This is Transit Unplugged.

I'm Paul Comfort.

On today's episode of the Transit Unplugged podcast, we

talk about some of the hottest topics in public transportation.

And.

They are written in a book called The New Future of Public Transportation,

which I put together with 30 of my friends and leaders of top transit

agencies, consultants, and experts in the technology field from around the world.

The book is out now.

It is The New Future of Public Transportation, basically the next

phase of my The book I wrote a few years ago, before the pandemic, called

The Future of Public Transportation, and Society of Automotive Engineers

reached out to me about nine months to a year ago and asked me if I would

be interested in writing an updated version, kind of a post pandemic version.

What are the hot topics now?

You know, new things that we weren't really talking a lot about before.

Back then, cybersecurity, AI driven advancements, hydrogen fuel buses,

infrastructure challenges, workforce shortages, all of those things.

And so I accepted and invited these 30 top leaders from around the world

to write on five topics, people, modal futures, zero emission vehicles,

data, funding and faring, and for one extra bonus, geographic futures.

later on in the podcast at the end, I'll go through each of them and what

their chapters are about, but this, as an intro, is an exciting time to

talk about these important issues.

On today's episode of the podcast, I, spent some time talking to two

of the guests who wrote in the book.

first is Dr.

Karen Philbrick, a friend of mine, and executive director

Mineta Transportation Institute.

She wrote about cybersecurity, workforce shortages, operator mental health,

rebuilding ridership, safety in transit.

She talks about that on an interview right after this opening.

Then after that, we hear from Paige Malott, who is a high speed rail

researcher with the International Union of Railways and a consultant

with her own company P7 Strategies.

this is one of the hottest topics.

You know, we just had Brightline Trains, break ground on the

Southern California, kind of L.

A.

to Las Vegas route they're going to have

so, it's on the minds of people here in the U.

S., and of course, they really know how to do this well in Europe and Asia, and

she's seen half the rail systems in the world, and talks about them on today's

podcast on the second part of the show.

And then on the third part, as I mentioned, we'll dive a little bit

into all the other, contributors to the book and what their topics are.

It's a great day to celebrate the new future of public transportation.

Now let's join my conversation with Dr.

Philbrick.

Great to have Dr.

Karen Philbrick with us as our first guest on today's podcast.

Karen's a good friend of mine and Executive Director of the Minetta

Transportation Institute, one of the top think tanks and study groups

in the country and the world when it comes to public transportation.

Dr.

Philbrick, thank you so much for being with us tonight.

Thank you for having me and thank you for your leadership

in putting together this book.

It's an indispensable resource for transportation professionals and

people just interested in our sector.

You are phenomenal.

Thank you, Paul.

Oh, thanks, Karen.

That's great.

I really appreciate that.

Yeah, the book is exciting.

And as we record this today on May Day, May 1st, the book has rocketed to number

one, Even before, today was supposed to be the launch day, which is why we're

recording today, but Amazon put it out a little early, and it already went

to number one in multiple categories.

So very exciting, and I'm sure your chapter is one of the big reasons why I

care, which is why I wanted you on the show today, because you cover probably

more topics than anybody else in the book.

there are 30 chapters written by 30 different individuals, mine is on people,

leadership and stuff, but your chapter really digs into five hot topics, which

I know people are going to want to know the latest about, because you all have

done a lot of studies on these, and you have some personal, knowledge about some

of these topics I think that'll be very interesting, and they are cyber security,

workforce shortages, operator mental health, assaults on transit, overall

safety, and then rebuilding ridership.

You think we can dig into some of them today?

I think we can, and I think we should.

Yeah, good.

You know, I was just out in the Midwest part of the country with a

CEO, and he told me they just had a ransomware attack, and they had

just worked their way through it.

They didn't pay the ransom, but it was very difficult, very challenging.

I actually did a presentation with him, and his laptop was shut down.

He couldn't do anything.

He lost the presentation.

It was, you know, it's, that's small potatoes compared to what really

happens, but it has a big effect, doesn't it, on a transit agency.

