Farenthold Calls for Federal Interoperability Standards on Transportation Communications Technology
Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, said he's backing the newest iteration of the Surface Transportation Reauthorization (STR) Act to include provisions aimed at jump-starting new U.S. innovation in the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) in highway travel and other transportation systems. The House was set Tuesday to vote on a two-month extension (HR-2353) of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act, the current authorization of federal highway and other surface transportation programs. The extension is meant to be a stop-gap while the House irons out details of a hoped-for bipartisan compromise on reauthorization, Farenthold said during an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation event. The House hadn't voted on the extension by our deadline.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
The federal government “should be looking” to its light-touch approach to fostering development of the Internet as a model for fostering development of ICT in the transportation sector, Farenthold said. A light-touch approach in this case should at minimum include interoperability standards for communication between existing transportation ICT technologies, he said. “It's criminal that my toll tag in Texas isn't compatible with EZ-Pass,” which collects tolls on mid-Atlantic highways, he said. Farenthold also backed standards related to vehicle-to-vehicle communications and transmitting data related to mass transit systems.
The ITIF backed inclusion of a broad range of ICT-related policy provisions in the STR bill, including a mandate for the allocation of at least 5 percent of annual Highway Trust Fund funding for states to implement digital and intelligent transportation systems (ITS) projects, in a report released Tuesday. ITIF urged Congress to create a “Race to the Digital Top” competition that would award funding for six communities to implement communitywide ITS projects. ITIF also urged the Department of Transportation to create an organization to facilitate discussion of ITS policies like autonomous vehicle regulations so states don't inadvertently “lock in” to non-interoperable technologies.
Cisco Senior Director-Government Affairs Mary Brown said she agreed with Farenthold that the federal government shouldn't be looking to a “top-down” model for fostering ITS technologies, saying the government should allow innovation to “bubble up.” New ITS developments could build off existing technologies, such as existing smart parking apps eventually allowing for technologies that allow a city to charge “dynamic” prices for parking in different areas, Brown said.
Toyota believes the federal government should take a "leadership" role in fostering U.S. ITS technology developments, said Director-Technology and Innovation Policy Hilary Cain. Japan is one of the nations that is “light-years ahead” of the U.S. in ITS technology development, which has allowed Toyota to be a leading user of ITS technologies in that country, Cain said. The U.S. faces federal funding problems that could continue to hamper ITS technology development in the U.S., though many companies in the private sector are willing to collaborate on enhancing ITS research and development, Cain said.