Download SCIC April 11 Meeting Package
Meeting Minutes – April 11, 2019
The Smart Cities and Innovations Committee (SCIC) convened at 12:19 pm on Thursday, April 11, 2019.
Commissioners in attendance:
Chairperson, Commissioner Andria McClellan (Norfolk)
Commissioner Keith Parnell (Norfolk)
Alt. Commissioner Carl Jackson (Portsmouth)
Alt. Commissioner Tara D. Reel (Virginia Beach)
Hampton Roads Transit Staff in attendance:
Alesia Cain, HRT Chief Information Officer & Chief Technology Officer, SCIC HRT Representative
Brian Smith, HRT Chief of Staff
Gene Cavasos, HRT Director of Marketing & Communications
Kamlesh Chowdhary, HRT Director of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)
Stephanie Salzone, HRT Senior Manager of Bus Transportation
Tom Holden, HRT Marketing & Communications
Sonya Luther, HRT Procurement Director
Shelia Gulledge, HRT Technology Project Manager, SCIC Secretary
Additional Attendees:
Mecit Cetin, Old Dominion University
Kevin Curry, Code for Hampton Roads
The SCIC meeting package for April 11, 2019 contained the Agenda and Meeting Minutes from March 6, 2019. It was distributed electronically to all Commissioners in advance of the meeting and posted to Hampton Roads Transit’s website.
AGENDA – April 11, 2019
- Approval of March 2019 Smart Cities & Innovation Committee Minutes
- Old Business
- Formal adoption of the Smart Cities & Innovation Committee
- Action Item Review
- Committee Description and Mission Review
- New Business
- Working Group Break-out Session (20 minutes):
- Data & Analytics (Kamlesh Chowdhary, Lead)
- Fare Collection (Alesia Cain, Lead)
- First Mile/Last Mile (Commissioner Aaron Rouse, Lead)
- AV/EV/Alternative Transportation (Commissioner Andria McClellan, Lead)
- Partnerships (Commissioner Keith Parnell, Lead)
- HRT policy and organizing for receiving unsolicited proposals
- Partnership outreach
- Engagement of additional stakeholders, partnerships and membership expansion
- Local Smart City Initiatives and Current Regional Projects
- Regional Connectivity Ring (RCR)
- Portsmouth progression of the municipal fiber network
- Newport News Smart Cities Readiness Workshop
- Virginia Beach Smart Cities Committee
- Others
- Working Group Break-out Session (20 minutes):
- Adjournment
Opening Remarks
Commissioner McClellan opened the meeting with a review of the March 2019 Meeting Minutes. Two amendments requested and executed:
- Retitle organization for Kevin Curry and Ben Schoenfeld to “Code for Hampton Roads” which is a chapter of Code for America Brigade that organizes in this region
- Recategorize HRT staff from “Members” to Participant
A motion to approve the March 2019 Meeting Minutes was then made by Commissioner McClellan and properly seconded by Commissioner Parnell. The March 2019 Meeting Minutes, as amended, were approved by a unanimous vote.
Old Business
- Formal adoption of the Smart Cities & Innovation Committee
Modified SCIC Mission statement: “To identify and support opportunities to deploy technologies and innovations within HRT with a goal of providing more efficient, safe and reliable transit to all of our riders and increase ridership”Motion to approve the modified mission statement was made by Commissioner Parnell and seconded by Alt. Commissioner Reel. - Action Item Review
Updates to items recorded in the March 6, 2019 meeting are outlined below. A full list of action item statements, dates and status are maintained on the HRT SCIC website.- Provide revised SCIC Mission Statement (Commissioner McClellan)
- Reviewed, revised and approved in 4/11/19 meeting
- Identify military liaisons via Traffix (Ron Hodges)
- Emily Cass is the Traffix military liaison who has an office at Naval Station Norfolk and is well-known at Langley, Oceana and all military installations in this area. Her counterparts would be mid-level management – military or civilian, that we should make aware of what we are trying to accomplish; they would not regularly attend SCIC meetings but should be invited when the agenda includes discussion specific to their domain/interest.