Absolutely, it affects every level of the transit agency

and potentially the riding public.

I mean, Paul, when we talk about our systems, cybersecurity has

to be a part of the conversation.

I mean, you've read the news yourself that multiple transit agencies over

the last 5 or 6 years have been impacted, not only here in California,

but even the systems in New York City and everywhere in between.

Not only does it disrupt service, It can actually have a negative impact

on people's safety and viability if there is some sort of breach.

And I think the main takeaway, particularly that I'd like to emphasize is

the fact that 80 to 90% of cybersecurity breaches are the result of staff members

who unknowingly open up malware or ransomware within their own emails.

So having that IT security tips, training on such issues is absolutely

important to the well being and seamless connection of all of our systems.

That's great.

That's good advice.

I know a lot of agencies are working on that.

You know, I've talked to some senior IT people in big companies and transit

agencies recently, and they told me they're literally getting thousands

of attacks every day against their, you know, they're just being hit

from, sometimes, you know, foreign countries, it's coming from them, etc.

And so it's so important to keep those security measures up.

And to make sure that you are downloading

any of the different patches and other things that are happening.

But really, Paul, we need to train people that when they get an email that

has a really cute dog or a cute cat or something else they're interested in,

good God, don't open it, move right along.

And, and, you know, that's talking about more of the software, if

you will, and the people focus.

I want to give one example, and this was in 2018 with the

Bay Area Rapid Transit, BART.

Prior to the pandemic, it was the fifth busiest passenger

rail system in the nation.

It's here in the Bay Area specifically, but in 2018, they found that 86%

of 1000 hardware devices, 86%.

That Cisco had supplied to them, contained hidden back doors on the devices that

sent information to foreign nationals that are hostile to American interests.

BART did everything right, as soon as they found this, everything

was replaced within 72 hours.

But that's the level of granular detail that we need.

We can't just trust what comes from suppliers and vendors.

We have to have RFPs and other paperwork that are very specific about

some of the technology safeguards that are being put into place.

Wow, that's amazing.

And you guys at the Minetta Transportation Institute, didn't you just have a

study or something on this topic?

Yeah, we've done quite a few studies on this topic with our

MTI Research Associate, Scott Belcher.

In fact, some of that work has resulted in congressional testimony.

And really, we tried to identify what was the issue within public transportation,

and we worked hand in glove with the American Public Transportation

Association, commonly known as APTA, to help survey the different transit

agencies to determine where those hotspots were and what best practices

could be introduced into our sector to help with any of these issues.

So we continue that line of work.

We are paying very close attention to it.

That's wonderful.

Let's move on to the next topic then, which I know is near and

dear to both of our hearts, and that is workforce shortages.

Post pandemic, a lot of transit agencies have had trouble.

What do you have to say about that?

I have more than you can imagine to say about This is one

of the areas that I am particularly passionate about, and I want to

just step back for a minute, Paul.

When you gave me the honor and the privilege of asking me to contribute,

I sat and I thought, what, what do I get most passionate about?

What do I think are the big issues?

And workforce shortage was right up there, because what I always like to

say is transportation touches us all, whether it's how we get from point A to

point B, or whether it's the food we eat.

For The devices we use and in fact some of the latest scientific literature

shows that people who are socially isolated have physical health that

can be the equivalent of people who smoke up to 15 cigarettes a day.

So when you talk about how vital connection is, you're obviously

talking about public transportation.

Oh, I have goosebumps.

I just love this.

But we are suffering.

This started before the pandemic.

In fact, in 2019, we at the Institute did some research.

That documented that shortage, but also reflected the percent

of the workforce that were women.

At that time, it was fewer than 15%.

We have seen some growth in that area, but we are still woefully underrepresented.

APTA did a recent study that looked at workforce shortage.

They found that 96 percent of agencies reported experiencing

such a shortage and that in many cases, it's impacted operations.

Furthermore, when you look at our transit operators, the frontline, the

people are making it happen every day.

Oh, this is, this is scary now.

43 percent of the operators are 55 or older.

We're talking retirement folks, and we are competing with every other

sector for that qualified workforce.

