Michigan and Ontario, Canada, announced the expansion of their longstanding collaboration on transportation and cross-border activities to advance automotive and mobility technologies and help people and goods move safely and efficiently across the border by land, air, and water.
Officials said the goal is to create a roadmap for efficiently implementing automated- and connected-vehicle pilot programs, which starts with analyzing traffic safety and congestion at the border.
“Advancements in transportation technology have the potential to make the way we travel and transport goods safer, more efficient, and environmentally friendly,” said Caroline Mulroney, Ontario minister of transportation, in a press release.
The program has four main goals: to identify potential economic, social, and environmental benefits from increased collaboration in mobility technologies between both governments; to identify issues and challenges for both people and goods related to specific types of border-crossing; to explore the regulatory and policy considerations involved; to develop a roadmap for implementation, including steps to establish multimodal cross-border pilots for mobility technologies.
The two governments first collaborated on an automated vehicle pilot in 2017 to determine if automated vehicles could reduce gridlock around border crossings.
“This exciting joint venture with Ontario builds on the extensive work underway to make Michigan a global leader in the development and deployment of mobility technologies [to] benefit society, protect the environment, and strengthen our economy,” said Paul Ajegba director of the Michigan transportation department.
