In episode three of the Infrastructure Technology Podcast, Gavin, Harlee and Brandon focus on transportation technology and safety with two interviews. Harlee interviews Terri Johnson, director of public sector services at INRIX, with the conversation focusing on traffic slowdown alerts and intelligent transportation systems. Then, Brandon has a chat with Bill Khelm, the CEO and chairman of eBliss Global, as the two discuss the current state and the future of e-bikes.
Episode three emphasizes how technology is transforming transportation safety, from large-scale traffic management for trucks to innovations in personal e-bike commuting. The hosts discuss how connected vehicle technology and smart roadways will shape the future.
Below is a transcript from the podcast:
GJ: And welcome to the Infrastructure Technology Podcast. I'm Gavin Jenkins, senior managing editor of Roads and Bridges, and with me, as always, is Brandon Lewis, associate editor of Mass Transit magazine, and Harlee Hewitt, the jack of all trades for Construction Equipment and Roads and Bridges, our associate editor. How are you two doing today?
BL: It's Tuesday. Like I say, every Tuesday, or every other Tuesday, it's podcast day. We got two other great interviews today. Can't wait.
GJ: Alright, now a little inside baseball for you, the listener. We are recording this ahead of time, and today is election day, so we try not to be political on this. We hope all of you out there are voting. I think it's safe to say that whoever wins, or steals, this election… whoever wins. I'm joking, of course. Whoever wins this election is going to help bring this country further into a world of artificial intelligence, and that reality is a large part of what we are talking about on this podcast, not just today, but in general. It's why we launched the podcast, and we have two great guests. One is Terri Johnson, who works for INRIX, and the other is Bill Klehm, who works for eBliss Global. And first up we're going to be hearing Harlee's interview with Terri Johnson. Harlee, why don't you tell us a little bit about Terri?
HH: Sure. So, Terri is the director of public sector services at INRIX. So, she's brought over 30 years of experience to the intelligent transportation systems world alone, and she also works on traffic management. So, she is, in her space, a recognized leader known for her expertise. She leverages big data, and she helps states, departments of transportation. She helps metropolitan planning organizations and cities, and they help basically make informed decisions for them. And she said, or she told me, that her passion lies in harnessing data and analytics to improve safety and reduce congestion. It’s a huge part of what we're going to talk about today and empower agencies to plan for the future, so our main topic really is what they are calling slowdown alerts, and you'll hear more about this in a second, but they partnered with Drivewise, which they operate North America's largest connected track network, and they are basically trying to help ensure that these big trucks, and eventually in the future, hopefully other vehicles as well, are slowing down in time when there is congestion and not causing big traffic jams and tragedies. So that's what we talked about.
GJ: And she's based in Dallas. Fort Worth, so she would know all about traffic and congestion.
HH: Yes.
GJ: Now I got to mention that you said that she has 30 years of experience.
HH: Yeah.
GJ: You two, as we stated before, you two are in your twenties. Does that number of 30 years of experience just absolutely sound mind blowing to you? Like, oh my god, 30 years of experience?
HH: It does. I think considering now I have about two years in this field or in any field, two years.
GJ: Twenty-eight more years to go to pitch up!
HH: Exactly.
GJ: It's a drop in the… it's not that much time, and it goes by so fast. I have 20 years of experience in media, and I still think of 2003. It was yesterday, so it goes by fast.
HH: To that point, in that you said last time the time goes by fast when you're older. I mean, this year flew. I don't know about you guys, but it absolutely flew.
GJ: It always does. It seems like just yesterday that Harlee and I were meeting for the first time at World of Concrete.
HH: Yep. Early this year.
GJ: Yeah, and our listeners may not know this from her voice. Tall. Harlee is tall.
HH: Can you tell that from someone's voice?
GJ: Can you tell? I don't know. That would be a good guessing game at a carnival. Someone blindfolded and you just talk to them and they guess your height.
HH: How tall are our podcast hosts? That would be fun.
GJ: Yeah. Brandon, how tall do you think Harlee and I are just from, and we've never met, just so you know. Harley's based in Cleveland. Brandon is based in Cleveland. I'm based in Pittsburgh. And so, we work together via the interwebs, and Harlee and I have only met a couple of times in-person, and we've never met Brandon. Brandon, how tall do you think we are just based off of our voice and our screen.
