planes, trains, automobiles … and technology: DOT seeks technology solution to highway congestion
The Research and Innovative Technology Administration, a branch of the DOT, has issued a request to private industry, research organizations, and state and local governments for information about commercially available applications that can fight congestion and improve the United States' transportation system.
It's hailed as the solution to an almost infinite array of problems, but can technology really help to relieve congestion on the nation's highways? The U.S. Department of Transportation would like to think so.
The Research and Innovative Technology Administration, a branch of the DOT, has issued a request to private industry, research organizations, and state and local governments for information about commercially available applications that can fight congestion and improve the United States' transportation system.
The effort is part of the agency's SafeTrip-21, a pro gram to field test technologies aimed at improving safety and reducing congestion. The program will be launched at the 2008 Intelligent Transportation Systems World Congress in New York City this November.
Using technology to improve traffic flow certainly isn't a new concept, but there are some new applications under development, including several that involve RFID. As reported in DC VELOCITY's August 2007 issue, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are equipping taxicabs and private cars with RFID and global positioning system (GPS) technology as part of a project called CarTel.
The aim of CarTel is to make personalized route recommendations to drivers, based on the driver's own commute history as well as the histories of other drivers who are willing to share their information. In addition, the system would monitor road conditions, and when combined with sensor technology, could provide both the driver and authorities with early warnings of potential troublespots.
Neither snow, nor rain …
Another research project that the DOT may want to take note of is an initiative currently under way in upstate New York. Researchers from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and the New York State Department of Transportation have deployed solar-powered mobile RFID readers that monitor traffic flow by reading EZPass toll-payment tags attached to passing cars. The readers were successfully deployed last summer. Although officials initially planned to pull them when the weather turned cold, they decided to leave them in place to see if they could withstand an upstate New York winter. So far, the readers have continued to send information despite the cold, snow, and ice.
Jeffrey Wojtowicz, a research manager with the RPI project, says that the mobile RFID readers can help to monitor traffic as long as information is provided and analyzed in real time."If travel times are starting to increase, [authorities] will have to get that information out before the problem exists and get the driver to take an alternate path if that's what's needed," he says. "Storing archival data is good for some purposes, but in terms of relieving congestion, the data needs to be real time."
It's not hard to understand why the DOT would be eager to find a technology-based solution to the nation's road congestion problems. In the long run, using technology would be far cheaper than building new highways. But technology alone won't solve the problem, says Paul Manuel, vice president of sales and marketing at Mark IV IVHS, the company that manufactures the solar-powered readers used in the RPI project. "It's also a matter of public policy and user habits, and it takes champions and people willing to take a risk," he says. "Technology is great, but it can only do so much on its own."
Supply chain planning (SCP) leaders working on transformation efforts are focused on two major high-impact technology trends, including composite AI and supply chain data governance, according to a study from Gartner, Inc.
"SCP leaders are in the process of developing transformation roadmaps that will prioritize delivering on advanced decision intelligence and automated decision making," Eva Dawkins, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Composite AI, which is the combined application of different AI techniques to improve learning efficiency, will drive the optimization and automation of many planning activities at scale, while supply chain data governance is the foundational key for digital transformation.”
Their pursuit of those roadmaps is often complicated by frequent disruptions and the rapid pace of technological innovation. But Gartner says those leaders can accelerate the realized value of technology investments by facilitating a shift from IT-led to business-led digital leadership, with SCP leaders taking ownership of multidisciplinary teams to advance business operations, channels and products.
“A sound data governance strategy supports advanced technologies, such as composite AI, while also facilitating collaboration throughout the supply chain technology ecosystem,” said Dawkins. “Without attention to data governance, SCP leaders will likely struggle to achieve their expected ROI on key technology investments.”
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.
Serious inland flooding and widespread power outages are likely to sweep across Florida and other Southeast states in coming days with the arrival of Hurricane Helene, which is now predicted to make landfall Thursday evening along Florida’s northwest coast as a major hurricane, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
While the most catastrophic landfall impact is expected in the sparsely-population Big Bend area of Florida, it’s not only sea-front cities that are at risk. Since Helene is an “unusually large storm,” its flooding, rainfall, and high winds won’t be limited only to the Gulf Coast, but are expected to travel hundreds of miles inland, the weather service said. Heavy rainfall is expected to begin in the region even before the storm comes ashore, and the wet conditions will continue to move northward into the southern Appalachians region through Friday, dumping storm total rainfall amounts of up to 18 inches. Specifically, the major flood risk includes the urban areas around Tallahassee, metro Atlanta, and western North Carolina.
In addition to its human toll, the storm could exert serious business impacts, according to the supply chain mapping and monitoring firm Resilinc. Those will be largely triggered by significant flooding, which could halt oil operations, force mandatory evacuations, restrict ports, and disrupt air traffic.
While the storm’s track is currently forecast to miss the critical ports of Miami and New Orleans, it could still hurt operations throughout the Southeast agricultural belt, which produces products like soybeans, cotton, peanuts, corn, and tobacco, according to Everstream Analytics.
That widespread footprint could also hinder supply chain and logistics flows along stretches of interstate highways I-10 and I-75 and on regional rail lines operated by Norfolk Southern and CSX. And Hurricane Helene could also likely impact business operations by unleashing power outages, deep flooding, and wind damage in northern Florida portions of Georgia, Everstream Analytics said.
Before the storm had even touched Florida soil, recovery efforts were already being launched by humanitarian aid group the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN). In a statement on Wednesday, the group said it is urging residents in the storm's path across the Southeast to heed evacuation notices and safety advisories, and reminding members of the logistics community that their post-storm help could be needed soon. The group will continue to update its Disaster Micro-Site with Hurricane Helene resources and with requests for donated logistics assistance, most of which will start arriving within 24 to 72 hours after the storm’s initial landfall, ALAN said.