Remarks prepared for Deputy Secretary of Transportation Mortimer L. Downey, First Intelligent Vehicle Initiative National Showcase and Meeting Panel: Government’s Role in the IVI |
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Mortimer L. Downey, United States Deputy Secretary of Transportation
July 19, 2000
Remarks by
Deputy Secretary of Transportation Mortimer L. Downey
for Delivery during the
First Intelligent Vehicle Initiative National
Showcase and Meeting
Panel: Government’s Role in the IVI
Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
Washington, DC
Wednesday, July 19, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Welcome and thank you for sticking around after that informative and visionary keynote by Secretary Slater.
Before I begin, I want to thank the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) for working in partnership with the Department to make this First Intelligent Vehicle Initiative National Showcase and Meeting possible.
This afternoon, we bring together the leaders of four DOT modal administrations – our FHWA, NHTSA, FTA, and FMCSA -- that are working together as they do on so many things, including the Intelligent Vehicle Initiative (IVI). They are going to talk about the work we’re doing, in partnership with the private sector, to develop the kind of driving machines that America and the world will need in the future to ensure safety, environmental quality and economic growth. Before they begin their presentations, I’d like to clarify what our overall rationale and specific goals are for the Initiative.
Over the last 50 years, we have built a world class transportation system. But, as we enter the 21st Century, those systems are increasingly strained as they bump up against realities and constraints. People in metropolitan areas are spending several hours a day stuck in traffic, and vehicle crashes are commonplace. While transit ridership is up in many parts of the country -- in fact to its highest levels since 1961 -- and is expected to grow, our older and even some of our newer metro and bus systems are in need of upgrading to meet the demand.
We expect to have 50% more cars on our roads and highways within a decade, while highway mileage is expected to increase only slightly.
We need to consider these trends and to create a transportation system that can handle the growth we expect in the near and long term as well as one that is intermodal, moving people and goods seamlessly and efficiently. The car -- especially the Intelligent Vehicle -- is a key element in that intermodal system.
Making Future Cars Safer
We have made progress in the area of safety, DOT’s #1 priority and one of our 5 Strategic Goals. One of our favorite sayings is that "The crash that doesn’t happen is the best kind!"
In almost 33 years of work to improve safety, we have saved 1.5 million lives as we have brought down the rate of fatal crashes from what was experienced 30 years ago. But, we still have work to do and lots of it.
Our preliminary estimate of the total number of people killed on our roads and highways suggests a decline to 41,345 in 1999 compared with 41,471 in 1998. While this is progress -- and moving in the right direction -- the number is still unacceptable. Our ultimate goal is to eliminate all fatalities, and we believe we can achieve this goal with advanced technologies and with public and driver education and outreach. And, I want to emphasize driver-related initiatives because Driver error and driver-related factors were cited as an element of the majority of police-reported highway crashes. For that reason, DOT is focusing more attention and resources to this aspect of crash avoidance.
If we’re going to make more progress and meet new milestones in creating the vehicles of the future, we need to consider not only today’s challenges, but those we expect 10 and even 25 years from now. And, we need to push the envelope on technology development that supports driver behavior, enhances driver skills and avoids crashes.
We have come a long way with strategies like crash-worthiness and driver behavior change, but the gains are beginning to plateau. We need new breakthrough ideas and strategies, and one of them can be technology.
The Intelligent Vehicle Initiative
Research and development of advanced transportation technologies is crucial to meeting our national goals of improved safety, a cleaner environment, and continued economic strength. That’s why the Clinton/Gore Administration proposed $338 million -- 83 percent more than last year -- to fund our Intelligent Transportation Systems program.
The Intelligent Vehicle Initiative (IVI) is a major component of the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) program. An investment of $150 million is slated for the IVI under the Transportation Equity Act of the 21st Century (TEA-21).
The focus of IVI is to improve vehicle design and incorporate new technologies that will help warn drivers of dangerous situations, recommend actions, and perhaps even assume partial control of vehicles to avoid collisions. The bottom line here is crash avoidance, and a major objective of IVI is to deploy safer systems sooner.
The IVI is an especially positive way for government to contribute because we aren’t functioning as a regulator, but as a partner.
To illustrate what we think the potential of IVI is, let me mention one estimate our ITS professionals have come up with: If all vehicles in the fleet were equipped with only three primary crash avoidance systems of reasonable effectiveness – rear-end, roadway departure, and lane change/merge, we believe we could prevent 1 out of every 6 crashes. That would mean that 1 million crashes a year could be avoided, saving thousands of lives and $26 billion in medical and other costs annually.
We believe that such potential is well worth the $150 million we will invest in IVI over the 6-year life of TEA-21.
Conclusion
We are working in partnership with automakers, parts manufacturers, information technology companies, universities, state and local governments and many others to make sure the most viable technologies are developed and commercialized.
Partnerships and collaboration, and of course, well-planned research and development are the best way to produce safer, more "Intelligent" vehicles that will save lives. And, I believe we’re moving in the right direction!
Thank you, and now we’re going to hear about that focused research and development from our panelists.
Mr. Downey introduced each panelist to give a presentation, beginning with Ken Wykle, Administrator/Federal Highway Administration; Rosalyn Millman, Acting Administrator, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; Clyde Hart, Acting Deputy Administrator/Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration; and Ed Thomas, Associate Administrator for Research, Demonstration and Innovation/Federal Transit Administration.
Source: U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT)