Shift Magazine - October 7, 2019 - 7

manager in Hamburg.
And municipalities' motives vary. For
Detroit, Project Kinetic could help low-income residents get to and from jobs. For
Dublin, partnering with Denso gives the
city "an excellent opportunity to participate in advanced technology and testing
that otherwise wouldn't have been possible," said Megan O'Callaghan, public
works director. "We want to be on the
leading cusp of innovation."

6. PROTECT PRIVACY

Bedrock's Bopp noted, "I don't want my
competitors to have my data. And the
public has concerns: How do you protect
their personal data? And entities want
to monetize the data. You have to work
through those things."

7. INVOLVE SCHOOLS

Ohio State University is working with
Denso and Dublin, and so are two public
high schools - one a science, technology, engineering and math magnet - in
the research zone.
"The public responds well to involving
schools, and we've worked with them
in the past," said D.J. Smith, director of
strategy at Denso. High schoolers have

become involved in pitching the pilot in
various forums, and the project is using
an OSU graduate student.

8. EXPECT CHALLENGES

"Patience is a virtue in this space," Smith
said. "Cities may not move at the speed
that some companies like." Mark de la
Vergne, Detroit's chief of mobility innovation, conceded that "doing things new is
hard, especially in government."
For instance, Project Kinetic wanted
Detroit to buy some shuttle buses for one
program, but de la Vergne said "legal and
liability" concerns meant the procurement still wasn't complete as of August,
20 months after the idea was hatched.

9. RUN OVER SPEED BUMPS

"Unbanked" residents in urban areas are
a big problem for mobility companies
because they don't have credit cards that
these systems depend on for payment.
"We could have spent six more months
trying to figure that out before launching" a car-sharing test in a low-income
area, said Alex Keros, smart cities chief
at GM's Urban Mobility/Maven. "But we
said, 'Let's get this going and see how
we can react in the middle of it.' "

10. SELL IT

Denso and Dublin are planning "some
events that will give residents hands-on
experience," Smith said, to "educate
and communicate the goals of the project. Being transparent about what you're
trying to accomplish may make the public
more receptive."
Thomas Walbrun, head of self-driving
vehicles for Siemens Mobility, said partnerships "must have a communications
and marketing campaign to make the
entire thing more convenient and understandable, and to smoothly prepare passengers and customers for the transformation. If you lose people from the very
beginning, you have a problem." n

These
partnerships
are inevitable
and absolutely
indispensable
to the future of
transportation.

Rick Walawender, leader of
AV practice, Miller Canfield

october 2019 * shift

Shift Magazine - October 7, 2019

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