Smarter Cars

In the final episode of Season 4, we interview Sam Baker, co-founder and COO of Wunder Mobility, a company which provides technology to build and scale shared mobility services worldwide. We discuss Wunder Mobility’s business in Europe, its expansion to the US, the role of cities in encouraging multi-modal transport and how Wunder is like the AWS of mobility, providing solutions out of the box for companies looking to digitize assets and provide shared mobility services from car sharing to ride sharing to micromobility.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support

In this episode, we interview Colin Roche, co-founder and CEO of Swiftmile. Swiftmile is a company that makes and deploys charging stations in cities for micromobility devices such as electric scooters and bikes. We discuss how Swiftmile deploys in cities on public and private land, its partnerships with hotels and scooter companies to provide mobility hubs, how their unattended solar-powered charge systems for shared light electric vehicles work, future developments for autonomous scooters, and the company’s goal to reduce car traffic and city congestion in our daily lives. We also discuss Swiftmile’s new charging stations with screens for transit info, PSAs and ads unveiled this year at CES. You can find more about Swiftmile at https://swiftmile.com/about.html#team --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support

Today we talk with Jeffrey Tumlin, the new head of San Francisco's transportation agency, the SFMTA, about the challenges of managing city transportation needs as the city grows and the streets don't get any bigger. We discuss managing the streets for the public good, reducing traffic with better road geometry, how to improve public transit for riders, ways to increase safety with better infrastructure for micromobility and active modes, uses of the curb and the declining role of street parking, and how to use policy levers to promote equity.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support

In this episode, we talk with Michael Granoff, Managing Partner at Maniv Mobility, for a year-end wrap on the transportation landscape from a venture capital perspective. We discuss his firm’s investments and focus, the future of transportation in cities, the iteration of micromobility form factors and the need for cities to include all modes in their planning, from public transit to ride hail to micromobility solutions. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support

In this episode, we interview Jake Sion, the Chief Operating Officer of Transit. We discuss Transit’s business, the challenges of gathering real time data in cities and how cities can encourage multi-modal transportation in lieu of private car trips. Transit is an app that allows you to locate, book, and pay for public transit, car share, ride share and micromobility trips all in one app. Transit is live in over 200 cities, primarily in North America. You can find more information about Transit here: https://transitapp.com/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support

Today we're talking with Drew Gray, CTO at Voyage, to do a deep dive on the state of deep learning in autonomous vehicle development and to discuss Deepdrive, a new Voyage project to advance research into the use of reinforcement and end to end learning for AVs. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support

In this episode, we interview Jordan Coleman, General Counsel of Kodiak Robotics, about Kodiak’s autonomous trucking business, the key issues around safety and autonomy, and policy/regulatory challenges the industry faces. Kodiak believes long-haul trucking is primed for autonomous technology. Highway driving is more structured and predictable than urban driving. This means there are fewer decisions for drivers to make and a better fit for autonomous vehicles. Kodiak is building an autonomous trucking business and began road testing and making commercial deliveries in Texas in 2019. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support

Today we talk with Giovanni Circella, Director of the Three Revolutions Future of Mobility Program at UC Davis. We discuss his research on adoption of shared mobility services, like Uber/Lyft and micromobility, in California and their impact on car ownership and public transit use. We discuss his recent Panel Study with the National Center for Sustainable Transportation and further research to be completed soon. You can find more information about the study here: https://ncst.ucdavis.edu/research-product/panel-study-emerging-transportation-technologies-and-trends-california-phase-2 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support

In this episode, we talk with transportation entrepreneur Robin Chase, the co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar. We have a wide-ranging discussion on the state of transportation in cities today, the impact of new mobility services and the policies cities should adopt to encourage a multi-modal future. You can learn more about Robin’s work here: www.robinchase.orgFor more on the Shared Mobility Principles for Livable Cities, please visit: https://www.sharedmobilityprinciples.org/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support

Today we interview SF Supervisor Matt Haney. He is a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, representing District 6 (Tenderloin, Civic Center, Mid-Market, SOMA, Yerba Buena, Rincon Hill, South Beach, Mission Bay, Treasure Island). Supervisor Haney is a past Commissioner and past President and Vice President of the San Francisco Board of Education.  We have a wide-ranging discussion about transportation issues facing cities, including the challenges of incorporating new mobility services and making room on our streets for multi-modal transportation. We talk about allocation of space for street parking versus other curb uses such as drop off and pick up zones, the creation of new protected lanes for micromobility, the scooter permit program and the need for greater numbers of bikes and scooters in the city, and San Francisco’s transit system. Supervisor Haney is a thought leader in the transportation space and his district is ground zero for managing the challenges and benefits of new mobility s

