A few AVS 2016 highlights

A QUICK POST ABOUT AVS 2016 IN SAN FRANCISCO THIS WEEK

For all of us in the connected and autonomous vehicle world, this is THE event of the year (IMHO), and I am thrilled to have attended.  A great job by the organizers, yet again.

https://www.automatedvehiclessymposium.org/home

https://www.automatedvehiclessymposium.org/program/agenda

The interest in AVS continues to grow.  Last year they expected 500 attendees and got over 800.  This year it was over 1200. 

I also sensed a growing maturity – more realism about the challenges and timelines, fewer crazy-optimistic predictions.  Despite this, for the world outside of AVS the speed with which self-driving vehicles arrive will be shocking. Less than 5 years for some systems.  Mercedes is even running an ad for their new E-Class promoting self-driving capabilities. As several presenters mentioned, it is up to us to make the autonomous future into a heaven as opposed to a hell.  Either one could happen at this point.

I want to highlight the presentation by Seleta Reynolds of LA DOT and Gabe Klein of Fontinalis Partners.  They spoke about the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) policy statement on automated vehicles.

https://nacto.org/policy-2016/policy-statement-on-automated-vehicles/

The vision they gave for what automated vehicles can do to improve urban environments was amazing.  The key is what I (and a few others) call ACES Mobility.  Autonomous, Connected, Electric, and Shared.  All those elements are needed, together, for the outcomes to be most advantageous – especially in cities.  

And finally, Seleta and Gabe made statement that struck me as essential, enlightened, and in need of frequent repetition: Great cities are designed around people, not machines.   Think about that for a second.  What people like most about cities are the interactions with people.  We need to be designing technological systems to create human-centric environments.  What a brilliant vision for guiding our work in ACES mobility development.

There is SO much to talk about – more posts to come.

Mike I.