Skip to main content

More cooperation, fewer barriers

Increasing cooperation between the public and private sector and a less rigid approach to standards formulation are the keys to transportation’s future, according to Chris Vein, the Deputy White House Chief Technology Officer.
May 21, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
Increasing cooperation between the public and private sector and a less rigid approach to standards formulation are the keys to transportation’s future, according to Chris Vein, the Deputy White House Chief Technology Officer.

Vein was speaking yesterday during a roundtable panel on innovation and transportation which also included ITS America’s President and CEO Scott Belcher, 1984 Verizon’s Vice President – Telematics Martin T. Thall and Robert Brown, Vice President Sustainability, Environment and Safety Engineering with 278 Ford Motor Company.

Expanding on the theme of Open Innovation, Vein talked about efforts to make data held by federal government more readily available to entrepreneurs in order to facilitate the solving of the issues which currently bedevil our transportation networks. He also touched on the concept of consensus standards definition as a faster means of development than the more traditional, bureaucratic, government-led processes. However, he warned, any such efforts have to be done with intelligence “so that we don’t have too many people doing too many things”.

Government has to recognise that the private sector often knows best what the solutions to a problem may be, he continued, adding that public-private cooperation offers increased opportunities to solve issues such as distracted driving and improve safety.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Digital ‘mindset shift’ needed
    April 25, 2024
    Moving towards a digital future in transportation will require more than simply using new technologies; it will also be about accepting new ways of thinking. That was among the key messages from the plenary session Rethinking Infrastructure in the New Digital Era on Day 2 of ITS America 2024 Conference & Expo.
  • Hyperloop: from sci-fi to transport policy
    April 16, 2020
    The future is here. While it has long looked like something from a sci-fi movie, Graham Anderson investigates a technology whose time might have come.
  • US ITS sector needs strategic leadership
    January 31, 2012
    The US is losing its advantage in the ITS sector because of a lack of strategic leadership, according to a new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Here, Stephen Ezell, one of the report's authors, talks to ITS International about what can be done to remedy the situation. A new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), Explaining International IT Leadership: Intelligent Transportation Systems, makes for sobering reading within the US ITS community.
  • Spectrum sharing plan triggers concerns in US
    March 1, 2013
    A group of leading industry professionals has written to the US National Telecom­munications & Information Administration (NTIA) to ask for a rethink, following the announcement by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that the 5.9GHz band is to be opened up for spectrum sharing. The group, led by ITS America president and CEO Scott Belcher, includes senior academics, automotive manu­facturers, ITS system suppliers and a number of US state departments of transportation such as those of Michigan, Texas