And this month with congress on the summer recess, the cities tour is on cspan each day at 6 00 p. M. Today we tour the literary life of waco, texas, with the book about gospel music from the civil war to the civil rights movement. The story of the 1917 lynching of a black 17yearold and the history of the first africanamericans in the space program. Today at 6 00 p. M. Eastern time. A hearing now on new technologies to improper the safety and efficiency of the nations Transportation Systems. Officials from volvo group north america, zahn, bnsf railway and the port of long beach testify before the Senate Commerce committee. Good afternoon, everyone. I am pleased to convene the Senate Subcommittee on surface transportation and merchant marine infrastructure safety and security for the sixth hearing which is titled technologies, transforming transportation, is the government keeping up. Mr. Booker and i are excited to bring together a range of issues we have worked on together here in the senate. For example, we underscored the Important Role that technology plays in our daily lives by collaborating on the internet of things resolution at this the beginning of this congress. I was pleased to see our resolution passed the Senate Earlier this year. Weve also made progress on several transportation matters related to maritime labor and hearing infrastructure. Our hearing brings the work on various issues together. Today well explore the federal governments response to the Current Technology developments in our nations transportation industry. In order to maximize the efficiency and safety gains being made by the private sector, the federal government must ensure that it is keeping up with modern technology. Regulatory frameworks must facilitate rather than hinder Technology Advancements. In some ways the hearing is entering unchartered trt because government is generally reactive rather than proactive. Todays hearing is an opportunity to look into the future and to identify ways to make innovation easier so that we can grow quicker, safer and easier. Automated driving for instance has the potential to make trucks for efficient and could result in thousands of dollars in annual savings. Additionally, automation has the potential to make American Companies more competitive in the global market. As our stakeholders will testify, a patch work of state laws is holding back the Transportation Industries ability to take advantage of the benefits technology provides. Clearly more should be done to foster innovation and streamline obsolete regulations. Step one is educating policymakers and innovators on what exists an how we can facilitate more voluntary solutions to the transportation with cuttingedge technologies. Technology has the potential to automatically process, sync and coordinate complex Transportation Systems. Increased auto make and connectivity makes transportation more efficient. Most importantly innovations in transportation offer tremendous opportunities to improve safety. Autonomous trucking technologies for example will strengthen driver awareness and reduce accidents on our nations roads. Additionally well hear how the increase used of trackside monitoring devices and the development of robust data bases will provide the Railroad Industry with the ability to better repair and upgrade critical infrastructure. In other words, the Internet Things and big data are identifying the challenges of tomorrow with technologies that we have today. We must also appreciate the role our nations ports play as centers of intermodal connection in our Transportation Network. To compete globally, americas ports are modernizing to drive efficiency and keep goods moving throughout the country. The benefits of Technology Advancements are clear for our economy. For our safety and for the firsty of the Transportation Networks. I look forward to hearing from the witnesses about the kind of policies that will promote innovation. Our country is a leader in innovation, constantly creating the next big thing to drive the Global Economic engine. And i would now invite senator booker to offer his opening remarks. Thank you, sebt senator fisher. I want to recognize senator blunt who is here this afternoon. We have done extensive Work Together on technology and transportation and im excited to examine where government can help and stop hindering. And in meeting the infrastructure challenges especially this is important. Senator fisher and i have discussed the tremendous innovation happening in this country. Were both excited by it and how the Government Agencies may not be equipped to keep up with incredible innovation. This is a theme that im sure our panel of witnesses will update us on today. Technology is rapidly changing. Everything we do, including how we commute and maintain our critical Transportation Systems is changing. It is changing how we get to work and drive our cars and even how we hail a cab. We have an opportunity to harness new technologies to dramatically improve public safety, reduce costs, create jobs and address infrastructure problems in creative new ways. The federal government can be a key player in advancing and utilizing these develops technologies. Lets take a look at safety. While Traffic Related Fatalities continue to decline, over 30,000 people each year still die on our highways. We continue to see trains that derail too frequently, putting enormous burdens on our first responders. In the face of these challenges, we have got to understand the opportunity that