Technology will be the main driver taking the Pennsylvania Turnpike well into the future as one of the Commonwealth's most vital transportation routes.
Today, we will welcome Bob Taylor, CTO of the PA Turnpike Commission (PTC), to detail key technologies being deployed to make the Turnpike safer and more efficient.
Bob oversees Information Technology at the PTC and is responsible for the use of technology and innovation to improve safety and mobility, as well as to enable and modernize business operations.
With a $426 million budget and more than 1,800 employees, the PTC also operates the James E. Ross Highway, Amos K. Hutchinson Bypass, Mon/Fayette Expressway and Pittsburgh's Southern Beltway, the latter two of which are currently under construction.
Transcription:
Good afternoon, everyone. Happy Thursday. This is Audrey Russo, President and CEO of the Pittsburgh Technology Council. And in a few moments we are going to have, I know a packed conversation with Bob Taylor, CTO of the PA Turnpike commission. And but before I bring him up, I would like to just have just remind everyone that we have muted your microphones. And we've done that on purpose, and that we have lots of opportunities inside the chat. We're going to be packed with information. Today, I'm really psyched to have a conversation with Bob. Jonathan Kersting is with us today, as he is always he's vice president of all things, media and marketing for the Pittsburgh Technology Council. And he brings a lot of passion to the work around storytelling and marketing for all companies that are members of ours in the region. So really appreciate the legacy of having Jonathan with us, but also doing these events each and every day. sort of crazy that I think we're on like our two, almost 200 and 50th. daily conversations. And I think we're packed for the rest of April with lots of really interesting people who are doing things to, to change the world, change the region and make almost everything that we do have a better life. And we're pretty excited by it by leveraging information. So here we go. We have Huntington bank, thanking them each and every day for the work and the leadership that they do in our region and supporting business tech, and their civic engagement. And then we also have 40 by 80. That is the longitude and latitude of Pittsburgh. And that is the wholly owned subsidiary of the Pittsburgh tech Council. That's our charitable arm. And we do lots of interesting things there. And soon we're going to be hearing more about our apprenti program. So without further ado, I am welcoming Bob Taylor, to the forefront. And welcome. Thank you so much, Bob, I'm really thrilled. I always like to ask people how they're doing and a little bit about themselves. Hopefully, you've been safe and sound and obviously working because I know the world is very, very busy in your space. We're gonna pack some things in. So just a few things. So you are actually a native sort of East Ender in Pittsburgh, right?
So is born Williamsburg. I grew up a little bit in swissvale and now moved to ligonier when I was younger, and now I live in Harrisburg, pa
Yep. So it's great. And your Penn
State grad, Penn State grad, not a pit fan. But you know, love everything else about Pittsburgh. Penguins, Steelers, and pirates, but not a pit fan.
Like the way he says okay, it's clear, we get it. What did you get a degree in.
So mighty. So engineer by background, my career careers take a interesting twist, starting so engineering got into traffic engineering, actually, with my good friend, Paul Carlson, who's on the call, I think he got me through college, and then really got into intelligent transportation systems. And that led to technology overall.
So, you know, before we really before we talk about tech and innovation, and the turnpike commission, can you can you sort of set the stage in terms of what the turnpike Commission does?
Yeah, so there's a little bit about the turnpike is, you know, we were actually created in 1940. Opened in 1940. It's amazing to think that, you know, we built 160 miles in 20 months. So, you know, that's, that's crazy to think of today, I think back then, we had about 2 million vehicles per year. You know, now we're up to 552 miles, and we actually have over 200 million vehicles a year now. So yeah, so it's crazy, you know, obviously, you know, we've gone from fair collection to, you know, easy passed to toll by plate. So, you know, we're changing the way we generate or take on tools to make it more efficient, to improve things and we're looking at other technologies to we're looking at mobile solutions to really take on payments. Also looking at toll by car, as we get into connected autonomous vehicles, that's something that's going to be coming. So definitely, we're transforming, but yeah, definitely to think of us, you know, we were the first interstate highway in the country by about 16 years. So kind of neat style. But
so your role as Chief Technology Officer,
is that correct? That's correct. Yep.