So when I think about that, I think how are we going to get people excited?

How interested in joining our ranks?

So at the Institute, we've developed workforce programs All the way into

preschool, so kids can start learning about the industry and what exists for

their future, and we need to start young.

If we're starting when people are in their 20s, we've missed that boat, and

we need to talk about jobs in transit in a different way that really reflects the

power of these positions and the impact that they have on people's lives, as well

as their communities, and that shortage, last comment that we face, is that It's

from the front line to the C suite.

So we have opportunities across that pipeline, regardless of

what people are interested in.

I just heard, from Frank White, in Kansas City recently that, from

the APTA CEO summit that he went to, in Savannah somewhere he got this number

that was announced there that the average age of a CEO of a transit system is 58.

we're all getting toward that retirement age.

It's something.

Well, this is good stuff.

That's right.

You've got great information in the book about it as well.

and you are chapter four, by the way, in the book, right after mine.

I'm three, you're four, we're right next to each other.

So, we're in the people section, you know, so it's, Aaron Weinstein talks

about customer experience and I talk about transportation leadership.

You talk about these workforce shortages, mental health, and then

Daphne LeBlanc talks about the future of succession planning and labor shortages.

It's a great grouping of chapters there together.

And let's switch into that topic then for a minute if we could, Dr.

Philbrick, which is operator mental health.

what are your thoughts on that?

I think that we are not paying close enough

attention to mental health.

I think when we take ourselves out of the transport sector and think of humanity,

we can never even try to understand what another person is experiencing.

And even though we may all present with happy faces, we might have some serious

trauma that's happening underneath and particularly in the transportation sector.

which tends to be relatively male dominated that can in times have

more of a machismo sort of culture.

People are not feeling comfortable, safe, or transparent enough to be

able to talk about some of the issues that they're really experiencing.

And for me, I'm a psychologist by training, double master's,

PhD, different disciplines.

My entire career has been in transportation.

And so when something happens in our industry, it.

It affects me deeply, not only intellectually and cognitively, but

emotionally, and as you might recall, we lost a great person in our industry

in 2022 when CEO Jeff Parker of MARTA in Atlanta committed suicide by

laying down in front of his own train.

This was a wonderful man.

You've heard me tell this story before.

And nobody knew, including his wife and his children, how bad he was suffering.

And I can't help but to wonder if we just allowed people a little bit more space.

To be that human and to really talk with each other to provide that social

support that we would excel all together that everybody would be raised up.

But unfortunately, I don't know that transit agencies are spending

the time, the money, or the or the resources to take intentional steps

to address this issue at present.

I do think there's movement in the air.

I do think that people are becoming more comfortable talking about this,

but we need to get over that hump so that collectively we can be better.

That's good.

And then, you know, there's been a lot of talk about, crime on transit, assaults

on transit, you know, in New York City, it seems like every week there's a

story that comes out about something terrible that's happened on a platform.

where are we on that, do you think, in the country?

Well, we are improving, but we have a long

runway to really address this issue.

And I think about what you just said in terms of assault.

Whether it's assault on the operator or assault on the rider, this is happening.

People being put into experiences that may not be comfortable.

And yes, we have training on de escalation.

We have some transit agencies not having operators do fare

enforcement, for example, which can reduce some of that tension.

But still, think about you going to your job every day and

wondering if you'll get spit on.

Hit,

kicked, punched, or verbally yelled at.

It's not a comfortable situation.

And if I may just go back.

Many, many years now, I started my career looking at operator response to

trauma, particularly person under the train incidents, whether that was a

grade crossing accident or a trespasser incident, and in thousands, literally

thousands of interviews I conducted, what emerged Was the profile of being

spat upon being more emotionally damaging and difficult psychologically

than perhaps having an incident where someone lost their life under the train?

Because, of course, the operators can't swerve.

They have no control over what happens, but they are left.

Hostage to watch what happens in front of them and that has a serious

negative emotional impact in some cases.

So, when I think about assault, I think about we can't presume

to know what the impact is on someone who's had that experience.

