Smarter Cars

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SFMTA - Hank Willson, Parking and Curb Management Jun 02, 2019

Show notes

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.

rideOS - CTO Chris Blumenberg May 28, 2019

Show notes

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.

Lauren Mattern - Nelson\Nygaard - How Parking Policy Impacts Cities May 21, 2019

Show notes

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.

Coord - CTO Jacob Baskin May 06, 2019

Show notes

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.

Harry Campbell - The Rideshare Guy Apr 25, 2019

Show notes

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.

Perceptive Automata - Sam Anthony Mar 22, 2019

Show notes

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.

Aeye - President Blair LaCorte Mar 15, 2019

Show notes

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.

DeepScale - CEO Forrest Iandola Mar 08, 2019

Show notes

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.

Talking Micromobility with Hong Quan of Karmic Bikes Feb 28, 2019

Show notes

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.

TuSimple - Robert Brown Feb 23, 2019

Show notes

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.

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