And so is this a new role?
Yeah, so I
person in this role.
We changed the title from CIO, the CTO, I was blessed to be asked to serve in this capacity about four years ago. I had prior to that I was the manager of Traffic Operations. I kind of helped that room behind me, which is what that room Really manages our traffic incidents, traveler information program, all that kind of good stuff. So we made great strides there. I'm now hoping to oversee the overall technology program at the turnpike. And so
as CTO Chief Technology Officer, are there some specific things about your role and responsibility that you think it's important for us to know?
Boy, you know, really, it's pretty simple. My job is to make sure we get the right technology in place to support our customers from a safety and mobility standpoint, but also to support the business. So, you know, it's exciting to talk about connected and automated and electric vehicles. But you know, frankly, we're an 80 year old business as well, too. So we're doing things internally to improve and be ready for the future, whether that's automating process or looking at how we work with vendors, all those things. So my job is just to improve the business. You know, we've got a great technology team, we've got a great innovation, culture. You know, that's one thing I love about the turnpike is, you know, we're proud to try to innovate so.
And so the difference between being the CIO and the CTO?
I don't know.
Okay, that's all good. So let's talk about the technology operations and some of the major projects. Let's Let's start with there.
Yes. So, this might take a few minutes, you know, fine, I'll start with that room behind me. You know, it's something I'm proud of, you know, we really, you know, responded, you know, we, we combined procedures, training and technology to really improve things, we've reduced our incident response times down by about 20%, over the last few years through that combination. What what excited me about that, that means, you know, we save lives, and people can keep moving on the turnpike. So that's, that's great. You know, just from some of the things we've done, from a technology standpoint, it as intelligent transportation systems, we've installed more than 170, DMS, signs, dynamic message signs, just to inform the motors, you know, if we have a detour, if there's a major accident, weather events, that type of things, we've also have about 100 cameras. And what's really cool, what we're doing with our cameras now is video analytics. So we're actually detecting roadway drivers, which is, you know, always a catastrophic crash, when that happens. vehicles that are stopped, we get alerts for that, so we can go help them. And even pedestrians, we get some pedestrians walking on the road, you know, we like that as well, too. So that's really cool. We're really using data, we were one of the first ways partners. And we assume a lot of data, we share a lot of data, we consume data from waves, Google and Rex AccuWeather, several others, and we have some tools that really help us be more situational situationally aware. And one thing we see is that you ways incidents are reported about four minutes before 911 call. So by taking on that feed, and really being aware of it, you were responding more quickly. On the other side, we're also equipping our vehicles with a thing called Hoss alerts, that really sends a ways alert into the app. So when we have vehicle stopped on the road for emergency services, somebody using waise gets an alert about that. So that's, that's great for improving safety of our employees or an over customer. So and there's a couple of things, you know, we've also put a new traffic management system. And what's really awesome about that is, you know, it used to take a few years ago, with all 170 signs, if we had an incident or a detour, it would take up to 40 minutes to activate all the signs now what we have what we call incident response plans. And it's really you press the easy button, and it activates all the sides. So, you know, imagine if your customer and there's major crash, we don't wait 40 minutes to tell you, we want to tell you right away. So we all have that all sort of, you know, pre canned, and ready to go when there's an incident on the road. So that's really exciting stuff. You know, the other thing that we're focusing a lot on is really customer service. You know, our CEO Mark content, he challenges us not to be like New Jersey toys. And here Ohio Turnpike wants us to be like Zappos or Amazon and offer premium customer service. We know we charge you to ride a road. So we need to be great in customer service. So there's an RFP on the street right now. Some of the people on the call may want to look at that to really provide a unified back office system and, you know, yeah, so historically, we've been in sort of the call us or write us sort of mode from a customer service standpoint. We want to get beyond that. We want to get to the point if you want to chat with us if you want to social message us. We want to meet you on your terms and coordinate with you So, we think through that project that we
find out where can we find out information about that RFP?