We need to put in more safety measures, more safeguards.

And when it comes to ridership itself, you yourself have likely

read some of the most horrifying stories of rape and other attacks

that happened on the actual train car.

It's just, it's absolutely devastating, but we are working

as an industry to overcome that.

We have many, many examples of how assault is being addressed,

not only with the operators, but helping to support the riding public.

In fact, the Institute was codified into law through California Senate Bill 1161.

To develop a survey to quantify the issue, because right now you can't

compare apples and oranges, and a small agency might be recording data in a

different way than a larger agency.

So, get an accurate picture.

We're developing a template for a survey to document the existence of this,

and then to look at best practices for mitigating that experience.

That's great.

Lastly, let's jump into rebuilding ridership.

The transit world is coming back, and I think we're coming back strong, but a lot

of agencies are tapping out at around 70 80 percent of their pre pandemic ridership

because we are in a new world now with hybrid work schedules, the three day city.

What are you seeing?

Well, I'm seeing it depends on the area that you live.

So, I'm going to go back to what I know best, and that's

Silicon Valley and the Bay Area.

We have one of the lowest return to work rates in the nation, in large part

because we're in the Silicon Valley and it's a tech driven economy where

people can do their jobs remotely.

So, what we're seeing is agencies looking at ridership trends

and changing their service.

Maybe they no longer provide bimodal service at the peak distribution hours.

Maybe they offer more evening service or more weekend service because they're

seeing riders using the system for reasons other than commuting to work.

And I think we need to really pay close attention to that.

Certainly, we've seen ridership rebound very strongly on the East

Coast, particularly in Washington, D.

C.

and New York City.

We do see some of our other agencies struggling because people are still

working through the cognitive mindset of the pandemic and feeling like exposure

might be strong, or they got used to being in their own vehicle and have

forgotten the ease, the convenience, the sustainability of using transit instead.

So I think we need to be nimble, we need to be able to pivot, we

need to look at the ridership numbers, and we need to adjust to

provide the best service possible.

And in doing so, we'll rebuild that ridership.

That's good.

I always think about what Jeremy Yap told me.

He runs Singapore's LTA transit system.

And after the pandemic, he said, you know, the silver lining is I don't have the peak

of the peak of the peak anymore, where I have to put all my resources out there.

Now I can spread them out.

And serve more people throughout the day.

And I think, well, like you said, that's what a lot of transit agencies have done.

Dr.

Philbrick, thank you so much for being not only a part of our podcast today, but

an integral part of our new book, The New Future of Public Transportation, talking

even more in depth on all these topics.

Thank you for having me.

It was just delightful.

Thank you so much.

You bet.

What a great interview with Dr.

Karen Philbrick, Executive Director of the Minetta Transportation Institute,

where she covered some of the hottest topics affecting our industry that

she wrote about in my book, The New Future of Public Transportation.

Now we interview Paige Malott, who is a high speed rail consultant and

researcher with the International Union of Railways, and she talks about what's

happening with high speed rail around the world and here in the United States.

Thanks Let's listen in.

Great to have Paige Malott with us today.

She is a high speed rail consultant, a researcher, has her own consulting

firm, P7 Strategies, and has written an amazing chapter in my book, and it

is on the future of high speed rail.

Paige, thanks so much for being with us today on the podcast to talk about it.

Thanks for having me, Paul.

Glad to be here.

Yeah, I, you know, this is one of the hottest

topics, clearly in America right now, but also around the world.

In America, people are, know, all about Brightline trains right now, right?

Brightline trains in Southern California over to Vegas is the latest.

Hot thing, they just did a groundbreaking, I actually got invited to it, uh,

it was just a couple weeks ago, wasn't able to make it, but, so,

higher speed rail, I know that's not real traditional high speed rail,

is on people's minds here in the U.

S., and you told me, you just came back from an amazing trip

to Korea, tell me about that.

That's right, yeah, so I was able to visit Korea, visit

Seoul for their 20th anniversary of their high speed rail system.

