Mobility Innovation Team: Preparing Louisville for transportation innovations
By: Ed Blayney
Tags: Innovation, Louisville, Mobility, Civic Innovation, Autonomous Vehicles

You don’t have to try hard to find the hot new transportation innovation. It’s on your social media feed, it’s on the news, and, most glaringly, it’s on your streets. Disruptive transportation technologies are the norm, not the exception these days. And, the challenging thing about them: no one, not even the companies building them, know all the ways their product will change the way our cities work. Or, if they do, they don’t do a great job sharing, educating or working with local governments.

At Louisville Metro, our cross-functional Mobility Innovation Team (MIT) to provides a forum for local transportation agencies, both in and out of Metro, to learn about and start to prepare for the innovations we see coming and the ones that get dropped on us. Local practitioners and national experts share first-hand experience and knowledge about the newest transportation developments on topics such as Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), electric vehicles & scooters, ridesharing, Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV), and so forth. The forum provides a physical place to learn, discuss and debate how new technologies will impact Louisville Metro’s transportation ecosystem. And, when appropriate, the MIT will take on projects to incorporate innovations into our local mobility system.

MIT Composition

The group consists of experts in the fields of:

Air Quality

Data Science

Traffic Management

Intelligent Transportation Systems

Transportation Planning

Transit

Bike & Pedestrian planning

Ridesharing

Urban Planning

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles

The group has members from these various internal agencies:

Public Works

Planning & Design

Advanced Planning & Sustainability

Civic Innovation & Technology

Air Pollution Control District

And, includes members from not only Louisville Metro, but also other local agencies important for our transportation network. They hail from:

KIPDA (our local MPO)

Transit Authority of River City (TARC)

University of Kentucky

Kentucky Transportation Center

Kentucky Transportation Cabinet

University of Louisville

Louisville Downtown Partnership

About our meetings and work

Inspired by Three Revolutions, the original idea was to create a small cadre of mid-level government employees to prepare us for the emerging shared, electric and automated transportation innovations through projects and strategic planning. The first several meetings focused on developing and implementing the Autonomous Vehicle Playbook. The Playbook turned out to be less of an action plan and more of a learning plan for our organization to get ready for AVs, and the MIT followed suit. Over time, the meetings focused less on projects and more on professional development. We realized quickly incorporating new technologies required us to change our culture even more than policies. So, the MIT moved away from project-based work and turned into a professional development meeting with an open invitation. The attendance varies from 15 to 25 people a month depending on the topic.

Topics include innovations that are happening to us now, like electric scooters and Intelligent Transportation Systems, and those on the horizon (at least for us) like Connected and Autonomous Vehicle management. We put a premium on local experts and fellow government officials because they provide more context to what our experience will be like with less worry about receiving a shiny product pitch. We do have a select number of vendors speak to help MIT members understand the market and what’s out there to help solve specific local challenges, but we don’t let the meetings turn into sales calls.

A selection Mobility Innovation Team Meeting Topics:

Las Vegas’ Intelligent Transportation System — Strategy and Build Out — Joanna Wadsworth, City of Las Vegas

SAFCAT — Autonomous Vehicle Safety Impact Assessment Tool — Reginald Souleyrette, University of Kentucky

Electric Scooters — Policy and Operations — James Graham, Louisville Metro

Minnesota Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Office — Keith Mensah, MnDOT

Ridesharing impact on congestion — Greg Erhardt, University of Kentucky