Looking through back issues from when I first started at Mass Transit, more than 10 years ago, and while every year I’m surprised at how much has changed, the speed at which it is now changing is hard to keep up with. It’s broadening the coverage of what we do and we’re not alone. At InnoTrans, the bi-annual rail conference in Berlin, Germany, they had representation from electric buses and developers of the straddling bus and hyperloops.
In the news, there are new autonomous vehicles being tested, new partnerships being formed, and things like Uber Elevate, taxi drones, driverless pods and SeaBubbles.
We continually weigh how much we cover everything that impacts a transit agency and lately our days could be filled with the amount of information out there on all of these new technologies, the partnerships developed with them, the potential regulation impacts and potential costs involved.
But these are on top of all of the other things we want to address, including policy, planning, safety, security, you name it. And I hear from a few they have no interest in any of these advanced transportation systems as it’s something far and removed from what they need to know about in managing their daily operations.
Technology is evolving at a rapid pace and a generation of workers who grew up with technology is filling the workforce. And that generation of potential transit riders are using the latest technology to get to where they need to go in the most convenient way.
While we have limited room in print, we include a lot of this information related to these technologies on our website and in our daily newsletter. But because of the impact on the industry, we’ll have a roundup of some of the latest in our upcoming issue.
Even from the time we started to put this issue together there have been new announcements that came out after our news was ready for press. There’s no shortage of information and we will continue to provide the latest in all areas to keep you informed.
