Episode 002
The Future of Public Roadway Transit
Is this an opportunity to better serve those who can’t drive or choose not to?
Monday, May 18, Live Starting at 2pm New York Time
It will be the
Best of Times
The age of wisdom, the epoch of belief, the season of light, the spring of hope…

Jarrett Walker
President, Jarrett Walker & Associates
Human Transit… How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich our Communities and Our Lives
Versus
It will be the
Toughest of Times
The age of dried up funding, the epoch of consolidation, the moment of truth…

Randal O'toole
Senior Fellow, Cato Institute
Nationwide transit ridership has declined steadily since 2014, with some of the largest urban areas, including Atlanta, Miami, and Los Angeles, losing more than 20 percent of their transit riders in the last few years. While this recent decline is stunning, it results from a continuation of a century‐long trend of urban areas becoming more dispersed and alternatives to transit becoming more convenient and less expensive. COVID-19 Is No Excuse to Bail out Urban Transit
Shark Tank Discussion
Moderated by

Richard Mudge
President
Compass Transportation & Technology
The Sharks

Jerome Lutin

Alain Kornhauser

Brad Templeton

Michael Sena
+
Zoom Participants
Produced by
Fred Fishkin, Ken Pyle, Michael Bino and Jeremiah Liu
Zoom-Tank Zoom-inars
Zoom-tank Zoom-inars are a live distance learning extension of the very engaging “shark-tank” segments of the Annual Transportation Research Board Automated Vehicles Symposium held traditionally in July. Physical distancing imposed by Covid-19 motivated this experiment of conducting the AV Shark-tank synchronously on Zoom. The format of a short debate (5 minutes plus 2 minute rebuttal) by two learned individuals followed by a moderated 20 minute discussion engaging four sharks probing the debaters. The remaining 20 minutes are devoted to addressing questions and issues presented by per-registered Zoom-inar participants that have been engaged on-line synchronously since the beginning of the Zoom-inar. Late admission to the Live session is enabled avaliable through a separate YouTube link that enables only passive participation by the attendee. The Zoom-inar duration is scheduled for one hour; however, an informal discussion among debaters, panelist and attendees will continue if appropriate.
Registration is FREE … However, we do accept contributions to help offset the necessary overhead production costs incurred by Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering (PAVE) research group that are necessary to produce these Zoom-tank Zoom-inars. Contributions are Gifts to Princeton University’s PAVE research group to support its knowledge dissemination activities which include the “weekly” preparation and distribution of the SmartDrivingCars eLetter, the “weekly” SmartDrivingCars Pod-casts and Zoom-casts.
Why Attend
This live event brings senior transportation professionals from around the world focused on the future of mobility, with particular attention on the role of automation in the future evolution of mobility and its contribution to improving the quality-of-life in cities, villages and neighborhoods around the world.
From the perspective of the traveler, the means of mobility, the getting from A to B, can be separated into two major sectors …
- “Do-it-yourself” (walking, biking, driving a car… ), and
- “Done-for-you” (conventional public transit, Uber/Lyft/taxi/limo, Amtrak, United Airlines, elevators, …)
The First Zoom-tank, Zoom-inar 001 on Monday April 27, The Driverless New Normal, focused on the Post Covid-19 future of automation of road transportation vehicles and its implications on existing “Do-it-yourself” mobility, especially the driving of personal cars.
This second Zoom-tank begins our focus on the “Done-for-you” sector(aka Transit or Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS)) in contrast with “Do-it-yourself” mobility (aka driving a car). Because infrastructure plays such an important role in the delivery of “Done-for-you” mobility, we begin by focusing on Buses, a technologies that use the roadways that have been built for cars and trucks.
In the third Zoom-inar, we will focus on Rail and other technology that require their own right-of-way.
The debate and subsequent discussion with the panelist will focus the challenges and opportunities for this form of mobility and how technology and other public/private policy objectives can address the future mobility needs and aspirations of those that have relied on Mobility-as-a-Service that was delivered using buses.
For those that pre-register and attend the Zoom-inar Live from the beginning there will be an opportunity to engage in the discussion. For pre-registrants arriving late, access to the Live feed will be available on YouTube, but without an opportunity to interact and ask questions.



Registration Closed
This event was live-streamed on YouTube
Please join us at the live-stream
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