BL: So by looking at you guys right now, the way I am on camera, I am going to guess Gavin, you are 5’10 ish.
GJ: Okay. I am 5’10. That is correct. Good guess. Oh, wow! Look at you!
BL: Harlee, I'm going to say, Gavin said you are tall, so knowing obviously the definition of tall for men and women may change a little bit, I'm going to guess you are 5’7.
GJ: Whoa, Whoa! Oh no, you're wrong sir.
HH: I'm actually, the last time I went to the doctor, I'm a little over 5’10.
BL: Oh, wow! Okay, so you and Gavin are right there eye-to-eye.
GJ: She's taller than me. Walking up to a booth where I saw her, I was like, “Oh wow! She's tall.”
HH: Indeed, indeed.
GJ: Okay. Alright. Well, with that, now that we know our heights, and Brandon, what is your height?
BL: Do you guys want to take a guess?
GJ: I'm going to guess you're 5’9.
BL: Not even close.
GJ: Not even close.
HH: I'm going to say 6’0.
BL: You guys, I'm not. Not even close.
GJ: I'm not even close?
BL: No, the other way.
GJ: Oh, okay.
BL: Yeah.
HH: You just give tall energy.
BL: Shorter.
GJ: No, no.
BL: Yes.
GJ: You're shorter than 5’6?
BL: I'm about 5’4, 5 3, somewhere around there.
GJ: No way!
HH: My goodness!
BL: Seriously.
GJ: You're our short king?
BL: Yeah, I am.
GJ: Okay. Alright, well thank you, king!
HH: Hype man and short king!
GJ: Yeah, you are hype man. Alright, well, without further ado, let's get into Harlee's interview with Terri Johnson from INRIX.
HH: Hello and welcome to the Infrastructure Technology Podcast. My name is Harlee Hewitt. I am the associate editor of Roads and Bridges magazine. Today, I'm here with Terri Johnson, who is the director of public sector services at INRIX, where she brings over 30 years of experience in intelligent transportation systems and traffic management. An engineering graduate from the University of Wisconsin, Terri is a recognized leader known for her expertise in leveraging big data to help state departments of transportation, metropolitan planning organizations and cities making informed decisions. Her passion lies in harnessing data and analytics to improve safety, reduce congestion and empower agencies to plan for the future and optimize their roadway networks. Terri, thank you for being on the program today.
TJ: I'm excited to be here. Thank you, Harlee.
HH: Thank you. So, INRIX recently announced a partnership with the Texas Department of Transportation to provide real life, or sorry, real time traffic slowdown alerts to truck drivers in Texas. So, if you would, Terri, would you just kind of tell me how the alerts actually work and what the identified need for that tech was?
TJ: Absolutely. Well, I'll get into a little bit of the, I guess technical stuff, but traffic slowdown alerts are designed to notify the commercial drivers about upcoming traffic incidents that could lead to unexpected congestion and sudden slowdowns. So this gives a driver a heads up, really allowing them to take defensive measures or even choose a different route. Imagine a truck driver cruising down a rural highway at 70 miles an hour, maybe a little bit on autopilot, something we've all experienced. I don't know about you Harlee, but sometimes I'm driving, and I just get into a zone. Well, these alerts are a way to snap the drivers back into focus, ensuring that they're aware of any upcoming slowdowns, and INRIX has teamed with Drivewise, which operates North America's largest connected truck network. Now, Drivewise partners with over 100 in-cab device manufacturers and resellers to pre-install this Drivewise software into more than 1300 different device setups. So now using INRIX’s real-time safety alerts, Drivewise shares hand-free, critical safety alerts directly into the electronic logging device. Now, I'm going to call it the in-cab device because it's easier to explain that way,
HH: Right.
TJ: This is the same device that commercial drivers have to use every day to manage their hours, so they have these devices in their cabs. So, here's how it works: INRIX provides Drivewise its congestion and dangerous slow down alert that pinpoints where traffic is starting to slow down. Then, the Drivewise system automatically sets up a geofence two to three miles ahead of the identified slowdown. So when a truck crosses this geofence, this line, this imaginary line in the road typically about this geofence, then an in-cab alert will pop up in the driver's in-cab device. And so, then this gives the driver a heads up to safely adjust to the situation. The alerts that in-cab sends out are two different types. We have a congestion alert, and this is triggered when there's unexpected congestion detected. A lot of times this is in areas where, like I said, you don't expect it on a rural highway. Meanwhile, the dangerous slowdown alerts kick in when there's a sudden reduction in speed or stop traffic. That's how it works. Yeah, it sounds pretty simple.
