Stage is set for ITS America Annual Meeting

2Internal497820oLinkInternal<span class="oLinkInternal"><span class="oLinkInternal">RSS</span></span>Events (Diary)false/rss/events/truefalse%>560 ITS America has announced that on Monday it will hold a key discussion event concerning intelligent transportation and its role in helping to solve America’s infrastructure crisis with national leaders including Ursula Burns, chairman and CEO of 4186 Xerox; Chris Vein, deputy White House chief technology officer; Robert Brown, 278 Ford Motor Company’s VP of sustainability, environment and safety engineering; and Martin Thall, 1984 Verizon’s VP - telematics. This is just one of numerous sessions examining ways to bring innovation to the nation’s transportation system that will take place during ITS America’s Annual Meeting & Exposition being held from 21-23 May, 2012, in National Harbor, MD, just outside Washington DC.

More than 2,000 of the nation’s transportation and technology leaders will gather at the three day event entitled, “Smart Transportation: A Future We Can Afford.” It will focus on affordable strategies to create smart cities and communities that are safer, cleaner, more affordable and less congested. Other key speakers will include:

• John Porcari, deputy secretary, 324 US Department of Transportation
  

• Arun Majumdar, acting under secretary, US Department of Energy
  

• Deborah Hersman, chairman, 5628 National Transportation Safety Board

• David Strickland, administrator, 834 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

• Greg Winfree, acting administrator, 321 Research and Innovative Technology Administration

• Beverley K. Swaim-Staley, secretary, 5629 Maryland Department of Transportation

• Sean Connaughton, secretary, 1747 Virginia Department of Transportation

• James Oberstar, former chairman, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee

“This is going to be one of the most dynamic events we’ve ever been involved in,” said Scott Belcher, president and CEO of ITS America. “We’ll be in the nation’s capital with thousands of transportation innovators and policymakers, all debating the legacy that we’re leaving for our kids. Intelligent transportation provides low-cost solutions that create good jobs, help solve critical transportation challenges, and will improve our nation’s economic competitiveness.”

In addition to the featured speakers, the annual meeting will offer more than 60 sessions and provide attendees with an array of tailored session tracks focused on topics including safety, sustainability, transportation management and commercial vehicles, among others. The event will also showcase the significant use of ITS deployments in the Washington Metropolitan area. The meeting will also hold congressional fact finding sessions with ITS America members providing testimony on topics ranging from the current surface transportation reauthorization bill to congestion management and connected vehicles as well as other issues affecting the industry. The venue will also host a US DOT “Connected Vehicle” demonstration in collaboration with a host of private sector companies including Ford, 948 General Motors and 1686 Toyota.

Other significant events include a targeted day for emergency responders, roundtables for investors and the media, as well as discussions on the future of technology with the US DOT and 2023 Federal Transit Administration.