Testimony of Alain Kornhauser on NJ Assembly Bill 5681
Before the NJ Assembly Transportation Committee
Establishes permitting process for testing highly automated vehicles in NJ; establishes Highly Automated Vehicle Interagency Advisory Committee
Alain L. Kornhauser, PhD
Professor, Operations Research & Financial Engineering,
Faculty Chair, Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering (PAVE)
Princeton University
December 9, 2021, Trenton, New Jersey
Thank you for allowing me to present this testimony this morning.
My name is Alain Kornhauser, I am here today to urge you to support Assembly Bill No. 5681 focused on
Establishing a permitting process for testing highly automated vehicles in NJ, and
Establishing a Highly Automated Vehicle Interagency Advisory Committee
I moreover wish to urge you to go beyond this legislation to ensure that as soon as such highly automated vehicles have sufficiently demonstrated their safety, they can begin to deliver to us in New Jersey the societal benefits that can readily be derived from their deployment as “Safe, Equitable, Affordable, Sustainable High-quality Mobility” systems in appropriate jurisdictions throughout the State.
I am going to spare you a recitation of my credentials, suffice it to say that I am in my 50th year as a professor at Princeton University focused on the technology and policy of automated and intelligent transport systems. I have been privileged to testify before NJ Legislative committees a couple of times previously on this subject matter[1], [2], honored to serve on the New Jersey Advanced Autonomous Vehicle Task Force, and serve jointly with Senator-elect Zwicker on the New Jersey Commission on Science, Information & Technology. Finally, my first Trenton Transit Study report focused on using automation to improve mobility for everyone in Trenton is dated March, 1975.
It has been a very long journey that is finally becoming substantive.
With respect to this pending legislation focused on designating New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle Commission (MVC) as the lead enabling entity on the testing of highly-automated road vehicles and the creation of a public advisory committee to assist MVC in its role as enabler of testing, but also to allow New Jersey to benefit from the testing by learning the scope and limitations of the tested technologies…. This legislation is critically important!
First, it clearly defines its terminology which is abundantly necessary in this field. It seems as if everyone wants to use their own words to describe this form of mobility. This bill clearly and succinctly defines “what we will call what” in New Jersey.
Next this bill clearly structures the testing of this advanced form of surface transportation focused on using the tested technology, rather than humans, to safely move people as well as goods throughout precisely designated Operational Design Domains in New Jersey.
This bill also enables the gathering of data and information that will allow us in New Jersey to determine which tested technology is “safe enough” to allow it to be deployed to serve the traveling public and/or the delivery of goods “when and where” in New Jersey.
But, it is only through the deployment of this mobility can New Jersey begin to fundamentally benefit from this technology.
To the issue of Deployment, on Monday, December 6, 2021 … and I quote…
“Governor Phil Murphy and New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) Commissioner Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti today announced a Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEI) for the Trenton Mobility & Opportunity: Vehicles Equity System (MOVES) Project. Trenton MOVES will act to provide safe, equitable, affordable, and sustainable high-quality mobility through the deployment of 100 Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) throughout the state capital. This on-demand automated transit system will serve 90,000 residents of Trenton. “[3]
Its focus to “Create the First Highly Automated Vehicle Based Urban Transit System in America” is modest because it is actually the first time that an elected leader has explicitly announced the intention to create such a mobility system, anywhere in the world.
Not only does this deployment initiative have the enthusiastic support of the Governor, but also that of the Mayor of Trenton and institutions throughout Trenton all the way up to individual activity centers, neighborhoods and housing units who will be the beneficiaries of this vision to deploy safe, equitable, affordable, and sustainable high-quality mobility.
I encourage you to create and enact legislation that will allow this world-leading deployment initiative to be successful in Trenton and enable it to be replicated throughout New Jersey, the Region, the Nation and the World.
What Trenton Deploys, The World Employs.
Thank you.
Alain Kornhauser, December 9, 2021
[1] Testimony on Senate, No 734, Oct. 27, 2014
[2] Testimony on Senate, No 734, Dec. 08, 2014
[3] https://nj.gov/governor/news/news/562021/approved/20211206b.shtml