HH: It does, but definitely like you're saying, I mean, it could be very crucial for safety moving forward.
TJ: Absolutely.
HH: I saw that Drivewise and INRIX have partnered with multiple other states as part of a truck safety program, again to bring the traffic slowdown alerts to the road, so would you just talk a little bit about how the partnership between INRIX and the Texas Department of Transportation came about in this instance?
TJ: So INRIX has been working with TDOT for about 10 years, providing real time data, and Drivewise has been partnering with the Texas Department of Public Safety for over a decade. So Driveway was able to start building this network in Texas by launching something that they call the Scalable Way Station Pre-clear Program, and that program’s success made it really clear that the trucking industry had fully embraced the benefits of receiving in-cab messages through their in-cab devices. So when INRIX and Drivewise approached Texas, we were already trusted partners. I mean INRIX had been working with them, like I said, for 10 years, and we talked to them about this product and the importance of this product and also talked to them about how other states have been using it and the success in those states. So the fact that we already had a relationship with TXDOT and the Drivewise experience, this allowed us to ensure TXDOT that from day one, we were able to roll out the commercial vehicle safety notifications to a significant portion of the trucking community would be covered.
HH: So you have just mentioned basically how it is fairly, we'll say “simple” in quotation marks, to get the alerts to the truck drivers, but I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the importance to INRIX’s about making them so accessible? What does that aspect contribute to the safety program of it all?
TJ: So can I talk about the identifying need for this technology?
HH: Sure.
TJ: Yeah?
HH: Sure.
TJ: Is that cool?
HH: Go ahead.
TJ: So think about this, and maybe, well, maybe you have thought about this, I don't know, but a fully loaded commercial vehicle can be up to 20 times the weight of a passenger vehicle. So because of their size and their weight, it is much harder for them to stop. So at 65 miles per hour, it can take a truck the length of one and a half to two football fields to come to a complete stop. Many of us, we've seen those videos where you have a major pile up, some of us have seen these, I watch 'em once and then I have to walk away. But where there's major pilots and then you see that truck heading into the pile up and you're just holding your breath. Well, that is one of the reasons that we're doing this. We are trying to avoid these types of situations, and if drivers around a truck, if a truck slows down, the drivers around the truck will tend to slow down. Now, usually, it's probably because they think there's a police officer ahead or something. I hate to say that, but don't we all, but we know that if a truck slows down, people will slow down, and we're hoping to just stop or alleviate or reduce these types of situations.
HH: I see.
TJ: Like I said, the difficulty in slowing means that these large trucks have so much less time to slow down. So as a result, the trucks are a major factor in the frequency and severity of crashes across the country in work zones. Commercial motor vehicles have double the crash rates of passenger cars, and unfortunately, the number of fatal crashes involving trucks continues to rise, and we want to do what we can do to help in this situation.
HH: I see. So like you said, it takes trucks, multiple football fields, sometime to stop, right?! So, how many miles with this particular program of the road are covered exactly?
TJ: Well, we're excited in Texas today. The commercial motor vehicle alerts covers all the interstates in Texas, which is over 3,000 miles. The initial launch started with about 285 miles along I-45 in Texas between Dallas and Galveston, and then back in December of last year is when we launched that, and then by July, the alerts had expanded throughout Texas.
HH: I see. So since that implementation, like you said, it's only really been officially since July, but have you all had any sort of measurable results so far, even from another or installation of the technology that you can highlight and how it's helping reduce those crashes?
TJ: Absolutely. So after an alert is displayed in the cab, Drivewise gathers information from the trucks. So they use anonymized and geolocation data to see how the alerts are affecting the driver's braking behavior. So focusing on that, I guess we could call it a pilot that we did with TXdot on I 45. Between February and July, we collected data, and Drivewise has covered a number of insights. So 31 percent of the trucks traveling faster than (I guess this gets a little) 31 percent of the trucks traveling faster than 65 miles per hour, reduced their speed by at least five miles per hour, within a half a mile of receiving the alert. So we're seeing that success also, 59 percent of the drivers who receive the alert slow down before reaching the incident location. To me, if we can stop one truck driver from crashing into and causing a fatality, I mean it.
