Nathaniel Horadam - Atlanta, Georgia

CTE is proud to highlight Nathaniel Horadam. Nathaniel is a Managing Consultant who specializes in automated vehicle technology.

What shaped your passion for zero-emission transportation and automated vehicles?

My path to CTE was a long and winding one. I graduated from Vanderbilt University in 2011 with a B.A. in Middle Eastern Studies and Political Science, and had hoped to become an intelligence officer in the US Army. But with the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan winding down, the Army cut its officer recruiting pipeline and I was forced to look at alternatives. I was fortunate to find a management consulting job at Accenture in Washington, DC, and spent the next four and half years supporting federal technology programs. I transferred to Atlanta halfway through, and shortly thereafter decided I wanted to move on to something more meaningful. I discovered urban planning and, for reasons I can't even remember now, grew enamored with the idea of working with automated vehicles. I decided to get a master's degree in transportation planning at Georgia Tech, and ended up securing a research assistantship on a project writing the Georgia Department of Transportation's automated vehicle planning roadmap.

What led to your work at CTE?

Landing at CTE was definitely one of those "right time at the right place" situations. I was wrapping up my graduate program and consulting an Atlanta suburb on an automated vehicle test track program it was planning (and has since built). CTE needed someone with automated vehicle subject matter expertise for an upcoming federal research project, and someone who could also build and grow CTE's footprint in that emerging technology area. I wanted a job that would allow me to remain in Atlanta, work with automated vehicles, and continue my hobby of writing and publishing independently. CTE checked every box. The opportunity to join a non-profit with national reach and impact, where I could show up to work every day and know I was serving an important environmental cause…that was just a bonus.

What's your role at CTE and how are you making an impact?

First and foremost, I am our automated vehicle specialist and lead any CTE efforts associated with automation or related technologies. This includes project work, legislative outreach, and communications strategy.

We have multiple ongoing automation and driver assistance projects funded through the Federal Transit Administration. The most exciting of these will involve operating the first ever automated transit buses in North America, with an expected launch in 2022. We're working with the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT), New Flyer, and Robotic Research to develop and deploy 40-foot battery electric transit buses capable of SAE level 3 automation on CTDOT's CTfastrak bus rapid transit route. All thanks to a $2 million grant from the federal government, and the commitment of all three other core project partners to invest in the technology. Given the billions of private investment dollars that have poured into robotaxi concepts, automated trucking and delivery, and even low-speed shuttles, we consider this first transit bus project a crucial first step in catalyzing interest and further investment in transit automation. It's hard to see a path forward without increased federal support.

So we're also trying to do something about that. I'm working with CTE leadership and our government affairs folks in Washington, DC to secure dedicated funding for transit bus automation in future legislation. We recently succeeded in getting a $100 million, five-year program dedicated to developing these technologies on transit buses into the House of Representatives' surface transportation legislation. We're committed to ensuring it passes in the final bill, be it in 2020 or 2021. Importantly, we secured the support of major labor groups for the program by restricting development to SAE level 3 automation, meaning the technology would still rely on a driver behind the wheel. Some might ask, "If you can't eventually remove a driver, then what's the point?" Which leads me to my final point.

In addition to more-widely touted benefits of increased road-safety, we do see automation supporting increased energy efficiency and reduced capital costs for battery electric bus fleets (fewer chargers, more space-efficient bus parking), and, yes, even workforce benefits. Fully automating (SAE level 4 and level 5) a transit bus is really, really hard, even with fixed routes limiting day-to-day variability. We're going to need commercially licensed drivers in a backup capacity for the foreseeable future, and since ultimately organized labor will need to buy into any public sector adoption of these technologies, it would be best for everyone if we identified a mutually-beneficial path. We need transit to evolve and remain competitive against competing, less sustainable transportation alternatives, while preserving well-paying jobs and providing workforce development support for those emerging technologies. I see a role for myself and CTE in spreading this message for the benefit of the industry. We need to be identifying ways in which transit bus automation can support zero-emission technologies, and communicating that to policymakers and the wider public to grow support for it.