Stephanie Sudano of North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT)

Are you curious about NCDOT’s new autonomous shuttle?

Learn about CASSI– Connected Autonomous Shuttles Supporting Innovation. It is one of the ways NCDOT is advancing emerging technology - by piloting innovative transportation tools into communities to educate, innovate, and strengthen them.

NCDOT is partnering with towns, cities, and a university statewide to deploy the shuttle and study various use cases. CASSI will provide an opportunity for NCDOT and those communities to test AV technology in different scenarios, such as first/last mile and limited mobility solutions, as well as community circulators.

NCDOT will also partner with one or more universities to gather data on the vehicles and publish a report. The research will focus on V2I (Vehicle to Infrastructure) performance, safety, ridership, public experience and perception, benefits, and strengths and weaknesses of automated and connected technologies. The CASSI project will be instrumental in helping North Carolina collect information to establish best practices, plan infrastructure for future AV deployment, determine how to tweak regulations to permit AV deployment, and position our state to take full advantage of technology in transportation.

The presentation will provide a brief overview of vehicle autonomy levels and types of autonomous vehicles. It will cover specific details on the vehicle selected for the CASSI project and why, the first two shuttle routes, and the project development path that led us to where we are today. The presentation will also include information on the purpose of the CASSI project, project schedule and delivery, lessons learned so far, and how to become a future deployment partner.

If you want to learn about one of the biggest advances in AV technology for North Carolina or want to be involved in bringing this technology to a community in the state, you will want to see this presentation!

Biography:

Sudano is an accomplished professional engineer with extensive management and leadership experience in local and state government, and volunteer organizations.

As Multimodal Transportation Special Projects Engineer, Sudano is presently serving as a leadership team member in NCDOT's Multimodal Transportation group, overseeing various special projects. She is Project Manager for NCDOT's first initiative to launch autonomous transit shuttles across North Carolina into urban, rural, and suburban areas in order to learn from the deployment of new technology. Sudano engages in active and extensive collaboration across the department, with other state agencies, local governments and universities, other states, companies, and a wide assortment of stakeholders to deliver success. 

For 20 years Sudano served as department director and key management team member in dynamic, fast-growing, atypical, and innovative municipal environment "building a Town" from a population of 800 to 35,000. She established a proven track record of high quality capital and non-capital project delivery and private development oversight within schedule and under budget.

Address:Raleigh, North Carolina, United States