Automated Vehicles Symposium 2019

Trucking Automation: Deployment Challenges and Opportunities – Part 2 (Room Canary 1)

16 Jul 19
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM

Organizers

Richard Bishop, Bishop Consulting

Andrew Krum, Virginia Tech Transportation Institute

Allison Cullin, Amazon

Gene McHale, FHWA

Jeff Loftus, FMCSA

Session Description

This session will cover the range of capabilities among today’s automated driving system that deliver cargo.

The second day will address opportunities and challenges for standalone L4 driverless freight vehicles:

  • Robot to Business (R2B):  long haul cargo movement
  • Roles of government, industry, SDO’s in the safe rollout of commercial L4 solutions
    • Communicating safety validation to regulators
    • How minimal risk conditions will be designed to cover the needs of fleets, the public, and highway / surface street operations for inter-city and on-highway operations
    • How to collaborate to accelerate safe rollout?

Goals

  • Gain perspective on commercial activities in automated on-road cargo transport
  • Identify deployment challenges across technical, institutional, regulatory, and other aspects

Outputs

  • Conceptualize possible paths forward to address challenges

Day 2 Agenda
 
Driverless Cargo Transport

Tuesday, July 16, 1:30 – 5:30

1:30 PM – 1:45PM
Introduction (Andrew Krum)

1:45 PM – 2:30 PM  
Lightning Round: Long Haul Level 4 Automated Truck Developments Update

Moderator:     
Andrew Krum, Virginia Tech Transportation Institute

Speakers:  (introductory statements of ~5 minutes each)
Truck OEM representatives:

  • Volvo (Dr. Aravind Kailas, Manager, Research and Innovation, Volvo Group)
  • MAN (Dr. Christian T. Haas,  Professor in quantitative research methods and Director Institute for complex System Research, Fresenius University)

Startups:

  • Embark (Jonny Morris, Head of Public Policy)
  • Starsky Robotics (Walter Stockwell, Director of Safety Policy)
  • TuSimple (Robert Brown, Director of Government Relations)
  • Kodiak Robotics (Jordan Coleman , General Counsel and Head of Policy)
  • PlusAI (Shawn Kerrigan, VP Engineering)

2:30 PM – 3:00 PM
Discussion

3:00 PM – 3:20 PM Break

3:20 PM – 5:00 PM
L4 Driverless Full Group Discussion

Moderator:

  • Andrew Krum, VTTI

Roles of government, industry, and standards development organizations  in the safe rollout of commercial Level 4 freight solutions
Achieving minimal risk-conditions in city and on-highway


What can and should the public and private sectors as well as the SDOs be doing in collaboration to accelerate the safe rollout of commercial truck L4 solutions?   


What are the regulatory barriers and market failures that gov’t needs to address in support of this goal?  


Panelists:
Fleets:  

  • Ross Froat, Director of Engineering and Information Technology, American Trucking Associations

Federal Regulators:

  • Dr. Kelly Regal, Associate Administrator of Research and Information Technology, FMCSA
  • Jim Mullen, Chief Counsel, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, USDOT

State Regulators:  

  • Kevin Biesty, Deputy Director, Arizona DOT

International:

  • Marcus Burke, Director Automated Vehicles, National Transport Commission, Australia
  • Standards Development Organization:
  • Ed Straub, Director SAE Office of Automation; Executive Director, Automated Vehicle Safety Coalition

5:00 PM – 5:30 PM Wrap-up & Conclusions  
(Andrew Krum, VTTI)