Locomotion Video Transcript
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Andrew Cox
Hey there, welcome to another Freight Tech Update presented by Locomation. I’m Andrew Cox, Senior Retail Analyst here at Freight Waves. Autonomous trucks promise many benefits to our industry but most impactful may be their impact on safety. With me today to discuss how Locomation systems are going to improve road safety is Steve Kenner, Vice President of Safety at Locomotion. Steve thanks for joining me.
Steve Kenner
Andrew hey it’s great to be here with you. Thanks for having me.
Andrew Cox
Steve, you are not new to the automotive industry and you’re not new to the tech industry but you are new to Locomation you’ve been there just three months tell me why did you join Locomation?
Steve Kenner
Well, as you mentioned Andrew, I have worked in product engineering and safety for over 38 years. Both for traditional automakers like Ford and GM but also in the autonomous technology sector for Apple, Uber and Aurora and there were three main things that drew me to Locomation. The first thing was working with some of the best people in the field of robotics and autonomous truck technology. Our founders came from Carnegie Mellon National Robotics Engineering Center and have grown the expertise of the team by adding industry leaders with deep knowledge and experience in the trucking business, product development policy, and regulation. The second thing that drew me to Locomotion was that it’s an earlier stage of its startup life and I was excited about the ability to influence and shape the safety culture and to incorporate safety into the processes that we use to develop our products. And finally, I was attracted to their practical and realistic approach to delivering autonomy in an evolutionary stage starting with human-led convoys of two trucks and two drivers. This product will deliver twice the cargo twice as fast, twice as far with a significantly simpler safety case then a solo driverless truck.
Andrew Cox
Steve tell me about that safety case. What is that and how does it influence your work at low commission
Steve Kenner
So technically speaking a safety case is a structured argument supported by evidence intended to justify why a particular product or system is acceptably safe and it’s an essential part of bringing about any product to market. Especially in safety-critical industries such as oil and gas, aerospace, rail, nuclear, and medical devices. So for Locomation the safety case is an autonomous, for an autonomous truck as a clear, comprehensive and defensible argument to support the claim that our vehicles are safe to operate on public roads. This claim is broken down into both process and product claims that are supported by specific evidence and this evidence has to answer the following questions. Did we design it right? Did we test it right? Did we manufacture it right? And are we operating it right? The safety rule case will help us at Locomation to demonstrate to the public, to regulators, and to other key stakeholders in a transparent way that we’re safely and responsibly operating on public roads.
Andrew Cox
And Steve, what makes you confident about Locomation’s approach to safety?
Steve Kenner
Well I was excited to see that Locomation already had a strong safety culture when I joined the company and we’re continuing to build and strengthen that culture. The safety case development is a part of that and since we’re a small company we’re leveraging some of the resources and expertise of the world’s leading safety consultants and service providers to help us accomplish this work. We’re incorporating safety case evidence creation and safety analysis into our product development plans and our work processes and we’re making sure that the engineers know what they need to design and build and when they’re done the fact that we’re launching a human-led convoy also means that we don’t have to solve all of the issues or challenges of a fully autonomous operation on public roads with our first product. As I mentioned earlier it’s a simpler safety case and we can ensure that our drivers have the right training, the right information and are safely operating our convoys so they can mitigate hazards and unexpected events that may be challenging for an autonomous system to handle. We’ll be collecting data on how our autonomous systems would have behaved versus a trained driver so we can develop and improve the technology even while the trucks are being driven by human drivers. And that way, we can make data-driven decisions and one will be ready to take the next step towards driverless trucks.
Andrew Cox
It’s a tremendous challenge but that’s what makes it fun to work on Steve. I can only imagine you’re right there in the middle of the thick of it. Right here in the most exciting portion of freight tech, I think right here in autonomous vehicles thanks so much for sharing your time and your insights today Steve Andrew thanks so much for having me all right everyone stay tuned for more freight tech updates and more updates presented by Locomation right here on freightways.com
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