comes with technology and improving our Transportation Systems. Our country has already invested billions in interstate highways, bridges and rails and ports. Technology could help us to get more out of what weve already built. Today are exciting marketready, Proven Solutions to make our roads safer. From automatic braking to hightech cameras to sensors and radar and Autonomous Cars ab drones. Advanced technology can alert a truck driver and even take control of a vehicle if they begin to drift out of their lane or fail to brake with stopped traffic ahead. Technology can enable a smartphone using realtime information to suggest to a driver the best time to hit the road for their commute for family trip or direct a driver to the nearest available onstreet parking place, something we need in washington. Harnessing technology will not only save time and fuel use, it will reduce Traffic Congestion for everyone else on the road. Something drivers in my state and throughout the investigate know all too well. New technologies can improve the safety and efficiency of our rail and port facilities. It is critical on how we plan for the future and make the best use of these technologies. I look forward to hearing from the Witnesses Today about how the federal government can help existing businesses thrive and how the federal government can be a worldwide leader and help us to be a worldwide leader in innovation and advance, not stall,inno advance formative innovations. Thank you. Thank you senator booker. Would you like to welcome our first panel of Witnesses Today. We have miss susan alt, the Senior Vice PresidentPublic Affairs volvo group, north america. Paul micener, amazon, mr. Gregory fox, executive Vice President , operations, bnsf rainfallway. And mr. Michael christensen, Senior Executive lead supply chain optimization port of long beach. And with that, i will begin with miss alt, if you would like to give us your testimony, please. Thank you. Chairman fisher, Ranking Member booker and distinguish members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to be here today to talk about new Transportation Technologies and how they improve both safety and efficiency in our Transportation Network and the role that the federal government plays in either facilitating or hindering that development. The volvo group is a world leader in Sustainable Transportation solutions. We build stuff that make the roads and we build stuff that uses the roads. In the u. S. We produce heavy duty trucks under the name of mack and valvo. Construction equipment and marine engines and coaches and nova transit buses. We subscribe to a build where you sell philosophy and more than 12,000 u. S. Employees with nine manufacturing facilities in six states an our goal is zero accidents. Im going to comment from a heavy duty truck perspective because trucking delivering 80 of the value of the freight shifted in the United States. The Technology Today can keep the driver and other vehicles on the road safer. Things like lane Departure Warning systems or active braki braking. But on the horizon we see potential vehicle to vehicle, v to v and vehicle to infrastructure, v to i. And messages from v to v and f to i are sent on the 5. 9 giga hurst on the bandwidth. Sent using Short Range Communications or dsrc. In 1999 the government got it right when it set aside and protected this frequency for only safety related communication but in 2013 the fcc began exploring using the 5. 9 giga hurst spectrum to support unlicensed wifi users. Proposals have been provided but no consensus yet reached. The concern is allowing other technologies shared on the same spectrum could create a lag or latency in sending life saving communication signals. So let me clarify. Say vehicle number one is approaching an intersection with a green lot but the view is blocked by a building. Use a dsrv, v to v can see someone not slowing down for the red light and at letter will allow the commission to be avoided f. There is latency in the signal because of interference, for example a wifi user watching a video, the accident likely would not be avoided. So until a solution is found for spectrum sharing, the 5. 9 gigahertz frequenty we want it dedicated to that only. Where v to i can increase is road site weight and inspection stations where trucks stop along the interstate to wait in long lines that can create potential hazards. The volvo group has demonstrated Technology Using v to i communication protocols from the truck to the weigh station that allows moving trucks to wirelessly move the credentials to the inspection stations such as if the weight is below the limit or if the driver is wearing the seat belt. It keeps the trucks moving and allowing authorities to focus on the condition of other trucks that havent been validated in a program we call trusted truck. Let me end with the talk of the town and that is automaticed technology or autonomous vehicles. That is using connected Vehicle Technology with avoidance technology. We think the area is very interesting but caution our pace of implementation will be set by how safely it can be adopted to the vehicles and to the infrastructure and to so site. Platooning is one sample. This is where a lead or a pilot truck, it is wirelessly linked to a truck following behind it. The volvo group and the California Partners for advanced Transportation Technology or path is are the process of implementing a twotruck demonstration at slow speeds that will be extended to three trucks in 2016. Full scale