News

This week more than 1,000 attendees visited the North Carolina Transportation Summit in Raleigh. The annual event provides an opportunity to hear perspectives from leaders in mobility in North Carolina and beyond. I was able to attend one of the two days of the summit, which was held on January 18 and 19.

Like many events of this nature, I find that the largest benefit is in the conversations with colleagues and friends, including the opportunity to make new professional connections. However, the content itself is certainly interesting and informative, and I can tell you that I and several other RTA members in attendance learned of new ideas, delved into emerging technologies and initiatives, and gained new perspectives on issues our region is facing.

Sessions included the future of paying for mobility services via mobile and cloud-based payment systems, conversations on some possible methods to replace the gas tax, perspectives from elected leaders on transportation, and more.

I personally enjoyed spending some time exploring an exhibit of one of the low-speed, autonomous shuttles and speaking with technical staff as well as NCDOT leadership about their upcoming and potential future use here. RTA has endorsed the pursuit of pilot projects involving autonomous mobility and we look forward to implementation of one or more of these in our region this year.

With several breakout sessions occurring simultaneously — and other responsibilities competing for time and attention — there is no way to take it all in “live”. Fortunately, every session of the summit was recorded, and those recordings are slated to be posted to the summit webpage in the next few days.

Of course, as good as the content and exhibits were, the networking and connections were still the highest benefit. We have great leaders in this state, and RTA is pleased to partner with so many them to help make mobility better. Kudos to NCDOT and NC Go! for putting on another excellent event this year!

Let’s get moving,
Joe

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