So Korea has the 4th high speed rail system that opened in the world with their

line running from Seoul to Busan, and they had an amazing exhibit with historical

artifacts, with representations of future trains, with art projects, and we even

did a tour of the maintenance facility.

I was able to go there with the International Union of Railways

and talk about a little bit of research that I'm doing.

On high speed rail stations at airports, so it was a really good time.

great to check it out and have that firsthand experience

to bring back to the States.

Yeah.

A long time ago, it might have been, I don't know, 15 years ago when I was a

county administrator, I did a trip to China and I got to ride on the real high

speed rail, Maglev, outside of Shanghai.

And I was just so impressed with that.

And then when I was in Baltimore at the MTA, my boss, the Secretary of

Transportation and the governor went to Japan to ride their high speed railway.

And we had a study going on that was federally funded to

potentially build in the future.

A high speed rail line between Washington, D.

C.

and Baltimore, which would be like a 15 minute ride, and there's still

a group that's doing the study.

but you've been all over the world.

Tell us what's happening with high speed rail around the world, and then we'll

segue to the United States, and you can tell us, why is it taking us so long?

Sure, so I've had the opportunity to ride and

witness 10 of the 21 high speed rail systems around the world.

That's in Africa, in Asia, and in Europe.

And most recently, just in this past October, Indonesia opened their 1st

high speed rail system, connecting Jakarta to Bandung, and that operates

at, it was 320 kilometers per hour, so roughly 200 miles per hour.

miles per hour and true high speed.

So, this line has been wildly popular, similar to what we saw in Morocco,

with the results there, operating at 200 miles per hour and greater.

That reduced travel times between Jakarta and Bandung in your from roughly 6 hours

by driving down to 40 minutes by train.

So it was, it was a huge success and they're already looking at expansions.

also looking at Morocco, the line from Tangier to Casablanca, that takes

roughly 90 minutes and it was a similar journey time on conventional rail and

on a car about 5 to 6 hours there.

So it was really game changing transportation for citizens that has

reduced the need to drive or take an airplane between these destinations.

is 200 miles per hour considered the cutoff if you're above

that, your high speed, I mean, what tradition, you know, real high speed?

So, 186 miles per hour is what the high speed classification is.

And it's also the speed that trains can compete with air travel.

So what we're looking at is anything greater than 106 miles, 186 miles

per hour is high speed rail.

The next step down is 125 to 186 is inner city rail, or what we call

in the states higher speed rail,

and then

anything below 125 is conventional rail.

Okay, so the Brightline train in Florida is the higher

speed, but the one they're proposing out west is going to be 200 miles

per hour, so that one would be classified as a true high speed rail.

So, what are some of the fastest trains in the world?

Do you know?

I mean, how fast are they going?

It seems like the one in Shanghai I was in was really fast.

Yeah, so China has the fastest high speed trains in the world.

They also have the most high speed lines in the world as well.

And these have really changed where people can go in the country.

It's serving rural areas, as well as connecting the bigger cities.

And what we've heard is, uh, the essentially the mayors and the towns are

getting demand from the folks in town saying, when is the station coming here?

It doesn't matter what the size of the town is.

People are excited for it, so it's really seeing those game changing

outcomes and connecting places that are looking for more opportunities.

Yeah, I like the phrase here that I've heard used, which is,

high speed rail is great for places where it is too long to drive, but too

close to fly, really, to get out to go, yeah, take any, you know, spend an

hour and a half to get on your airplane to park, but do your bags and fly.

So, uh, if it's a niche.

Uh, evidently right in that spot.

Why is it, why is it so hard here in America?

I mean, we've got, like I mentioned, in Baltimore, they were studying

this before I got there, which was like eight, nine years ago, and

they're still studying it today.

Then you've got the California High Speed Rail Project, which everyone

still has very high hopes for, but it just seems to be taking a long time.

In your opinion, Paige, what's going on?

All right, so, you know, we have the the too short to

fly too long to drive radius, which is about 500 miles from a city center.

So we're looking at city pairs within those those radiuses that

could be served by high speed rail.

And we currently have a gap of that in America where there may be

existing inner city trains, but.