So Chris, you will post it in the chat, but it's on our website under the with a PA Turnpike. Yeah. So that's good. I'm sorry.
No, that's okay. Let's get back to waves real quick. How did that relationship start? Ah,
it was out of luck. Actually. A professional friend of mine mentioned that they were starting with a call to connected citizens program. And we we reached out right away, and I think we're the 10th partner, and they now have 2000 partners. So we were fortunate to get in on the forefront back in 2014. It's been, it's been good, you know, again, we share information with them, they give to us, we actually have, if anybody's familiar with ways, the map is actually crowdsourced, isn't it? And they have what they call map, champs and Global Map editors. And actually, we have some of the people in this room who are certified to do that. So they they enter stuff, and in ways, whether it's a closure, or a change in geometry, all those kinds of things. So it's been a good partnership.
Well, that's really cool. We're gonna have to follow up about ways in related stuff offline. But that's terrific. Thank you for that in that use case. So, you know, the commission, I know, is particularly interested in bringing in diverse suppliers. So I think I mean, I know you have a history of working in ways to engage the community and in many, much of your work, but don't you have something coming up? That is just another iteration of engagement of diverse suppliers?
Yeah, yeah. First, you know, thanks for having us here. Today, we will definitely want to promote what we're calling meet, meet Turnpike tech, it's next Tuesday at 130. Chrissy will post information about that in the chat. But you know, we're looking for new partners, you know, and, you know, one thing I've learned from the pandemic is, you know, we can reach out to more people in the virtual environment. So we're trying to expand the net, to get, you know, we have some great existing partners, but we want to find new, innovative and diverse partners to work with us moving ahead as well, too.
And so do you work with startups at all? Is there some like threshold in terms of what you're interested in and types of companies in terms of their stature? Yeah, well, I
mean, so there's a couple things there, we do have some cooperative agreements that we use, like a GSA, or Texas, it's called a Texas, Dir, where we can do some quick things was, say, a smaller firm, if they're certified, there are thresholds that were allowed the sole source, but there is obviously scrutiny on that from being on the public side. Right. And, you know, it's, you know, most of our partners to, you know, when they see an opportunity to add a good partner, to their team, they'll do that as well, too. So, there are ways and, you know, I mentioned to you before, too, we have what we call the innovation Council, yes, you know, we love business, business partners, and potential partners to bring us innovative ideas. So, that group meets every two months, it's every department in the turnpike is representative. And we have a lot of talks about technology, business process, engineering, you know, all kinds of things get discussed in that group. So I encourage everybody, if they have an innovative, innovative idea to let me know, we try to bring you to that group as well.
Okay. And so we'll put info on connecting with you and your team as well, in the chat. And when we share this, this recording, so what about, um, let's talk about the cashless system by the end of the year, and talk about that project.
Yeah. So, you know, one of the unfortunate things about the pandemic is, you know, we did accelerate our cashless program. You know, we were ready from a technology standpoint to do that, you know, we felt like from the safety of the customers with what was going on, you know, it was necessary to move ahead. So we have caches totally in place. The next evolution, what you're going to see is actually, the interchanges you see them today are going to kind of transform over the next few years. And and we're going to go to what we call open road tolling. And it's first going to happen in the east, from basically writing to Philadelphia, in what you'll see is that those toll plazas disappear and that that the tolling equipment will actually be on the main road. So we're gonna do that in 2024 in the east, depending on what happens with our approval or capital program in two weeks. In the West, that's probably going to happen by 2026. So again, the interchanges as you know in the West are going to change in the next few years. So beyond that, we're also looking at other mechanisms to to really work with our customers. We know not everybody wants to have an easy pass. We know not everybody likes the hassle of getting out. pulled by plate and voicemail to them. So we're looking at Mobile caching solutions, other technologies that really provide a variety of means for our customers to pay, you know, to ride our road. So,
so how was traffic on the turnpike during COVID?
Well, it's been a, you know, interesting journey. So what we've seen, early on about this time, last year, we saw a traffic dip, but to about 70 65%, versus what it normally is, you know, towards the tail end of the year, you know, really commercial traffic came back. And it's pretty much back to the pre pandemic levels, which is good for all of us who rely on freight, where we see vehicular traffic, it's still down anywhere from 15 to 25% per day, some of that's dependent on what's going on, you know, it's weather dependent, I'm sure with the snow happening, or the past two days, whether the traffic is down a bit. We don't think that traffic is going to come back for quite some time, you know, and that's not just us, I think, you know, globally, that's what we're seeing is traffic is down about 20%. You know, I think every organizations is debating what's the future of work? Do we bring people back? Do we give them some option to work remotely? Right, but it's gonna have a long term impact on us for sure.
But you know, those numbers are actually better than airport numbers. So, you know, in terms of reduction, airports drop to, you know, near no activity, and people driving still. Yeah, I
think that's an interesting thought, you know, I, me personally, you know, I'm probably more apt to go to the beach for vacation this year than to fly. I think that might be part of that.
So let's let's then talk about, they might not be aware of the study and your engagement in one of my favorite things, which is the Hyperloop. Yeah, tell us about that. Yeah, sure. To be able to get to Chicago and, and a half hour,
be very great. If I was trying to get to a penguins game, I could be there in like, five minutes. But, you know, so we were charged, but by the house to take a look at Hyperloop. There's really three Hyperloop studies going on. There's two studies looking to connect Chicago to Pittsburgh, one going through Cleveland, the other one going through Columbus. So there's sort of these competing studies, they're sort of driven somewhat by Virgin and htt, we were tasked to do was take an independent walk. And, you know, in our assessment was like any good government study, it was inconclusive, and what we what we found, but what we did find is, you know, the technical and financial feasibility is maturing, it's maybe not ready to be built just yet. But, you know, really, what we found, too, was, you know, the impact to Pennsylvania, if it gets built elsewhere. So, let's say Hyperloop happens, it goes through New York or south of us that the impact of our economy can be devastating for the Pennsylvania Turnpike, half of our revenues for freight. So if all that goes via Hyperloop, through Maryland, West Virginia, Maryland, that's a big deal. So, you know, we're trying to be part of the conversation, you know, definitely in Pittsburgh, especially, you know, with the Three, two studies going on connecting to Pittsburgh, right, but also what's going on in West Virginia with, you know, the virgin test center being awarded, Virginia. So it's something that we're staying part of the conversation, we have every two to three months, we check in with the three major players. Besides htt. And virgin, we talked to Tran transport, which is out of Canada as well, too. So I think, you know, a lot of people compare it to high speed rail. And it's definitely there's some comparisons, but it's different to I mean, the on demand component of it, the freight component of it is not the same as those of us who grew up in Pittsburgh during the High Speed Rail conversations, you know, some of the things that happen with that, but, you know, I think there is a technical and financial feasibility of it is there's not quite ready to, to move ahead right now.