HH: Absolutely.
TJ: Huge, and we're seeing similar results in some of the other states that have completed the testing.
HH: I see. So with that then, how does INRIX plan to expand the connected vehicle tech to maybe transportation agencies? What else are you planning to do with it in the future?
TJ: Well, for INRIX and Drivewise partnership, we're focused on really getting this critical information like the traffic slowdowns and to the commercial motor vehicle drivers, especially those drivers kind of a class, we call 'em Class eight or higher trucks. These big trucks have not historically been able to get a lot of the technologies, the safety technologies into their systems. But with the unique Drivewise system, Drivewise is able to send these critical safety alerts straight into the cabs of these trucks. The plan is to keep growing that telematics network and reaching more and more trucks every year and showing the other states how valuable the service is. I mean, my goal is to get this in every state. I'm passionate. Everyone who knows me knows this. I'm passionate about safety, and once again, if we can just stop one of these crashes in a state, just think if we did it in every state, there'd be over 50 lives saved. Anything we can do, you know what INRIX is doing, as we provide real-time traffic and alerts today to transportation agencies who are using this information in their operation centers to help manage their roadways and then also to get messages to drivers on dynamic message signs. So those are the signs on the side of the road that tell you 10 minutes to the airport. Well, so they're using those. I mean, obviously we were excited that Drivewise had this technology that they could actually do it this way. We also have another partnership. it's a company called Information Logistics, and they deliver transportation emergency alerts to drivers using the wireless emergency alerts. These are the Amber alerts to send out these emergency messages. Now these alerts are really only for kind of critical safety alerts, but I guess we'll have to schedule another podcast.
HH: To just discuss that one
TJ: And how successful that system is because [that’s] another system I want to expand in the whole U.S.
HH: Awesome! Well Terri, I really appreciate you taking the time today to give us your insights.
TJ: Well, I want to thank you for allowing us and giving us the opportunity to send out this message because as I said, I think safety is so important on our roadways. We want to reduce these crashes. We want to reach zero fatalities, and I know that in Texas, which is where I live, I am happy that we have this service in place.
HH: Thank you Terri, I appreciate it.
TJ: Thank you Harlee.
GJ: Alright, and we are back. That was a great interview that Harlee just did with Terri Johnson from INRIX. And next up, Brandon is going to interview Bill Klehm from eBliss Global. Brandon, before we dive in, why don't you tell us a little bit about Mr. Klehm?
BL: Sure. So Bill is the chairman and CEO of eBliss, and he has helped launch, grow and successfully scale a host of companies across the transportation and technology industries. Bill is also the current CEO of FallBrook Technologies and just two years ago, in 2022, he launched eBliss, with the mission to create better engineered, enjoyable and more sustainable ways of moving people. And what we talked about in this interview is really fascinating because Bill really dives into the components of e-bikes, and he talked about the safety of e-bikes, the components of testing them and the ability of when these bikes are made. They want them to feel natural while riding. They want people to feel like that they're riding a bike, but also, he talks about the difference that these e-bikes are not just a regular bicycle with a motor on 'em, and they're called e-bikes. So really fascinating to dive into the difference between a regular bike and those e-bikes, as well as the safety behind operating an e-bike.
GJ: Okay, that sounds really interesting. Let's dive into this. I can't wait to hear it.
BL: Welcome back to the Infrastructure Technology Podcast. Today, I am here with Bill Khehm, chairman and CEO of eBliss. Bill, welcome to the Infrastructure Technology Podcast.
BK: Thank you for having me.
BL: Thank you. And we are here today to talk about electric bikes because there is so much going on in the industry right now when it comes to that and obviously with transit agencies and everybody else trying to transition to zero-emission transportation. When we start with, looking at electric bikes, the first question here is when we take a look at safety, what separates a safe e-bike from an unsafe e-bike?
