate, the 
fatalities.
    Bridge condition is another one that we have great datasets 
around. So there's a lot of good data out there. I think it's 
just a couple of steps and this is something I think that the 
public sector agencies can be working on in time for the next 
authorization to say this is where you get the biggest bang for 
the buck and where we deploy our resources.
    Senator Duckworth. Mr. Hutto, do you have like a wish list 
of data that, boy, if this stuff was digitized, this would make 
it so much easier, more profitable? It would, you know, reduce 
the costs for my industry? Do you have that?
    Mr. Hutto. Thank you. That's a great question, Ranking 
Member Duckworth.
    In the trucking industry, because of fragmentation and, 
most of all, the information is privatized in some of our 
product companies, it would be the availability of that data to 
be plugged into a universal platform where the participants and 
all the trucking companies and the trucks that are moving could 
do their routing and planning based on how freight is moving 
nationwide.
    What I mean by that is that it would create great 
efficiency because you'd have visibility into where freight's 
moving. So you could reduce congestion because you'd know that 
this number of trucks is going into that city at that time and 
so you could plan and route that better.
    What you have is a disparate system that they're not 
connected together. So you have a tremendous amount of trucks 
trying to go into a certain area that creates more congestion, 
but if you had systems that were connected together, then you 
could efficiently route and plan that better which would create 
better safety on the roads because you'd have less miles 
because of the planning that would happen.
    So as far as a wish list, it would be that all of the 
pieces of data that are required for freight to move from 
beginning to end would exist on a platform that would have 
visibility through the entire industry.
    Senator Duckworth. Thank you. Yield back.
    Senator Fischer. Thank you, Senator Duckworth.
    Once again, I would like to thank the panel for being here 
today. We appreciate all the information that you've given us.
    The hearing record will remain open for two weeks and 
during this time, any Senators are asked to submit their 
questions for the record. Upon receipt, the witnesses are 
requested to submit their written answers to the Committee as 
soon as possible.
    With that, thank you once again.
    The hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 4 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

                            A P P E N D I X

   Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Maria Cantwell to 
                             Steve Ingracia
    Traffic Congestion. Washington State faces growing traffic 
congestion problems. The 2018 Traffic Scorecard by INRIX, which ranks 
cities based on analysis of congestion and mobility, ranked Seattle as 
the sixth most congested city in the country. Drivers in Seattle each 
lost 138 hours to congestion in 2018, costing over $1,900 per driver. 
These are real losses in time and productivity.
    Question. What technologies or innovations are being used by NDOT 
and other state DOTs to improve congestion and mobility?
    Answer. Ongoing advancements in technology, and the transportation 
industry's ability to innovatively apply them to positively impact 
quality of life through increased mobility, are supplying state DOT's 
with a magnitude of resources to support enhanced safety and improved 
driver experience in congested areas.
    Technology advancements that improve mobility and provide current 
and relevant information to drivers on roadway situations help manage 
driver expectation and improve overall satisfaction levels. For 
Departments of Transportation, maintaining a free-flowing roadway is 
not always the optimal goal--in some areas and at some times of day 
this is unattainable--but providing predictable mobility should always 
be a primary goal.
    In Nebraska, we seek to provide predictable mobility by using a mix 
of operations techniques and technology. We monitor congested locations 
during rush hour using fiber-connected cameras, and we co-locate our 
operations center staff with state patrol to allow quick face-to-face 
collaboration.
    The DOT also gathers weather data at 62 sites around Nebraska, 
including pavement temperature and subsurface temperature, in order to 
work with the National Weather Service and our private sector partners 
to predict weather conditions on the roadway. Our full-time 
meteorologist uses the Pathfinder platform to communicate with our 
State Operations Center, first responders, and our eight districts to 
translate weather information into road condition predictions to assist 
with road maintenance and provide information to the public on 
traveling conditions.
    Like many DOT's we're always seeking to improve our partnerships 
with other governmental bodies and collaborate with the private sector 
to better communicate roadway situations to the public. Technological 
advancements in data gathering tools provides DOT's with better 
information on the mobility needs of the public.
                                 ______
                                 
    Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Amy Klobuchar to 
                             Steve Ingracia
    Question. The DOT estimates that up to 80 percent of vehicle 
crashes involving unimpaired drivers could be prevented by vehicle-to-
vehicle technology, which allows vehicles to communicate wirelessly 
with other vehicles and helps alert drivers to dangerous traffic 
situations. How can technology like this help to improve roadway 
safety, particularly in rural areas?
    Answer. As a rural state, freight management is an important topic 
both in terms of efficiency that can be gained through autonomous 
technology and connectivity concerns that could impact roadway safety. 
In October of 2018, I attended a meeting in Portland, Oregon with 
Daimler Trucking, where they demonstrated their commercially-available 
vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) solution for freight haulers using Dedicated 
Short Range Communications (DSRC) technology. In this demonstration, 
two fully-loaded (80,000 lb.) DSRC-equipped trucks were platooning--
travelling roughly 50 feet apart at highway speed. When the lead truck 
encountered an obstacle in the roadway, it wirelessly notified the 
follow truck to slow down in advance of applying its own brakes. In 
this manner, when the lead truck stopped, the follow truck had already 
stopped and was 75 feet from the lead truck. This was a compelling 
demonstration, and seeing this technology in action on the roadway only 
acts to reinforce the importance of encouraging its adoption in both 
heavy trucks and passenger vehicles.
    The Advanced Transportation and Congestion Management Technologies 
Deployment (ATCMTD) Federal grant just awarded to the Nebraska DOT, in 
partnership with the Wyoming and Utah Departments of Transportation, 
will advance technologies that improve mobility and safety across the 
multi-state I-80 corridor. This project will build upon Wyoming's 
successful V2I connected vehicle pilot program to increase the flow of 
information to freight haulers and will ultimately improve safety along 
I-80. We are looking forward to working with the private sector and 
other DOT's along the I-80 freight corridor to improve safety and 
efficiency through connected vehicle technologies.
                                 ______
                                 
   Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Maria Cantwell to 
                            Shailen P. Bhatt
    5.9 GHz Spectrum. Mr. Bhatt, 20 years ago the FCC dedicated 75 MHz 
of the 5.9 GHz spectrum for the purposes of developing intelligent 
transportation systems. Emerging vehicle-to-everything technologies 
that communicate over the 5.9 band have the potential to make our 
transportation network safer and save countless lives. Recently, the 
FCC has expressed interest in taking a ``fresh look'' at the 5.9 band 
currently dedicated to transportation safety.
    Question 1. If the 5.9 band were opened up to share with broadband 
streaming services, how might that affect transportation safety?
    Answer. Since the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commenced 
its ET Docket 13-49 in 2013, Intelligent Transportation Society of 
America (``ITS America) has supported sharing of the 5.9 GHz band 
between ITS and unlicensed devices provided that such sharing does not 
cause harmful interference to life-saving ITS services.
    ITS America supported the consensus on a three-phase testing 
methodology to be overseen by the FCC's Office of Engineering and 
Technology (OET) arrived at with the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, 
Science and Transportation's support (See September 9, 2015 letter). 
OET accepted public comments on its Phase 1 Test Report in late 2018.
    ITS America continues its support of the consensus plan for testing 
and the completion of testing by OET to determine whether sharing of 
the 5.9 GHz band is viable. Initiation by the FCC of an ancillary and 
collateral rulemaking bypassing the completion of testing is not in the 
best interests of the public as it will further complicate an already 
uncertain regulatory environment into which many public and private 
parties are investing their scarce resources to develop and deploy 
lifesaving services, unduly tax those resources and delay the 
introduction of those services. We urge instead that OET be provided 
all support necessary to promptly complete its testing of band sharing.
    ITS America agrees with National Highway Traffic Safety 
Administration's (NHTSA) assessment, that the three-phase testing must 
be completed to continue to ensure that this lifesaving technology is 
deployed and that the driving public can have confidence in the 
results. ``The three phases of the test plan are interdependent and 
ongoing, and the testing will show whether unlicensed devices can 
safely operate in the 5.9 GHz band.'' (U.S. Department of 
Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issues 
statement on safety value of 5.9 GHz spectrum, October 24, 2018)

    Question 2. Is it important that we maintain the entire 5.9 band 
for the deployment of transportation safety technologies?
    Answer. ITS America supports prioritizing the entire 5.9 GHz band 
for existing, new, and developing V2X technologies. The entire 5.9 GHz 
Band should be protected and that no decision should be made regarding 
band re-allocation until after the entire three-phase test plan is 
completed. The Commission must allow the completion of the three-phased 
test plan established by the Office of Engineering and Technology 
(``OET'') to determine whether entry by UNII devices into the 5.9 GHz 
Band would cause harmful interference to incumbent licensees.
                                 ______
                                 
    Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Amy Klobuchar to 
                            Shailen P. Bhatt
    As vehicles increasingly rely on the internet, we must have a 
cybersecurity workforce with the expertise to secure our transportation 
infrastructure. I introduced a bill with Senator Thune to bolster our 
cyber workforce by establishing a public-private exchange program to 
recruit cybersecurity experts in the private sector and academia to do 
tours of duty in the Federal government.
    Question. Can you speak to the need for cybersecurity professionals 
in efforts to secure vehicles that rely on Internet connections from 
cyberattacks?
    Answer. ITS America does not have a specific policy on the need for 
cybersecurity professionals in efforts to secure vehicles that rely on 
Internet connections from cyberattacks.
                                 ______
                                 
   Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Maria Cantwell to 
                             Patrick Duffy
    Blockchain in Transportation. Mr. Duffy, your written testimony 
talks about the digitization of outdated analog systems and how the 
deployment of blockchain technologies can enhance trust amongst 
stakeholders, produce resilient data sets, and can lead to efficiencies 
in the transportation sector.
    Question 1. Can you describe what information transportation 
stakeholders are sharing on blockchain platforms and how the technology 
leads to increased trust amongst stakeholders?
    Answer. Transportation stakeholders are sharing a myriad of 
information on blockchain platforms. The types of data being put on 
chain include, but are certainly not limited to: bill of lading; 
booking requests and confirmations; party information; shipment 
information; sea and air waybills; pro-forma invoices and commercial 
invoices; packing lists; shipping instructions; export declarations; 
arrival notices; import declarations; health certificates; driver 
information; phytosanitary certificates; fumigation certificates; 
inspection and customs certificates; certificates of origin; dangerous 
goods declarations; and many other data types. Blockchain and 
distributed ledger technologies when combined with existing and new 
technologies can guarantee immutability and traceability of data 
(supply chain, transportation, trade, and associated documentation), in 
a manner that provides participants to have permissioned access (only 
know what they need to know), in a manner that provides for immediate 
access to information eliminating waiting times and time for 
counterparty actions. These allow for massive efficiencies around 
workflow automation, and the minimization of costly, repetitive, and 
often error-prone manual input.

    Question 2. The efficient movement of freight is critical to our 
economy. How does blockchain lead to efficiencies in the supply chain 
that help goods get to their destination as quickly as possible?
    Answer. Blockchain technology leads to efficiencies in the supply 
chain helping goods get to their destination as quickly as possible by 
creating trust-enhancing, shared, immutable ledgers of data that record 
transactions and tracks assets--whether these are tangible or 
intangible. By working in a tamper-proof environment, blockchain 
platforms for supply chain, transportation, and trade create 
verifiability of data, with provenance and auditability. When utilized 
within a supply chain and transportation ecosystem of stakeholders, and 
combined with data standards, the technology allows for 
interoperability between stakeholders technology stacks leading to the 
reduction in time for processes by sharing high-fidelity data. The 
benefits are being seen across ports and terminal operators, ocean 
carriers, shippers and beneficial cargo owners, freight forwarders and 
3PLs, financial service providers, and regulatory and governmental 
authorities.
                                 ______
                                 
   Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Maria Cantwell to 
                             Ann Schlenker
    Smart Cities Challenge. In December 2015, the U.S. Department of 
Transportation (DOT) launched the Smart City Challenge, which asked 
midsized cities to develop technology that would help move people and 
goods more quickly and improve congestion.
    Question 1. Can you discuss the Department of Energy's partnership 
with DOT on the Smart City Challenge and the types of innovation cities 
are deploying?
    Answer. The Department of Energy (DOE) engaged with DOT as the 
program was developed; participated in the many educational sessions 
leading up to the Columbus, Ohio, award; showcased DOE research and 
technology capabilities; and collaborated across the challenges seeking 
solutions. Following the award, DOE embedded a researcher in Columbus, 
to serve as a liaison between the DOE national laboratories' mobility 
expertise and the vast array of partners on the Columbus Smart City 
proposal. The intent was to showcase the research program within the 
DOE's Vehicle Technology Office SMART Mobility Consortia and connect 
and transfer expertise to the cities' mobility priorities. The Columbus 
solution set includes connected and automated shuttle pilots, micro-
mobility platforms, and first-/last-mile solutions with broader reach 
to residents. Simultaneously, DOE national lab researchers engaged with 
many midsize cities that were nominees to the program. Several of these 
relationships and collaborations continue, and joint work is underway 
across the Nation.
    DOE SMART Mobility program researchers are engaged in active 
studies on many fronts, to understand the benefits, mitigate downsides, 
and share lessons across the ecosystem to improve future deployments. 
Examples of innovations that cities are deploying include (this is a 
non-exhaustive list):

   Smart traffic signal controls that incorporate signal, 
        phase, and timing, and even pilot demonstrations--to permit 
        vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication and control for 
        improved traffic flow;

   Camera and LIDAR sensors installed at intersections--for 
        improved situational awareness for V2I, traffic accident 
        reduction, and preparation for automated and connected vehicles 
        (CAVs);