So, you know, this whole thing of connected infrastructure, autonomous vehicles, you know, Evie V's, etc, and all the ubiquitousness of what we're all trying to achieve. We talked a little bit about locomotion before, the you know, we started the show today. So you know, the world of autonomous trucks, etc. You know, how is the turnpike preparing for all these changes? Yeah,
we're trying to be part of the conversation. It's, it's funny, you talk about Penn State, and, you know, I remember hearing about autonomous vehicles back in 1992. When I said that'll never happen. And, you know, here we are, you know, we've kind of seen that really confluence of you know, the auto manual Factors really, you know, automation and really telecommute telecommunications and data gather, you know, obviously Pittsburgh with Carnegie Mellon and all the, you know, private ventures in Pittsburgh has been a huge part of that. So, you know, we're trying to prepare the best we can, you know, you know, in the connected space, you know, we've have what we call a connected vehicle lab where you prior to the proposed rulemaking, we were starting to explore and understand dsrc Technologies. So we actually had connected devices on the road, talking to vehicles, they weren't having much of a conversation, but we were exchanging data, the vehicles, autonomous, you know, you mentioned that the locomotion demo that we just did between Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan in for us, it's really understanding, do we have the right pavement markings? You know, what does the autonomous vehicle need to run on a road? So, you know, we're looking at those types of things. Really, I think in the near term, you know, wash certification is going to be really the thing that is accelerated most, especially with what's kind of proposed an infrastructure bill. So we are deploying charging stations right now. All right. Yeah. Yeah. So there's some actually, I think the ones that Somerset are finishing up this week, and I forget the status overall, we're actually we're actually installing a couple at our office building, too, which is kind of cool. So we're getting ready for electrification. Because, you know, we know a lot of our road is rural, you know, the sheets is of the world, will you add charging stations, but yes, we need to have them as well.
That's great. So let now let's talk into what you can talk about what you just leaked a moment ago. I mean, the Biden administration is proposing, you know, just unprecedented amount of investment in infrastructure. So what might be some projects? What are some of the things that could be enabled as a result of this for the term? Yeah, yeah.
I mean, so we have some real needs. I mean, so first, you know, weren't excited about any sort of investment in infrastructure, I think a couple things I like about the bill beyond dish, you know, some investment and highway infrastructure and transit. You know, there's also a broadband component to that, which is exciting. And you have a security standpoint, there's actually a cybersecurity component to so that's nice to see. The reality is, we're a year old road, we've been working on our total reconstruction program. We're about halfway through that, you know, with either construction or design activities, we still have over 200 miles to go and reconstruct from the original 1940 and 1950. roadway. So, you know, we have those investments, we have five tunnels that are in the process of, you know, working on the customer road tunnel, at some point, bypass the Allegheny tunnel, but you know, tunnels are not cheap. And then we have major structure, the DRV bridge down in Philadelphia, connecting to New Jersey, we're starting designed to replace that bridge, that is a huge investment. It's a major bridge. So we've got some real infrastructure needs. The other thing is, you know, we're already installing 200 miles of fiber, you know, and that's going to have over 500 strands of fiber for our uses for connected vehicles for commercialization. We hope to expand that to the west as well, too. So, you know, if we get some money from the infrastructure bill, maybe that's something we will use it for.
Well, how do you feel that we're doing in terms of other Turnpike Commission's know, I mean, can you brag a little bit about that or not?
I think we're the best but but we, we, it's funny, we we work a lot with Ohio Turnpike in New Jersey Turnpike and other other agencies and, and our CEOs, the president of the ibtta, which is the sort of the toy agency organization overall. You know, it's a good it's a good competition, friendly competition. So they push us we push them. But I think we're doing pretty good. I think we've been a leader, and we hope to continue to be that.
So what about like hiring? So you, you know, you've shared all these behind the scenes sort of sexy, interesting things that you're working on? And what about hiring? Are you hiring people in tech right now? And could they work remote?
Yeah. So we are, you know, early on, we did freeze our hiring. With so many things going on. We've opened things up. I think we have about six active vacancies right now. The one that's we're looking for people to apply to is the cybersecurity manager position. So we are hiring people, like a lot of organizations, like I said, we're having a conversation about, you know, what's, what's the future workplace look like? You know, we think it's probably going to be a model that allows you know, flexibility, whether that's somebody going to the office every day, sort of splitting time or possibly working remotely. But we may be somewhat driven by what the state does on that, too. So, you know, one thing when you say, could they work from anywhere? Yeah, you're right now our thought is anywhere in Pennsylvania, we may ask you to report to our Western Regional Office. There's some other options too. But, you know, we are looking to expand the net from a hiring standpoint to to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. And hopefully we can provide it a truly flexible environment in the future.