BK: So great question, and obviously the consumers are voting, right, because last year they bought 1,000,080 e-bikes, Toyota sold 1,000,009 cars. So obviously consumer demand is driving this. So when I think about e-bikes or e-mobility, I think about a few things from a safety perspective. First and foremost, the responsibility of the manufacturer to test and certify the components and the systems that they have against the safety systems that have been established by the U.S. have particular right, or Europe. So EU or CE certified. First of all, again, everybody hates to get told what to do. I think it's responsible, and we as manufacturers are clearly responsible for doing the best we can at taking care of the customer, and it starts with the safety of the system that's been designed. That's one. Two, the components that go into the vehicle itself. There are 73 manufacturers of e-bikes in America. There are something like 15,000 component manufacturers, mostly in Asia. The majority of those do not have documented processes and quality systems in place, and so the consumers are getting haphazard quality. Sothe second thing that has to happen is the components selection needs to be thus that are tested components, small advertisement for us. We spend an enormous amount of time going through all testing and development to make sure that we know what's going to fail and when. That's the second thing. The third thing is the collection of components and the function that they provide in the marketplace. Apologize. People are choosing items, excuse me. The 73 manufacturers are choosing items that have a certain tendency, and I'll give you an example. A chain on a bike starts to rust 20 minutes after you take it out of the box. So why in the world have chains? When you look at derailleurs, which are the geared systems that move you up and down the gear ratios, lots of maintenance, very spotty performance, and when you add human power and electric power and combine them, those systems just aren't engineered for that kind of durability and experience. The last thing is, what's the experience the consumer has when the power comes on? So think about this. You're sitting at a stoplight, you're going to go power. You don't want to have this jerk where you get dragged into traffic, so you don't want to have any of that. So having to make sure that you have things like torque sensors, which is, I know a technical term, but it senses the energy of the consumer and then applies power effortlessly so that you feel natural when you are writing. So those are the things in my opinion that are the basic safety systems. The next one I'm going to talk about is policy. So for instance, we as a policy, we believe it's important for young people to start riding their e-bikes when they're 16, not 12. We believe that's super important is to set a standard and a floor for experiences because these things are machines. They're going 25 mph, so you should have a person who rides them, who has somewhat of the… U.S. has a system that says 16-years-old, you get your driver's license; you should be able to ride a bike. However, only 66 percent of kids that age are getting your driver's license, and so they're all looking for some form of transportation. Many of them are selecting e-bikes. The last thing I will tell you on policy is that we encourage all of our dealers to be able to encourage customers to wear helmets. I think we lead by example. Laws don't require it. We think it's important, especially because a lot of the people who are just getting on e-bikes now haven't been cyclists for a while, and so you know what? Messing up your hair maybe is worth it to protect your brain. So those are what I think are the fundamental collection of items that I encompass under the safety umbrella.
BL: Bill, you talked about all the components that go into the safety of e-bikes. Onto the technology of building them. What's the difference between an e-bike and say just a normal regular bike?
BK: Oh, fantastic question. You're the first person asking that question. So when you think about it, a bicycle was designed for human energy, right? One unit of energy at a pedal transfers to the back. Well now you're coupling, and you're creating what's called a bio hybrid. So you are actually creating a parallel or a series system in which you're adding power to that same system, so it is… you have to think differently about the engineering of that system because you're multiplying that energy and that causes lots of fatigue on those various systems. There are a lot of manufacturers, again, not throwing stones, but just reality. A lot of manufacturers take a regular bike and put an electric motor on it. It's not designed for that, so I think that the thoughtfulness of taking a clean sheet of paper and designing in the system's requirements to be an electro mechanical system. We think that that's clearly important as you're thinking about that.
BL: Now when it comes to parts, I just saw that in New York City, the city is, as an initiative that allows delivery workers to trade in e-bikes with uncertified parts for certified bikes. What's the difference between the certified part and the uncertified?
