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Remarks

Paul R. Brubaker, Administrator, Research and Innovative Technology Administration
Nextrans Inaugural Summit
West Lafayette, IN
May 5, 2008

Thank you. I am excited to be here today at the NEXTRANS Inaugural summit.

Often, the act of ‘beginning’ is itself a milestone, and I think we should take a moment to recognize NEXTRANS’ achievement as a Regional University Transportation Center completing its first-year.

While progress is measured by history, there always must be a starting point. And I am sure that the UTC and Transportation communities will see great things from NEXTRANS.

I would like to take this concept – having the courage to start an endeavor is in itself an achievement – and apply it to our efforts at the Department of Transportation under Secretary Peters to address the future of America’s transportation system.

Transforming our nation’s transportation system into a modern, globally-competitive infrastructure for the movement of goods and people is a massive undertaking. It is not for the timid.

I would like you to take a moment, and imagine a ticking clock  --  an image often used for crises or emergencies.  And I want you to associate this metaphor of urgency with our current transportation challenges such as:

• Cars and trucks, carrying people and products, creeping slowly along a congested freeway outside an American city.
• A departure board in a major international airport peppered with the word “DELAYED”, requiring expensive contingency plans; eroding the productivity of a commuters relying on air travel to conduct business.
• A dangerous rural highway, with degraded pavement and roadside hazards, providing one more worry for a mother driving her three year-old child to preschool.
• Another air quality alert issued for a metropolitan community, as idling traffic, and a diesel-dependent freight system increases America’s demand for fossil fuels.

Each of these scenes highlights our nation's broken transportation model, and we can’t afford for progress to move along at the pace of a congested morning commute.

Overhauling our transportation system is vitally important to our nation, our economy and our way of life.

And with this urgency, we need to have a clear vision of our desired outcomes.
Take a moment, and imagine what it will take to make America’s transportation infrastructure a safe, modern, globally competitive model across all modes:

• It will take the extensive upgrade of 50,000 miles of existing roadways,   highways and interstates;
• It will take the widespread implementation of new, dynamic funding mechanisms for road, rail, transit and air;
• It will take auto-makers, University Transportation Centers,   and regional transportation agencies working together on VII technology so that drivers have real-time information to make better, safer choices;
• It will take the introduction of a Hydrogen and Battery Economy that supports commercially viable fuel cell vehicles, battery-powered electric vehicles, and an infrastructure to safely produce, store and deliver both hydrogen fuel and electricity with minimal environmental impact.

Yes,   transforming America’s transportation system is neither not for the timid, nor the patient—we must make progress now.  

However, as overwhelming as this visualization may seem,   I want you to consider the countless benefits we'll get if we succeed.

Imagine traffic moving seamlessly on freeways in the major urban centers of America; drivers continually updated with real-time information regarding construction, traffic, accidents, weather conditions,   and even the closest available parking space to their destination.

Parking, tolls and transit fees paid seamlessly without digging for change, presenting a card or collecting a voucher.

This is not a vision of the future; these solutions are available at a commercial level—today.

Transformation is inevitable, whether we embrace the enterprising spirit of our country and establish ambitious goals for the near future, or wait for the tide of change to force our hand.

RITA believes that two key elements will provide the catalyst for change—the application of innovative technologies, and partnering with stakeholders in the transportation community, like our UTCs, to achieve real results.

Innovative technologies, like VII,   tap into the entrepreneurial spirit of America’s business and academic communities, using existing technological resources instead of relying on costly,   conventional solutions like massive reconstruction of congested freeways.

VII is a critical component of any ITS-driven initiative to improve driver safety, and mitigate bottlenecks and other elements that spur congestion.

The UTC program has been absolutely vital in providing the research, development and demonstration of viable VII technologies. NEXTRANS has assumed this role as well, focusing its transportation research efforts along theme:

NEXTRANS’ work, including research into the development of more effective decision-support tools for VII systems, contributes to the community of research fostered by the UTC program.

UTC’s across the country are contributing to VII and other ITS technologies: developing congestion-pricing and other dynamic transportation investment models, designing smart parking applications for both street and public transit parking, and more effective collision detection and avoidance systems.

SafeTrip-21 is RITA’s major initiative to speed the development and deployment ITS innovations,   including VII technology—and looking to include private-sector innovations such as WiFi, IPv6 and Mesh Networking into achieving measurable improvements in safety and moblity. 

SafeTrip-21 is a multi-application field test of safety and congestion-reducing technologies that will be launched at the 2008 Intelligent Transportation Systems World Congress in New York City.

We issued a Broad Agency Announcement in March,   and will soon announce test site partners for the first phase of this project.   This offers an exciting opportunity to partner with stakeholders on the cutting edge of ITS research and development.

Initiatives like SafeTrip-21 are great examples of how we count on partnerships to achieve our goals. 

Partnerships, especially those with our UTC, simply make sense. Universities already have access to leading experts in the transportation field, the resources available to conduct research, and the network of knowledge to turn ideas into real solutions. 
We can all agree that the best interests of society are served when we work together to solve common problems.

This is why I have made it a priority to tour UTC’s around the country, not only to see for myself the amazing research and development carried out in your labs and proving grounds, but also to ensure that RITA is engaged in your efforts with an eye towards how we can work together even more effectively.

The UTC program is a great example of how a partnership can reap countless benefits for not only the facilitator, but for all involved. I hope that the Department’s support of our University Transportation Centers will not only evoke innovative solutions to our national transportation problems, but provide more opportunities to the professionals who have dedicated themselves to this effort.

Thank you.