Skip to main content

U.S. Undersecretary of Transportation DOT pushes public/private partnerships

U.S. Undersecretary of Transportation for Policy Polly Trottenberg called for greater public/private partnerships in the transportation industry during her keynote address Monday morning, citing ITS technology as key to cost-efficiently modernizing aging infrastructure in the U.S.
April 22, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
US Undersecretary of Transportation for Policy Polly Trottenberg
U.S. Undersecretary of Transportation for Policy Polly Trottenberg is calling for greater public/private partnerships in the transportation industry during her keynote address Monday morning, she cited ITS technology as key to cost-efficiently modernising aging infrastructure in the U.S.

“The [U.S.] DOT is migrating to a performance management system that will be more data driven and outcome based to deliver greater value to taxpayers,” Trottenberg said in front of a receptive audience at 560 ITS America 2013.

One of the ways private enterprise can help shape public policy is through data, analysis, Trottenberg said in an interview with ITS Daily News the day before her speech, she also mentioned the ability to take the rich data that public agencies collect to create useful applications for the travelling public.

In the interview, Trottenberg described the current state of public/private partnerships and the need to involve private enterprise earlier in the process. In its existing form, state DOTs typically wait until projects are approved and designed before engaging with the private sector—and that’s usually because there are budget issues that only innovation and efficiencies provided by the private enterprise can solve.

Instead, Trottenberg said that private companies need to be involved in the planning and design phase—and that’s where ITS providers are needed the most.

Trottenberg also announced two initiatives at the DOT aimed at encouraging better engagement with the industry, including an award program to honor innovative ITS professionals and a Datapolooza event where the Federal Government and ITS companies can learn how to take advantage of the data collected by the DOT.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Inrix expands traffic data programme collaboration
    October 12, 2012
    Nearly a year after the I-95 Corridor Coalition, the University of Maryland (UMD) and Inrix announced a three-year expansion of the Vehicle Probe Project (VPP), the coalition and its partners are expanding their collaboration once again. Through a Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Awards Grant, the coalition will use Inrix traffic information to expand coverage to over 40,000 miles of roads across fourteen states.
  • Machine vision standards definition moves forward with establishment of new forum
    December 3, 2012
    The new Future Standards Forum will homogenise standards develop in the machine vision and partnering sectors. Here, machine vision industry experts discuss developments. By Jason Barnes At the Vision Show, which took place in Stuttgart at the beginning of November, the European Machine Vision Association, the US’s Automated Imaging Association and the Japan Industrial Imaging Association (JIIA) established a joint initiative, the Future Standards Forum (FSF). This, said the EMVA’s President Toni Ventura, a
  • Watch your step: the sidewalk robots are here
    March 14, 2023
    The way we order and pay for goods has changed radically – but what about how those goods are delivered? Gordon Feller looks at how sidewalk robots might reshape the urban landscape
  • Women driving innovation in mobility
    March 9, 2022
    Transportation was built through the lens of men: that ecosystem needs to change