NVTA committee reviews transportation technology strategic plan; debates privacy and autonomous-vehicle roles

Chair Snyder called to order the Jan. 13, 2021 meeting of the Transportation Technology Committee of the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority and opened discussion on a draft Transportation Technology Strategic Plan distributed to committee members in January.

The plan, presented by Keith Jasper of NVTA staff, lays out eight strategies and three cross-cutting core values: safety, equity and sustainability. "This presentation ... give[s] you a high level overview of, the transportation technology strategic plan," Jasper told the committee, and he emphasized that the plan must be paired with an action plan that assigns responsibilities, schedules and measures to move strategies into implementation.

The committee and staff framed the strategic plan as consequential to NVTA funding and planning. Jasper said projects must appear in the Authority's TransAction long-range plan to be eligible for NVTA funding; TransAction is slated for an update targeted for adoption in November 2022. "The authority cannot fund any projects that are not included in the current version of its…