But they have been underserved and under invested in.

So they're not being utilized by people.

I think a great example of this is from Chicago to Cincinnati.

We've got a corridor that takes roughly 90 minutes to fly, five hours to drive.

And there is an intercity train between these cities, except it takes

nine and a half hours to get there.

The train comes three times.

Wait, wait, it gets better.

Nine and a half hours to get there.

The train comes three times a week.

And it leaves Cincinnati at 1 in the morning.

Now, these are cities, you know, that have a population area of, close to

like 1 to 2 million people, right?

And so they're sizable cities, goes through Indianapolis as well.

So, these folks have been historically underserved by inner city rail.

And I think we are looking at how we can have these game changing

solutions from under investment in existing passenger rail.

The Brightline West is going to be a great leading project for that because,

well, everyone, everyone in the States.

It ends up in Las Vegas at some time.

It's a city that attracts people from everywhere.

You know, it's not necessarily, being somewhere on the coast.

Everyone comes there to have fun.

And I think having a rail line there connecting into LA, particularly with the

Olympics coming up, is going to be a great opportunity for people to see firsthand

what actual high speed rail is in this country and how that can deliver results.

I know there's a lot of environmental regulations.

There's people that sue to stop things from coming through their neighborhood.

These are some of the issues that I've experienced

personally in my previous jobs.

Oh, and, and of course, nowadays everything is going up in costs and, but

what is taking so long here in the U.

S.?

Why can't we get, you know, a real high speed above 180 mile per hour train?

I think part of the, the issue is kind of looking at what we

need to do to implement fast trains.

1 of the rules that we have is that if we have a grade level crossing, so where cars

intersect with intersect with trains that we can't have speeds that that go over.

125 miles an hour.

That's basically the regulation there.

So, so when we're looking to have trains that are competing

with speeds airplanes, right?

Like, 186 miles an hour trains and having those competitive travel times.

We're needing to build grade separation for that, and that's

going to cost more money.

So it's going to take a little bit longer to do, it's going to have

higher infrastructure costs, and that all takes political will and

business partners and money to do.

And getting all of that lined up takes time, particularly when we haven't had

the generational investments in rail like other countries in Europe have.

But I think we're getting to a point now where we're seeing other countries,

such as Morocco, such as Indonesia, That have had these projects that were able

to get them off the ground quickly and have seen the results and it's showing

that as a well resourced country, we should be able to do the same.

Yeah, I think it requires sustained political support and that

sometimes is hard to get because we're turning people over in office every two

to four years sometimes and, the pendulum, political pendulum sometimes swings.

So, what do you see as the future?

of high speed rail.

I mean, that is the subject of your chapter and people

can read about it in the book.

It's available now.

But, uh, what do you think the future is in just a few sentences?

The future of high speed rail, I see, is being incorporated into

other mega projects that we have in the United States, incorporating high speed

rail stations at airports, planning high speed rail alongside interstate

expansions, and being able to see all of these projects and transportation systems

working together instead of in silos.

I believe we're going to have game changing opportunities for cities that

have been historically underserved by rail, and it's really going to

bring about a good opportunity for Growth and traffic congestion and

sustainability in the United States.

That's great.

I hope your prediction and your future comes true.

That's great.

Paige Malott thank you so much for being not only a part of our podcast today,

but also a contributor to our book, The New Future of Public Transportation.

The title of your chapter, which is Chapter 8, is The

Future of High Speed Rail.

Thanks again.

Thanks so much, Paul.

What great interviews today with, , two of the contributors to the book.

Now I'd like to take a few minutes and share with you the rest of the

contributors to the book and all the topics that are included in it.

As you know, I've written about a book a year since I left the MTA as

CEO in Baltimore six years ago, and they've covered all kinds of topics.

My first book was Full Throttle.

Lessons On Leadership.

The next was The Future of Public Transportation, which was

the predecessor to this book.

Then it was a children's book and then a book on Conversations on Equity and

Inclusion in Public Transportation which was number one on Amazon for

six weeks and then, I did a cookbook last year featuring recipes and

stories from public transit executives around the world called ComfortFood.