Today we’re talking about how to manage the curb and parking in this age of ridehailing services, micromobility, Amazon and food deliveries, and autonomous vehicles. Our guest is Hank Willson, Policy Manager, in Parking and Curb Management for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. We discuss all the ways that cities can manage available space in the right of way, how to measure curb productivity and make space for new modes of travel including TNC pick ups/drop offs, local food delivery services, freight delivery, and electric bikes and scooters. The SFMTA has faced these issues earlier than many cities as SF is ground zero for innovation in new transportation modes.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support

In this episode, we talk with Chris Blumenberg, co-founder and CTO of rideOS. We discuss the rideOS platform which provides a broad set of products and services that can be used as building blocks for developing on-demand services, including both autonomous and human driven vehicles. The rideOS products operate in real-time through the cloud and include autonomous vehicle routing, estimated time of arrival calculations, dispatch, supply positioning, multi-rider trip planning and dashboards. We discuss the complex computer science problems involved in ride routing algorithms, the policy issues around minimizing traffic for TNC trips in cities, and how the issues might differ for autonomous vehicles and for pooled trips. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support

In this episode, we talk with Lauren Mattern, a principal at Nelson/Nygaard, about parking policy and how it impacts cities. We discuss street parking and demand responsive pricing, including her work at the SFMTA on the innovative SFpark program. Lauren previously served as Manager of Parking Policy and Technology at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, helping bring SFpark, a new type of parking and demand management system, to life. The pioneering $42M project changed the parking management field, successfully reducing circling and emissions in pilot areas. We also discuss off-street parking requirements, or minimums, and how they affect urban design, housing supply and the cost of many goods and services in cities. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support

The curb is in high demand with TNCs picking up and dropping off passengers, delivery companies pulling over to deliver food, groceries and e-commerce items, and micromobility companies looking to park scooters and bikes. In this episode, we talk with Coord cofounder and CTO Jacob Baskin about how the company is mapping all of the curbs in cities to provide a digital database and API to help cities and companies better utilize curb space. Coord collects data about each section of curb and the regulations and use restrictions that define each curb so cities can create and enforce rules and companies can better understand where and how they can use the curb. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support

Today we're talking with Harry Campbell, founder of the Rideshare Guy blog and podcast, and the author of The Rideshare Guide: Everything You Need to Know about Driving for Uber, Lyft, and Other Ridesharing Companies.  We have a wide-ranging conversation about driving for Uber and Lyft, how the interests differ for drivers, consumers, companies and cities, the impact of rideshare services on cities, issues around traffic and congestion, the possible impact of autonomous fleets, and his views on various policy initiatives and solutions.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support

In this episode, we talk with Sam Anthony, the CTO and co-founder of Perceptive Automata, a company that makes software to help autonomous vehicles understand human behavior. We discuss why it is such a hard problem for autonomous vehicles to understand human intention and behavior, safety standards and testing for autonomous vehicles, Perceptive Automata’s business, how Perceptive Automata’s software works in ADAS and AV systems, how the algorithms are trained, and the state of autonomous vehicle development.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support

Today we’re discussing Lidar and perception systems with Blair LaCorte, President of Aeye. We discuss Aeye’s technology and business, how Aeye created its products to mimic human perception, and how its products fuse 2D cameras with 3D Lidar to create a different approach to perception sensors for autonomous vehicles.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support

In this episode, we interview Forrest Iandola, the CEO of DeepScale, about vision and perception software using deep neural nets. We discuss DeepScale’s business, how it works with the rest of the autonomous vehicle technology stack, the state of autonomous vehicle software today and the challenges ahead.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support

Today we're talking about micromobility with local startup founder Hong Quan of Karmic Bikes. We discuss electric bikes, scooters and other form factors, the definition of micromobility, use cases and business models and city infrastructure. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support

We discuss autonomous trucking with Robert Brown, Director of Public Affairs at TuSimple. We cover the technology used by TuSimple in its autonomous trucks, its current operations which include hauling loads for paying customers in Arizona, and some of the policy issues facing the autonomous trucking industry.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support