PRIORITIES FOR FEDERAL INNOVATION REFORM

### Issues Paper

#### September 17, 1999

Submitted to: National Science and Technology Council

Committee on Technology

Old Executive Office Building, Room 423

Washington, DC 20502

Submitted by: John Collins, President and CEO

Intelligent Transportation Society of America

400 Virginia Avenue, S.W., Suite 800

Washington, D.C. 20024-2730

Phone: 202-484-2890

Fax: 202-484-3483

e-mail: <jcollins@itsa.org>

The Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America) is
pleased to respond to NTSC's call for issues papers regarding Federal
policy and national innovation.

The ITS America is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization of organizations
that serves as a public private partnership to promote, facilitate and
coordinate the development, deployment and use of technologies in
transportation. ITS America serves as a utilized Federal Advisory
Committee to the U.S. Department of Transportation; a scientific and
educational association dedicated to advancing intelligent
transportation system professions and standards; and a trade association
representing the interests of manufacturers and users of intelligent
transportation systems. ITS America was established in 1991 and derives
its budget from member dues, a cooperative agreement with the U.S.
Department of Transportation, program income from meetings and
publication, and in-kind contributions from is members.

Based upon our experience in seeking to accelerate the effective
application of technology to our nation's surface transportation system,
we suggest exploration of federal policy initiatives or reforms for the
purpose on encouraging technical innovation generally in the United
States in the following areas:

**Innovation diffusion at the state and local governmental level through
federal support of executive scanning tours.**

Officials who manage state and local agencies of government can provide
substantial benefits to their constituents through acquisition and use
of information technology. They are, however, understandably cautious in
their acquisitions due to fears that some solutions, as applied to their
particular circumstances, may not yield benefits commensurate with their
costs. In our experience, it is most helpful for agency officials to see
technological innovation in real world operation by peers. It is the
most effective means for public sector executives to understand what the
innovation involves and what benefits it provides while being able to
discuss and understand what will be required in funding, procurement,
staffing, training, operations, management, and maintenance. This is far
more effective than relying upon the representations of vendors.

Advanced Traffic Management Systems involve equipping the transportation
system with sensors and video cameras to monitor travel conditions
traffic flows, processing and displaying the information at a traffic
management center, and using the processed information to control
signals and ramp meters, respond to and manage incidents, and provide
information to travelers through variable message signs, short range and
commercial radio and through other means. The usefulness of such systems
cannot be understood and appreciated until one visits a traffic
management center with its multiple displays showing network
performance, its array of collocated agency personnel, and the
presentation of examples as to how the facility and systems has enabled
more effective use of the public investment in transportation
infrastructure.

Apply the concept of "model deployments" to fields other than
transportation technology.

The individual elements of intelligent transportation systems
infrastructure such as freeway monitoring, ramp metering, computerized
signal control of arterials, incident detection and response, electronic
toll collection, and transit vehicle location are each beneficial in
their own right. The public benefits are substantially greater when
these elements are combined in information flows and management action.
To demonstrate the benefits of such integration, the U.S. Department of
Transportation has made substantial progress by encouraging proposals
form consortia of public agencies and private interests to attract
grants which typically leverage coordinated investment in these systems
many times greater than the amount awarded. These installations then
become test beds for lessons on acquisition, integration and
quantification of benefits. They also provide ideal venues for the
scanning tours recommended above.

Federal proactivity in the establishment of standards for national
interoperability.

As public resources, often federally supported, are expended at every
level of government on information technology, there are many instances
where members of the public will benefit if devices in one area of the
country work in others. Indeed the establishment of a national market
becomes dependant upon national standards for interoperability. The
federal government can and should support needed national
interoperability by working with industry's standards development
organizations to fund needed technical analysis. It should condition
federal funding of local technology investment on use of such standards,
and take the lead in promulgating such standards if industry is unable
to achieve timely consensus.

Encourage state and local governmental recipients of federal funds to
apply innovative procurement methods that reward innovation.

State and local procurement systems, in many cases, are primarily
concerned with preventing waste, fraud and abuse in public works
activity. The laws, regulations, and public culture that has grown up
around these public policy objectives are not well suited for the
acquisition for systems of technology. Although federal policy does not
preclude innovative methods of technology acquisition, local officials
would benefit from more explicit guidance on alternative means of
procurement, including techniques such as requests for proposals for
partnership with broad functional specifications and purchase of service
(solutions) contracts instead of capital acquisitions.

Federal interagency coordination and unified policies for encouraging
interoperability of information bases and communications protocols.

The federal government provides support for many activities at local,
state and federal levels that would benefit from shared data and
communications interconnectivity. For example, the Department of
Transportation funds intelligent transportation systems, the Department
of Justice funds public safety and law enforcement communication
systems, other agencies support or administer emergency management,
disaster relief, and border crossings of people and goods. Action at the
interagency level to coordinate technical architectures, standards, and
protocols is needed along with strong incentives and requirements that
such coordination be undertaken at the regional or site level across
every level of government.

Encourage safety innovation through provision of liability shields.

We face the prospect of substantial improvement in the saving of lives,
money and time through deployment of active vehicle safety systems
(collision warning and crash avoidance) being realized in Europe and
Japan long before they will be seen in the United States. This will be
due, in no small part, to concerns regarding litigation expense and
liability exposure of manufactures of motor vehicles sold in the U.S. It
would be unconscionable if massive safety benefits to U.S. society as a
whole were delayed because we are unable to develop a scheme for fairly
compensating the few who inevitably will be injured in the use of such
systems. We need to establish a partnership program between federal
safety authorities and the motor vehicle manufacturing industry to
rigorously test these new systems and to establish standards regarding
their performance. In return for compliance with such standards,
manufactures and others in the stream of commerce should receive
protection in terms of limitation of liability, evidentiary
presumptions, or bars to pain and suffering and punitive damage awards.
Additionally industry should also participate in an insurance pool to
generously compensate the few who are injured in the use of the new
technologies.

Apply the DARPA model for seeding innovation to transportation and other
fields.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has an extraordinary
record of fostering technical innovations and launching them into
defense and non-defense use. In a national defense context, the DARPA
mission is to develop imaginative, innovative and often high risk
research ideas offering a significant technological impact that will go
well beyond the normal evolutionary developmental approaches; and, to
pursue these ideas from the demonstration of technical feasibility
through the development of prototype systems. The agency, however has no
interest in "owning" the technologies it engenders, but rather maintains
a culture focused on finding appropriate homes for its children and
moving on to new cutting edge applications. We suggest that the field of
transportation along with others would benefit from the establishment of
similarly federally supported institutions.

ITS America would welcome the opportunity to discuss these ideas
further, providing more information and access to public and private
sector representatives with extensive experience with these issues.

Respectfully submitted,

John Collins

President and CEO

ITS America