In this post COVID world, there's enough changes happening in the transit

industry that it merits and warrants a new book with new subject matter.

I was able to get 30 top transit and technology leaders from

around the world to write chapters on their areas of expertise.

And man, they're very well written chapters from these leading figures from

topics such as hydrogen fueled buses to AI driven advancements to cyber security.

So much has changed in the last four or five years.

and so it's exciting to have all of this information compiled into a book.

It's great for people who are interested in public transportation, the future of

cities, sustainability, it's focused on those topics and I want to share with you

some of the people who are in the book.

Actually, I'm going to take a few minutes and actually walk you through

everyone who wrote in the book because I think each of them deserves some

recognition for what they've done.

First off, I was very honored that Mark Miller, wrote the forward to the book.

Mark was one of the people who brought me to Trapeze at the time, and now

Modaxo, and, he, was the founder of Trapeze, and now is the head of,

Volaris and, still very involved with Modaxo and all the work we're doing.

He wrote the forward, and it was a very nice, kind forward.

He's one of the smartest guys I know, and it was an honor to have him in the book.

And then, Mohammad Mezghani writes the first chapter.

He kinda kicks off the book.

Mohammad, as you know, is a CEO.

of the International Transportation Union, known as UITP, and he writes about the

future of public transportation globally.

It's a fantastically written chapter that, you need to read.

Then we break the book into sections.

There's a section on people, a section on modal futures,

the modes of transportation.

Then a whole section on zero emission vehicles.

There's so much talk about that.

I wanted to have it come from multiple perspectives.

Then we go into data and big data and how it's being used in public transportation

with several chapters there.

And then of course funding and faring with all the transit agencies ready to

hit the fiscal cliff this year in the U.

S.

and Canada and around the world as the COVID money runs out.

We talk to people about what are you doing about that and also faring.

Are we going to do this zero fare thing or not?

We talk both sides of that.

And then we look at some special cases, geographic

futures, for what it looks like.

And so, those, each of those areas has multiple authors who wrote it.

This book is hefty.

Not as hefty as my first one, Future of Public Transportation,

which was about 450 pages.

This one is 350 pages.

We kept it 100 pages lighter for you, but it's still rich

and dense of great information.

The chapters on people are written by Aaron Weinstein.

Customer Experience Extraordinaire writes a chapter on the future of

customer experience, and you know me, I'm a people person, so my chapter

is on the future of transportation leadership, and I'm speaking on that,

by the way, all over the country and the world at various conferences,

and have a new conference coming up.

I'm going to be the keynote speaker.

I'm announcing here today, coming up at a state conference in In the middle

of the United States, we'll tell you more about that coming soon, where

I'll be sharing there in September.

I spoke at CUTA and the Southwest Transit Association, on that topic

along with Frank White from Kansas City.

The third chapter, in this area of people is written by my good friend, Dr.

Karen Philbrick you may have heard of her before.

She's very famous in the industry.

She is the Executive Director of the Minetta Transportation

Institute in California.

And she writes an all encompassing chapter on the future of workforce

shortages, mental health, assault, and rebuilding ridership.

Then we hear from Daphne LeBlanc, who wrote a chapter on the future of labor

shortages and succession planning.

She's one of the most successful transit industry recruiters in America.

Then we switch into modal futures, and I asked Harold Humphrey, who was in charge

of bus transportation in the cities of Dallas and Atlanta, to write a chapter

on the future of bus transportation.

Nat Ford, former chair of APTA, industry leader, and now head of

Jacksonville Transit, writes on the future of autonomous vehicles.

He's been working in that area for years.

Paige Malott who is a high speed rail researcher with the International Union

of Railways, and the second guest on today's podcast, Then, Laura Hendricks,

who is the chairman of the North American Transit Alliance and the CEO of

Transdev the largest contractor in the country, writes a chapter on the future

of public transportation contracting.

My friend Roger Helmy with Modaxo writes about the future of integrated

mobility, as does my pal, Ron Brooks, write about the future of paratransit.

He's very active in that field.