demonstration has unyielded 10 fuel efficiency because of the reduced air drag. Were developing technologies for connected and automated driving because of the potential to enhance safety and productivity. Increasing the speed of adoption for the technology could be achieved if we eliminated 12 federal excise tax added to the purchasech a new truck and offsetting that with a higher fuel tax. Another challenge is that though our products roll across state lines, different states are developing different regulations to propoet autonomous testing. We need a National Standard before the vehicles can become operational. With uncertain funding and surface transportation system, adoption of the new technologies will allow us to move increasing amount of freights for a growing population but it wont solve all of the freight capacity problems and doesnt let congress off the hook of providing federal funding and passing a longterm surface transportation bill. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today and i look forward to questions. Thank you. Mr. Misner, thank you. Thank you madam chair. Thank you for having. It was this month in july 1995, our challenge was to create at scale a new form of warehouses where truckloads of palates of goods would be received an stores but instead of new pallets being trucked out to Retail Stores we ship brown boxes via carriers directly to carriers. Thus we developed pallet in, box out. First it was only retail but now Third Party Sellers are responsible for 30 of the units sold through amazon and Many Services and many use the services to warehouse and fulfill orders of their goods. So now we receive not just pallets of goods, we also receive small brown boxes to be stored waiting for a customer to place an order for the goods. In some our warehouses which we call Fulfillment Centers support box in and box out. Last year Time Magazine illustrated this process and thank you madam chair for showing it here today. It begins deep inside of a truck trailer parked at the loading dock at a warehouse looking backwards as the trailer door is opened. There is sound for this. Here we go. Thank you. After we receive an item, it is stored awaiting a customer order. Those orange things are robots. They move shelves that way up to 750 pounds. Once a customer orders an items it retrieved and sent for packing. And then it is loaded on a truck for shipment. While we continue to improve the efficiency of operations within our facilities, we also have developed and invested in a more efficient way to hand off boxes to the u. S. Post office. Rather than giving them a bunch of boxes, we provide the usps groups of boxes all roughly going to the same location. This arrangement as well as amazons package volume benefits the usps but letting it make better use of facilities, equipment and personnel without incurring the costs of additional capacity if the up stream logistic network. But we and our partners an our customers need government to keep up by providing at quat funding innovative policies and balanced regulation. Thank you again for inviting me to testify. I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much. Mr. Fox, welcome. Thanks. Thank you very much for the opportunity. My name is greg fox. Im executive Vice President of operations for bnsf railway. What i would like to do today is walk through hout bnsf is improving safety and efficiency of our network. Bnsf is a large western rainfall. Over 32,000 route miles and 47,000 employees. My team runs the railroad. And in my 31 years ive seen safety improve year after year. In 2014 bnsf and the Rail Industry achieved betever safety results an you can see the trend over the last decade. Technology has clearly played a role in this success. While technology is the focus of todays hearing, investment in Rail Infrastructure and an in collusive Safety Culture for all bnsf employees are critical contributions as well to our safety results. Investment in maintenance and renewal of the rainfall, the orange bars on this chart, is an important piece of safety. The bnsf invest significant amounts of this kind of capital into the network to contribute to safe operations and to ensure reliability of our network for our customers. This is the largest component of our 6 billion of capital spend in 2015. The nations rail operations are basically 140,000 mile outdoor production line. This cope and complexity means that infrastructure and equipment sometimes fails. Or that human error can occur. Because of this, bnsf focuses on a riskbased initiative for all aspects of our operations. This slideshows the categories of incident causes an the examples of the Counter Measures we put in place to reduce risk. They are a combination of safety processes, as well as technology. While you are very familiar with the implementation of positive train control, i would like to share a brief video that illustrated the inspection and technology that we deploy on the railroad to produce safety benefits. They include track geometry vehicles. They utilize Optical Technology to monitor track geometry or the rails at one point or over a distance. Rail detect internal rail defects. Wheel temperature detectors that use infrared technology to see vision machines for defects and passing trains. Bnsf is deploying unmanned erik systems or drones for supplemental visual and track inspections in a variety of conditions. Earlier this year, we were one of three company as warded the Pathfinder Program status from integrity flights. The