Advanced Wireless Communication for the Transportation Sector
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4.0 The Path Forward
4.1 Strategic Alignment with DOT Vision and Mission
The DOT Transportation Vision for 2030, published by RITA in 2008, lays out many broad goals for the transportation sector. RITA Administrator Paul Brubaker recommended that participants review the document, and noted the importance of not waiting until 2025 to talk about how to achieve the vision. The key question is, "How do you reverse engineer the program to get on path to success?"
Brubaker noted that Moore’s law7 is alive and well, and there continue to be advances like nano-sensor road coatings. DOT spends approximately $100 million each year on ITS activities, and as the transportation authorization bill comes up for consideration, it will be important to leverage the expertise of the roundtable group to open the aperture and identify ways to reverse engineer a plan based on the goals.
Brubaker cautioned that the group should not "let the perfect be the enemy of the good." Rather, as U.S. DOT has defined three phases of VII (near-term, mid-term, and long-term), priorities will need to be established and requirements developed. The hope is to funnel the group’s energy and turn it into actionable results in order to save lives, improve mobility, improve the environment, and expand modal choice.
4.2 Implementation and Action Steps
According to Robin Chase (Meadow Networks), DOT has a unique opportunity because of the power of ubiquity (the agency’s influence is greater than any one company). The DOT perspective comes from a network of roads, bridges, and highways, and has a history of providing a basic generic platform for individuals and companies to "get their jobs done." There is now an opportunity to provide that same generic open platform in the mobile space. Chase’s expectation is that this will be a mixed network, relying on a number of different but interoperable networks, devices, and applications.
Chase recommends that DOT require open standards and open networks for its major infrastructure investments, increasing the likelihood of long-term interoperability and inclusion of rapidly evolving new wireless standards, as well as providing opportunity for innovation. She further recommends that U.S. DOT support the creation of an open platform and an open network, and conduct some experiments using these tools. Outside of DOT, she sees ancillary benefits of leveraging the mobile Internet for homeland security, energy efficiency and sustainability, congestion pricing, economic development, and private sector involvement.
Since DOT is committed to its "enterprise approach" to innovation, the Department will continue to learn from experts in the private and public sectors. In order to maintain dialogue and information exchange, Volpe Center Acting Director Robert Suda will establish a community of practice on this topic. The Web-based community of practice will allow roundtable attendants to consider key issues and questions, share new ideas, and foster connections among leaders in the technology, communications, and transportation sectors. Presentations on this topic from roundtable participants will be posted for review and download on the community of practice Web site.