2015 ITS America annual meeting opens in Pittsburgh

For anyone involved in the ITS industry, the Opening Plenary of the 2015 ITS Annual Meeting will be an unmissable event. It will fully explore the event’s theme – Bridges to Innovation – and speakers will include the newly announced President and CEO of ITS America, Regina Hopper, Kirk Steudle, Director, Michigan DOT and Chairman, ITS America Board of Directors, Daniel G. Corey, Chairman, Pittsburgh Organizing Committee as well as Federal, State and Local Officials along with additional speakers. The sessi
May 1, 2015 Read time: 3 mins
Chris Urmson, Google’s Director of Self-Driving Cars.

For anyone involved in the ITS industry, the Opening Plenary of the 2015 ITS Annual Meeting will be an unmissable event. It will fully explore the event’s theme – Bridges to Innovation – and speakers will include the newly announced President and CEO of 560 ITS America, Regina Hopper, Kirk Steudle, Director, Michigan DOT and Chairman, ITS America Board of Directors, Daniel G. Corey, Chairman, Pittsburgh Organizing Committee  as well as Federal, State and Local Officials along with additional speakers.

The session, from 9.00-10.30am on Monday, June 1, will also see the Best of ITS Awards finalists being recognised and the winnners announced.

The Opening Plenary keynote speech will be provided by Chris Urmson, Google’s Director of Self-Driving Cars, and will focus on “Realising self-driving vehicles.” For the last five years or more, Google has retrofitted existing cars to experiment with autonomous driving.

However, the company is deploying a test fleet of about 100 fully functioning prototypes of a self-driving car that was designed from the ground up. It dispenses with such familiar automotive parts as steering wheel, brakes and accelerator pedal.

Urmson expects real people to be using them on public roads in two to five years and, as he will explain to delegates, in setting out to design a self-driving vehicle from scratch, it was inspiring to start with a blank sheet of paper and ask, “What should be different about this kind of vehicle?”

The most important thing was safety so the Google cars have sensors that remove blind spots, and they can detect objects out to a distance of more than two football fields in all directions, which is especially helpful on busy streets with lots of intersections.

Delegates attending the Opening Plenary will also have an opportunity of hearing first-hand from ITS America’s President and CEO of ITS America, Regina Hopper who takes up her role on 18 May, just two weeks before the event. She is a veteran executive of major Washington industry associations. Her experience in public policy advocacy, communications, media and law spans the transportation, telecommunications and energy industries. Prior to her trade association work, Regina was a correspondent for CBS News where she earned an Emmy for investigative reporting on 48 Hours. She covered the George H.W. Bush and Clinton White Houses as well as breaking news for CBS network news programs and CBS Newspath.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • ITS America applauds House transportation innovation proposals
    September 11, 2015
    ITS America president and CEO Regina Hopper has applauded leaders of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee for introducing legislative proposals that seek to encourage innovation, advance the research and deployment of intelligent transportation systems (ITS), and strengthen the nation’s research and technology programs. She said, “ITS America’s members would like to thank US Representatives Eddie Bernice Johnson, Barbara Comstock, and Dan Lipinski for their commitment to modernising our nat
    Read More
  • General Motors CEO opens World Congress
    August 11, 2014
    General Motors CEO Mary Barra will kick off the 21st ITS World Congress on Sunday, 7 September with an opening keynote speech that will address the changing transportation environment around the world as well as the rapidly evolving technology of connected, autonomous, and electric vehicles. “Connectivity may drive more positive change for customers than any other technological innovation our industry has produced in decades,” says Barra. “Anywhere in the world that we connect cars to cars, and cars to the
    Read More
  • Unique State DOT CEO Roundtable
    March 28, 2013
    Delegates to the ITS America Annual Meeting will have an opportunity, on Sunday, April 21, of attending a unique event – the State DOT CEO Roundtable. Attendees will hear first-hand from more than 19 State DOT CEOs as they discuss how they are using technology to address their transportation challenges, what the results have been, and how their ITS strategy may change given the passage of MAP-21. Never before have so many State DOT leaders come together to discuss in an open forum the issues that matter mos
    Read More
  • Shailen Bhatt appointed ITS America President & CEO
    October 27, 2017
    The Board of directors of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America has chosen Shailen Bhatt as president & chief executive officer. Bhatt joins ITS America with an extensive background in promoting and advocating for intelligent transportation and was most recently executive director of Colorado Department of Transportation. Bhatt also focused on deploying transportation technology, creating the RoadX program and making Colorado a national innovation leader.
    Read More

Highlighted Content