BK: It's just the testing validation. So what certification does is it creates predictability about performance. So then it's just math, right? How many cycles? How many times? What's the probability analysis? Listen, I have been in battery factories in China. Lots of them out there in which the one end of the battery factory is a Chinese restaurant. The middle part of the factory is a wiring harness factory and the right side of the factory is a battery assembly factory. The same workers that work in the restaurant also spend time working in the factory to build the batteries. In and of itself, that's not terrible. However, there's completely different safety quality systems that put a battery together. A battery is contained energy; it's energy storage device, how fast that energy gets. That's the issue. If it gets unstore too fast, it starts a fire, and so UL CE certification provides borders for people to be able to manufacture, design and engineer. So those things in my opinion are critically important because again, the U.S. consumer wants to be safe. When you look at New York City, one of the drivers for this problem was the Federal Trade Commission providing importers of goods. It used to be that you had to get things inspected. If they were above $5, now it's $500 or $800. And so, what's happened is you don't have to get these e-bike batteries or these e-bikes inspected. You don't have to have them certified when they come to the U.S. So in a vacuum, what does entrepreneurs do? They push product in the marketplace to fill that void, so we think that's a huge issue, and we hope the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. government addresses that because we do think that safety is important. When you look at the fires that happen, the other thing that's out there is you have these workers, and not just the workers, but the people who service those e-bikes, and you have them taking apart those batteries and watching a YouTube video on how to replace the battery cell. Lord, let's not do that. That is not how these things work. When you look at the root cause of those fires, those are the root causes. I think New York is being very smart in getting those, what I call explosive devices out of those consumer's hands.
BL: So you talked about the battery, how long do e-bikes last without charge, and then how fast do they go?
BK: How long is a piece of string? So how fast do they go? So the U.S. regulations for Class 3 four e-bikes are 28 mph pedal assist. So that means you get an assist and 20 mph through a throttle. That is the upper level of a standard by which consumers can experience those products. So the range of the individual bike or the individual system depends on several things: the size of the battery, the energy capacity of the battery, but then it also depends upon how much usage is the rider using? Are they using just throttle or are they using pedal assist? How much assist are they using? So again, I can give you the performance envelope on our bikes. We have a bike that'll go 100 miles on a charge, right? So that's a long way on a charge. Our typical bikes go 40 to 50 miles on a charge, and we warranty our batteries for over three years. So again, it depends upon how many cycles you put the battery through. Same thing as your laptop, same thing as your cell phone. It's exactly the same technology. So they will last for quite a long time. I think the people who thought Tesla batteries were all going to expire after three years have been proven incorrect. These batteries will last a long time if properly cared for.
BL: Now, how does weather impact that, if at all?
BK: So energy storage and energy release definitely is affected by hot and cold weather. I have a Ford EF 150, and I can tell you in hot weather it definitely discharges faster than it does in cooler weather, but in really cold weather, it also discharges very quickly. It just, all of those things multiply in, and there's so many variables. It's hard to stick a particular number onto a particular variable. There's just lots of moving parts, but hot and cold weather definitely affect battery life. It also affects battery discharge and charge cycles and so again, it's really important for consumers to read the materials that comes with their device or with their machine to read those to get that specific battery manufacturer's recommendations.
BL: In terms of technology, and again, we know that technology is rapidly evolving and changing. How sort of e-bikes in your space changed just during the past few years?
BK: So in 2016, there was 60,000 e-bikes sold. In the U.S. last year, roughly 1.8. This year, 2.5 million. And what has happened is a lot of the technology up until now hasn't changed all that dramatically because what had happened during COVID, all the supply chains went to sleep because China and Asia and everybody else couldn't manufacture. The orders kept coming in, and so, as everybody came out of COVID, the flood of the same components pre-COVID that they were manufactured all came out of those factories. And so, we talk about generation one through three e-bikes. So right now, the state-of-the-art e-bikes are in what I call generation three seal transmission belt drives, super simple to operate, very intuitive. That's a generation three e-bike. Generation one e-bikes are what I call put together, a regular bike that you put an electric motor on and put a battery on. So there's a whole range of these things out there. The problem in the industry is there's so much components and so much old inventory sitting around that the manufacturers are having a very difficult time justifying investing in new technology.
BL: Speaking of new technology, how do you expect in the next few years the technology to change, if it will?