Well, I mean, with the focus on sustainability, and the micro grid. Well, what about some of the initiatives there?
Yeah, I mean, perfect day to ask that question. The micro grid in hand filled with a maintenance facility that was covered in the media, and Pittsburgh was the awesome concept, yo, you know, we are generating our own energy for that whole maintenance facility. We're giving some back. And, you know, I'm not ashamed to admit we're generating revenue from that. So giving some of that back. So that's going to be a model for every new facility, we do moving ahead. So that's very exciting. We have stood up a sustainability committee overall, we're also you know, taking a look at our role from a stormwater management standpoint, making sure we have clean water and do the right things that we need to do. Then there's small things, you know, I just looked at the printing numbers, we're down 90%. Printing, do we ever need to use paper again?
Nice. So you have internal metrics as well.
Yeah, yeah. So we're, we're taking a look at print. It's small, but it's, you know, it's helping reduce our footprint?
No, it's big. What? So? So what do you think four years into the job? What's, what's ahead, you've got new money coming? In, hopefully, from the Biden administration, we're hoping to see Finally, investments in infrastructure. We talked about the Hyperloop. We talked about contactless You know, we've talked about, you know, interconnected vehicles,
what it's a piece that perhaps we didn't cover that you want to make sure that we're talking about. Yeah, I
mean, you know, I touched on the business automation, modernization, that, again, that's not exciting stuff. But that's, that's big for us.
It is thick, though, as we,
as we evolve as an organization, you know, data, I think that's another area, you know, I mentioned the way stuff, but, you know, I read a number yesterday that I think 90% of the world data was generated in the last three years. So, you know, when I look at, like, what Michigan did with some of the early connected vehicle pilots and the amount of data, you know, just those small pilots generated with connection on automated vehicles, you know, data is gonna be huge moving ahead, you know, what we've tried to organize around enterprise data management, and, you know, how can we get information that improves safety, mobility, and how can we provide that, but you know, whether it's how we maintain our infrastructure or other things, you know, using that data, to make more informed decisions to make more proactive decisions, is a huge part of what we need to do.
So you can see it there. We have one last question, the open road toll rollout, will that eventually lead to slip ramps to access the turnpike? unicorn exits?
Yeah, I mean, that's the game plan. So, you know, obviously, as we get open road tolling, you know, the goal is that this opens up a lot of things from a flexibility standpoint, you know, there's projects that we've looked at that, you know, obviously has to work off system, do they have the capacity, we just can't, we just can't throw up interchange, you know, not having any sort of system capacity. But that's the goal. So to start looking at, you know, where there's a need and where we can connect people, I mean, that improves mobility overall. And obviously, it brings customers to our road.
So what do you do for fun, Bob, what do you do for fun? Find who were thrilled to have in government that seems to operate like a business,
he
you know, it's pretty boring stuff. I you know, I love hockey, and I love my son. So it's a lot of that's not
boring, you know,
but uh, you know, the past year has been different. You know, there's, there's been new hobbies, there's been home improvement projects, there's been a lot more hiking, I took up fly fishing, so I'm really bad at it. But, but that's sort of what I do for fun. Listen, that is not
boring. There's nothing boring. And there's nothing boring about the work that you're doing. Now. It's really important. It is so important for the work that we do here in tech, to know that there's investment in infrastructure to know that we're going to have access to the newest technology that's going to move people and things that matters to our world. Yeah. So I mean, really appreciate your leadership here.
Yeah. And I do want to mention that Southern belle ways opening in October, so that's in the Pittsburgh area. That's a really big deal. So
Oh, right. Yes. Good. I
guess The airport to I 79. That's a huge project. There's not been a roadway project like that in the Pittsburgh area since 1989. I was told it's a new roads like that don't happen often. So we're excited about that.
So is there anything next after that after the southern
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