Jody Godfrey writes on the future of transit safety.

Brett Koenig writes on the future of smart infrastructure asset management.

Carl Atencio, who is in charge of maintenance for here in the U S for

one of the best train companies I know of, Rocky Mountaineer, writes on

the future of rail fleet maintenance.

And then my pal Magda Robertson from Australia writes on the

future of automation and heavy rail from Australia and New Zealand.

And then Juan Carbonell writes on the future of mobility as a service.

Who better than him to handle that topic?

Then we move into zero emission vehicles.

There's been so much talk this year about how battery electric buses didn't make

the grade in the cold weather states as and in Canada, and many of them are moving

to hydrogen, but we cover all the topics.

We talk to Craig Cipriano, who talks about the future of

zero emission transformation.

He heads up that topic for one of the nation's largest,

engineering consulting firms.

Then Doran Barnes, former chair of APTA and.

the CEO, longtime CEO of Foothills Transit, writes on the future of

ZEB and hydrogen fueled buses.

His chapter tells a story about how he ended up with the largest

hydrogen fleet in America right now.

Kurt Conrad, from the home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, heads up

the transit system there in Ohio, writes on the future of how hydrogen

fueled buses work, and he's one of the smartest guys I know on the

topic, and also a great humorist.

Gary Waitz writes on the future of EVs and Monica Backman from Northern

Virginia writes on the future of equity, climate change, and EVs.

What's it sound like to you?

I mean, aren't these some of the biggest names in transit writing on,

really, their areas of expertise?

Let's plow through the last 10 chapters.

Simon Reid, who worked at Transport for London for such a long time and helped

them in this area, writes on the future of contactless payments and big data.

Dave Jackson writes on the future of data and AI.

And Jean Pierre Barakat from Canada writes on the future of cyber security

of vehicles and infrastructure.

Very hot topic since so many transit agencies are being hit by it.

with ransomware and cyberattacks.

Then we move into funding and faring.

What's happening with the fiscal cliff?

And are we going to do zero fares or not?

Well, we talk about it.

Davey Kim, who is the former Secretary of Transportation in California, writes

on what's going on with road charging and the future of transit funding.

Noah Berger, a big advocate of zero fares, writes on what's from outside of

Boston, and Miva writes about the future of zero fares, and Rich Sampson, who

debated him for me at an event we held last year at the ThinkTransit Conference,

writes about the future of faring.

Rich is the Executive Director of the Southwest Transit Association,

representing eight states.

And then we move into geographic futures.

Scott Bogren, the Executive Director of the Community Transportation Association

of America, my good friend for the last 30 years, writes on the future

of rural and tribal transportation.

Here in the U.

S.

And then we jump overseas, to Australia, and Samantha Abidero, who is head of

transport in Brisbane, Australia, writes on what they're doing to get ready for the

Olympics and zero emission and the future of transportation in that city and region.

And then my good friend, Peter Varga, anchors the book in Chapter

30, former chair of APTA and head of the Rapid, writes on the

past, present, and future of U.

S.

federal transportation funding.

Thanks Paul, for that great introduction to your book.

I know we're all anxious to start reading it.

This is Tris Hussey, editor of Transit Unplugged.

And thank you for listening to this week's special episode,

celebrating Paul's newest book.

The New Future of Public Transportation.

And thanks to our guests, Dr.

Karen Philbrick and Paige Milan talking about their contributions to Paul's book.

Coming up next week on the show, we have something very special for you.

We have Andy Lord head of transport for London, the world's largest

public transportation network.

In this great conversation with Paul Andy talks about what it's

like managing the world's largest public transportation network.

And his career that started off in aviation.

And how that applies to public transport..

Did you know that you could email Paul a question about public transit

or leadership or anything like that?

Just drop him a line at Paul Comfort at transit unplugged.com.

He'll read your question and Hey, he might even answer it on the podcast.

Transit Unplugged is brought to you by Modaxo.

At Modaxo we're passionate about moving the world's people and at

Transit Unplugged, we're passionate about telling those stories.

So until next week, ride safe and ride happy.