   Micro-transit pilots and deployments for e-bikes, bike-
        sharing, and scooters--to improve access and equity for 
        mobility;

   Dedicated Short Range Communications service installed in 
        contained original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and government 
        vehicle fleets and production vehicles--to continue down the 
        path of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and V2I connectivity, using 
        data analytics to glean keen insights;

   First-and last-mile solutions to supplement transit--small 
        shuttles and transit network company services are adjunct to 
        improve operational efficiency;

   Geo-fenced demonstration of CAV shuttles--to generate 
        services and lessons learned, generally in a mobility district 
        or dense urban area;

   Real-time mobility information for system users across 
        providers--to provide informed movement decisions;

   Seamless payment transactions across providers--to encourage 
        multi-modal travel;

   Curb reservation systems--for street management of freight, 
        goods delivery, pedestrians, bikes, para-transit, 
        transportation network company drop-off, and transit;

   Goods delivery optimization strategies--for spoke and hub 
        logistics, and time of day/night delivery;

   Managed and dedicated traffic lanes, and real-time 
        messaging--to improve congestion and reduce accidents;

   Electric vehicle infrastructure deployments--for a pathway 
        of a low-carbon transportation future;

   Electrification of transit buses--for an environmentally 
        sound solution that yields cost parity for total cost of 
        ownership;

   Installation of Internet of Things sensors--to collect data 
        ranging from environmental parameters, to vehicle and people 
        counts, to consumer preference information; and

   Pilots with improved access to services (e.g., healthcare, 
        food, education, cultural opportunities, greenspace)--to expand 
        mobility to underserved populations and vulnerable road users, 
        for improved quality of life.

    Fuel Economy. Your research helped to develop solutions that 
improved air quality and doubled fuel economy as the Clean Air Act was 
being implemented. As you know, fuel economy standards finalized in 
2012 require the U.S. fleet to achieve 54.5 miles per gallon for new 
cars by 2026. Last year, the administration proposed revisiting the 
2012 rulemaking to freeze the 2020 standards through 2026.
    Question 2. Why is it important that the U.S. stay on track to meet 
the fleet average of 54.5 miles per gallon for passenger cars by 2026?
    Answer. This topic is very complex, and many factors must be 
considered to yield a balanced societal solution. As you state, 
tremendous progress has been obtained in air quality and fuel economy 
from the automotive fleet. Year after year, there is significant 
improvement in fuel efficient offerings in the marketplace, coincident 
with lower emissions and the latest safety technologies.
    The DOE continues to focus its research portfolio on energy 
efficiency at the component, vehicle, and system levels. Tremendous 
breakthroughs have been achieved in battery technology, whereby plug-in 
electric vehicles are indeed gaining a market foothold. Lightweight 
materials, improved combustion regimes, gasoline direct-injection 
engines, turbocharging, cylinder deactivation, idle start/stop control 
strategies, and the pathway from hybrids to plug-in hybrids and full 
battery-electric vehicles are examples of technology that continues to 
make fundamental and important progress for improved fuel efficiency 
with a lower environment impact.
    As you know, my employer is the management and operations 
contractor that operates Argonne National Laboratory for the DOE. As 
such, we assist DOE by providing technical support in furthering its 
research objectives as regards fuel efficiency, but it is not our role 
to determine or debate the appropriate governmental policy in that 
area. Appropriately, public hearings, rulemaking proceedings, and open 
dockets permit policymakers to consider the many voices on this complex 
topic.

    Question 3. What are some of the consequences of scaling back fuel 
economy standards?
    Answer. Argonne National Laboratory has a vast transportation 
research program that addresses topics that include combustion engines 
and fuels, electrification, propulsion system optimization, and the 
creation of sophisticated product-development tools that permit virtual 
engineering, which allows developers to speed technology and products 
to the market. We participate in the full pipeline from innovation and 
discovery to deployment of technology and knowledge for light duty and 
medium/heavy-duty vehicles. The national laboratories work with nearly 
all vehicle manufacturers and key suppliers, to deliver joint research 
that benefits all parties. This pairing provides direct knowledge of 
customer challenges, a matching of research expertise, and 
collaborating teams to develop advances in fuel efficiency and emission 
reductions.
    As you know, my employer is the management and operations 
contractor that operates Argonne National Laboratory for the DOE. As 
such, we assist DOE by providing technical support in furthering its 
research objectives as regards fuel efficiency, but it is not our role 
to determine or debate the appropriate governmental policy in that 
area. Appropriately, public hearings, rulemaking proceedings, and open 
dockets permit policymakers to consider the many voices on this complex 
topic.

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