BK: So I can tell you from our perspective, we are investing heavily in technology to give the user an experience to give the user a differentiated experience. And so, one of the things that we think is important is for instance, C2 to VX, which is the ability for the bicycle to cascade a signal, so that people who are riding with GPS’ in their vehicle can actually see those bikes on the road. We think that's a game changer. Spoke technologies I think is leading the way on that. I think there's a bunch of different things coming. I think you're going to see turn signals. I think you're going to see active brake lights. I think you're going to see haptics inside of helmets, in which you're going to see blind spot detection coming out. Same things you're seeing in automotive. We see many of those things cascading intelligently into this class of vehicle. The other thing to keep in mind is there are two subsegments, major subsegments of the e-mobility market that I think are evolving. One is moving people, so that one mile ride that happens 30 million times a day, where an individual gets in a car 30 million times a day and rides a mile, it makes very little sense to drive a car a mile, so that's one transition. The second one is the last mile of delivery, and so we see cargo and delivery, and I see different technologies coming into those various vehicles depending upon the usage case that the owner or the consumer wants to use their bike for.
BL: Now, in terms of that technology that you're looking to add in terms of infrastructure and building and adding on to these e-bikes, is that going to make it a lot longer process to build them?
BK: I don't think so. With proper planning upfront, you can do things the right way just because you plan, so I don't think it takes longer. I don't think it costs a lot more money. I just think it takes some intelligence to think about things in advance. One of the things that we pride ourselves on is complete traceability of our bikes, so we put a van on all of our bikes, and we trace every component that goes in and every subsystem because we think that consumer is due that kind of responsibility, and we see that happening over time. These are going to move from commodity vehicles to purpose-built vehicles, which is I think going to be the biggest change for mobility.
BL: Bill, again, thank you so much for joining us today on the Infrastructure Technology Podcast.
BK: Thank you for having me.
GJ: And welcome back from that interview with Bill Klehm from Brandon Lewis. Brandon, that was a great interview. Really fascinating stuff. Bill Klehm really sounds like he has taken a thoughtful approach to e-bikes.
BL: Yeah, no, he is an expert on it, and I think he really told the difference of safety, and that this is not just a regular bike. You throw a motor on it and away you go. There's a lot of thought processing there, and I thought the most interesting, there's actually two things that I thought that were really interesting. My biggest takeaway from it is one of the things he talked about was still, and I know we talked about this when riding a regular bike, but the use of using a helmet and safety because, again, the potential dangers of using an e-bike. And one of the things that he talked about was if you're not old enough to operate a motor vehicle, a car, then you shouldn't be riding an e-bike. That they are not just toys.
GJ: What'd you think, Harlee?
HH: I thought it was interesting. Just like Brandon said about, he talked a lot about the technical aspects and manufacturing, so it's important to manufacture them in a way like cars, the EV part, just because if you don't, and you're just slapping an electrical system onto a bike, it's not going to have the same safety features that he's saying are important here. And another thing I thought was interesting, just to loop us back to my interview, is that we're seeing connected vehicle technology expand rapidly all the time. We're definitely going to have more of that on this podcast, and I think that it's interesting that it's now expanded to just regular cars on the road. It's expanded to big truck, so it'll be interesting if in the future, this type of technology or how fast this will happen, where it becomes part of almost every vehicle, including maybe these e-bikes. I mean, who knows? But it's interesting to think about.
GJ: The internet of things and just connectivity is so important to both of our industries, and they really lend a lot of comparison to each other. We're going to have smart roadways. We are going to have connected roadways, and the vehicles are going to be smart as well, and so I'm really glad. I'm really glad that we have this episode early on to really lay the foundation for the conversations we're going to have down the line. Personally, what I walked away from today with is e Bliss is just a great name. I've not even joking around! I've looked at that name on our sheet for a few weeks now, and I just go, that is one heck of a name! It's kind of like how 20 years ago, everything was like 0.0, and that's how you knew it was new. They put a 0.0 on it, then it was like techie, and
HH: Now it's e-e.
GJ: Brilliant. Brilliant.
BL: And the fact that most of the time it's lowercase as well.
GJ: Lowercase
BL: Narrowing stands out.
GJ: Yeah, the lowercase ‘e’ is just a brilliant marketing move.
HH: It's everywhere. It really is.
GJ: Yeah. Ok, well, if I ever become part cyborg, I'll just become e-Gavin.
HH: There you go.
GJ: Alright, that was pretty corny. Alright, well that does it for today's episode of the Infrastructure Technology Podcast. I'm Gavin Jenkins, senior managing editor of Roads and Bridges. And with me as always is Harlee Hewitt, associate editor of Construction Equipment and Roads and Bridges, and Brandon Lewis, the associate editor of Mass Transit. Thanks you two for two great interviews.
