Today, the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation and the Metro Denver Aviation Coalition hosted The Future of Metro Mobility: Planes, Trains & (Self-Driving) Automobiles at the Seawell Grand Ballroom of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. The luncheon program was presented by Arrow Electronics.
Attended by more than 400 area business, economic development, and policy leaders, the event provided an innovative look at evolving transportation solutions in the Metro Denver region and featured presentations exploring how cutting-edge technology is driving future infrastructure and mobility options for Metro Denver.
The Metro Denver region has a significant role to play in providing innovative solutions that could alter the nation’s mobility future for decades to come. Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock addressed event attendees via video, as he was in Washington D.C. presenting Denver’s proposal as one of seven finalists in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge. The $50 million competition will determine the country’s first city to fully integrate innovative technologies – self-driving cars, connected vehicles, and smart sensors – into their transportation network.
“This event provides a great opportunity for us to have a critical conversation about our future as one of the fastest growing metro regions in the country,” said Mayor Hancock. “Indeed, it will take the Airport, it will take RTD, and it will take all of us with our tremendous collaboration, innovation, and investments to address our collective mobility needs and to do it successfully. Thank you for your attention to this issue as mobility freedom is key to helping our residents and business achieve.”
Featured presenters included Kim Day, CEO of Denver International Airport (DEN); Jim Doyle, President of Panasonic Enterprise Solutions Company; and Philipp Kampshoff, a Partner with McKinsey and Company. A question and answer session followed, moderated by Aiden Mitchell, Vice President IoT Global Solutions for Arrow Electronics.
Day discussed the airport’s role in Metro Denver’s mobility future. “As the stewards of this amazing asset, our responsibility is to maintain the financial health, grow air service, and protect and prepare the airport for its future,” said Day. “We are a global city and region now, and we need to back that up with easier global reach.”
Doyle shared Panasonic’s experience building the Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town in Japan, and how the company will build a similar development here in Denver, at the Peña Station transit-oriented development along the new University of Colorado A Line to DEN.
“Our intent and focus is to set a high benchmark at Peña Station. We want the world to come to see what we’ve done here in Denver,” explained Doyle. “We want to make life safer, more connected, and more sustainable for those living here.”
Kampshoff shared with attendees the many ways that autonomous vehicles or “self-driving” cars will radically change the mobility industry of the future.
“The automotive industry is poised for more disruption in the next decade than the last 5 decades combined,” he said.
Janet Fritz is the senior director of marketing and technology for the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation.
This report was originally published to the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation’s website, you can view the full article here.