- New Action Item: Identify names of military POCs at each installation to report back to SCIC, including representatives at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard
- Reach out to ODU to discuss internship possibilities (Commissioner McClellan)
- Alt. Commissioner Reel suggested that the internship program be considered next school year using Data & Analytics and Fare Collection work groups. First develop a workplan that would help manage student intern participation
- Ms. Luther added that there is a legal component to interns partnerships that also must be considered and routed through Procurement prior to instituting this
- Mr. Cetin briefly introduced himself and his background as an ODU professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and his work with the Transportation Research Institute. His expertise and ODU graduate students’ projects focus on traffic flows, signal systems, modeling simulations, and planning as well as traffic operations, simulation and safety. He expressed eagerness to do more in transit; data and analytics would allow them to share the tools, machine learning, artificial intelligence and how their application may show promise if integrated into some of the tools and programs already in place (whether as internships or individual projects)
- Ms. Cain agreed, stating that transformative transit projects will have synergy and achieve new perspectives to use dynamic real-time analytics, ridership data, maps, routes, etc. that will enable HRT to partner with external community resources to bring to bear that knowledge and technology
- Attend and report on the annual APTA Mobility Conference, May 19-22, 2019 (Alesia Cain)
- The type of ideas discussed above feed into the goals of this conference. Ms. Cain is a member of the innovation and technology research group and will be speaking on HRT cybersecurity and innovation
- Publicize registration information for the upcoming Virginia Transit Association (VTA) Conference, May 29-30, 2019 (Brian Smith)
- This HRT-hosted event will be held at the Portsmouth Renaissance Convention Center with a low $10 registration fee to enable accessibility
- Second event on May 28th featuring a keynote speaker from the Center for Transportation Research in Ann Arbor and public transit panel discussions. The theme is autonomous vehicle technologies, electrification technologies and the “brave new world” of where we’re headed.
- Target audience is 200-300 participants but attendance totals not yet confirmed; SCIC members to share within their networks
- Mr. Smith will be working with the Marketing team to push more information in the upcoming weeks on social media platforms. Information will not be sent out so early that it is forgotten.
- Develop press release(s) about the existence and efforts of the SCIC (Gene Cavasos)
- Mr. Cavasos stated that a press release should be held until the SCIC has a project initiated
- New Action Item: Announce the formation of the SCIC at the VTA Conference
- Send TransitMaster upgrade RFP to Kevin Curry (Kamlesh Chowdhary)
- Completed 4/11/2019 via email
- Transportation to/from SCIC meetings for Janice Taylor follow up with Keith Johnson (Alesia Cain)
- Verified by Alesia Cain
- Committee adoption and by-laws amendment review with Robert Travers (Alesia Cain)
- Completed 3/28/19 – adopted
- Commissioner List Review (Alesia Cain)
- Review completed
- Email distribution list for SCIC Members (Alesia Cain)
- Completed 4/5/19 – internal distribution list active
- Activity/Progress Reporting on Working Groups from Leads
- A change was made for the individuals serving as workgroup leads for Data & Analytics and Fare Collection. Alt. Commissioner Tara Reel will now lead Data & Analytics; Alt. Commissioner Carl Jackson will lead Fare Collection
- Provide revised SCIC Mission Statement (Commissioner McClellan)
New Business
The Working Group Leads were solidified as shown below with each team convening separately to discuss initiatives.
SCIC Working Groups Breakout
- Data & Analytics: Alt. Commissioner Reel, Lead
Members: Kevin Curry, Mecit Cetin, Commissioner McClellan, Kamlesh Chowdhary, Ben Schoenfeld
Discussion- VB Blvd signals/video data and SPaT map – by 2020 connect 20 intersections using DSRC; High rate of crashes at intersections on VB Blvd; City of VB has a lot of data and cameras; VTTI has the grant and interest in analytics
- City of Norfolk – Hampton Blvd task force at Norfolk and HRTPO are analyzing data and road flood sensors information
- Using TSP for HRTO is working towards common procurement and uniform coding for the TSP systems on transit vehicles to allow interoperability and prevent misuse
- Partnerships: Commissioner Parnell, Lead
Members: Jimmy Gray, Brian Smith, Ron Hodges
Discussion- A project or initiative needed to identify and bring in the right partners
- New Action Item: Commissioner McClellan announced that 2-3 workgroup projects will be prioritized for our committee workplan and figure out how we bring partnerships in based on that. Initial thought is that the first can be Data & Analytics, Farebox Collection and possibly First Mile/Last Mile
- New Action Item: Commissioner McClellan advised that moving forward, the Workgroups will meet and report out to the SCIC
Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at 1:04 pm
The next meeting will be at 12:00 pm on Thursday, May 9, 2019. Location: HRT, 3400 Victoria Boulevard, Hampton, VA – 2nd Floor Board Room
Meeting Date
April 11, 2019 12:00pm
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