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NETT Council Meeting Remarks

Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Remarks Prepared for
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao
Video Remarks for NETT Council Meeting
Media Center – USDOT HQ
 Wednesday, Dec 2, 2020

Let me thank Finch Fulton, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy, the members of our Non-Traditional and Emerging Transportation Technology Council, and everyone else who is helping enable the innovation which is laying a foundation for the transportation system of the future.

The Department created the NETT Council to foster better internal coordination, and to be a resource for external stakeholders who are advancing new and innovative transportation systems.  It has actively engaged with external stakeholders to ensure that that innovation is safe, appropriately managed, and addresses legitimate public concerns about privacy and security.

The skill, leadership, direction, and resolve of the NETT Council members, particularly the Modal Administrators, has led to many accomplishments.

  • Through the NETT Council the Department has met with over 30 stakeholders and received over 50 public comments between our two Request for Comments published in the Federal Register.
  • It also published Pathways to the Future of Transportation which provided guidance on hyperloop systems, and a framework for innovators to engage with the DOT.  This guidance also discusses uses for $2 million allocated for related research and the development of standards for advanced transportation systems. 
  • But there is still more to do.  Today, the Council will vote on the creation of two new working groups:
    • One will be for the Personal Rapid Transit Project.
    • The second is for Advanced and Urban Air Mobility;

In addition, the NETT council will be briefed on a white paper on standards for hyperloop that will go into formal concurrence in December; as well as updates on the workforce of the future initiative. 

Transportation will be transformed by these new, evolving technologies.  The NETT Council will ensure that the Department is kept abreast of and will play a role in these developments.  The NETT Council has become the Department’s one-stop shop for innovators and is helping innovators blaze a trail for development of a new, safer, and more efficient transportation system for the future. 

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