 Okay, one of the issues that I heard quite a bit about this summer was school bus safety. And it seems to be a problem all over the state with people passing school buses and I know I just talked to my superintendent yesterday at 84. It's a statewide issue I guess of people passing buses during when they're stopped and cautioned and read and going over the sidewalks and I didn't know if there was something we should be doing or could be doing before disaster strikes. That scares me. I don't know. There's so many close calls that I've heard about and so I thought when I got back here this session, see if we could do something or just address the issue whether there's anything can be done. I don't know what our penalties are. I don't know. I know there's a much more clearer you can make, but cautioned, the red's going to come on and so maybe you could help me or help us maybe understand what's happening. Certainly Senator, before I heard Colonel Jake Elver on the director of DMV's Enforcement Safety Division with me is Patrick McMillan. Pat is a program specialist focused on pupil transportation. And I'll let Pat speak too. He sits on two national committees as well. Just a little background, Pat was with Burlington Police Department. And then actually I recruited him. He worked for the DMV's Commercial Vehicle Enforcement for a number of years before he retired out of that unit. He became a program specialist. Just before I have Pat speak, just a little background on Senator. You're not the only one that's asking us questions about it. Representative Thompson from South Burlington has also approached us. I believe Enthea has a bill that she's been working on with some suggestions. We've been communicating with her and reviewing it as well. But I think what I'll do is turn over to Pat and let Pat kind of give you kind of a snapshot of what's occurring in Vermont, what we're doing with school bus safety. And just kind of give you an idea of where we are. So I'm Patrick McMillan. As the colonel said, I'm the program specialist who specializes in student transportation. I sit on President-Elect from the National Association of State Directors for Pupil Transportation. We represent the 51st state, well, the 50th stage plus DC plus form. We have some form members that are my counterpart throughout the US. And then I also am the chair for the National Congress of Student Transportation, which meets every five years. They set the manual for procedures and standardizations for student transportation. Some states adopt it totally. Some states use it as a reference guide. Some of these states will adopt some of it and use the rest as a reference guide. Here in Vermont, we use it as mostly a reference guide. But the new inspection manual has adopted the inspection procedure out of there. I can tell you that our procedures that we teach in our school bus clinic for stopping and loading and unloading is the best practice that is seen throughout the US. The only difference is where they have the best practice for the national standards is they pull to the right. They put on the return signal and pull to the right. We can't do that here in Vermont. If we don't get the kids into either a snow bank or the embankment of a road. So we have to maintain the road, delay to travel when they drop off their students. Other than that, we follow the best practice as far as what we teach at our school bus clinic. Drivers are required to take the school bus clinic. It's an eight hour clinic, taught by 21 instructors that are certified by us. And the clinic is standardized. They're taught on the procedure. And then they're tested on it. Initially, when they get the endorsements, they have to do a written test and they have to do the driving test where they are actually tested on the procedure. Every four years, when they come off for renewal, they have to retake the clinic and retest it on the written test. If our examiner feels that they need to do a driving test, they can request the driving test after that. But we don't automatically retest them on the driving ability. So that's a background of how we do our training here for our drivers. Is the problem with school bus drivers or other drivers on the road? Yes, I think you were here last year. We had a woman who spoke- I think it was Becky Kange. Uh-huh. From the problem in North East. Right, who spoke about some of the experiences and some recommendations relative to maybe how signals were located on the bus and so forth. And then the other question we had was how does this tie into the governor's highway safety plan and the extent to which because it is a huge safety issue for children, how their plan of action would respond to what we see as a fairly significant risk. And so I'm just trying to pick up from where we had this last year because their description of what they experience as drivers every day was just appalling. It is when you hear about the specific ones and any child that is hit is tragic. I'm not going to minimize that. But in Vermont, we are actually below the national average. The national average is up in the 77% range of drivers reporting vehicles passing them. Last year, we take part in the NASDAQs on National Survey Railroad Passing Survey every year. And last year, we were at 13% of our drivers who reported to us having a passing. Like at least one incident? At least one incident, yes. And actually, the incidents are, I counted every incident as an actual passing. I didn't take a driver and say, okay, you have five incidents. That's just one driver. It's okay. Last year was also the best return I had. When in 2016, I had 45 drivers report. Last year, I had 315. So it's a huge jump from, of course, that doesn't account for every driver. And then I'm trying to slowly get on board. But as far as the lights are concerned, Becky has done a pilot program where she has placed red lights at eye level on the front and the rear of the bus. On a couple of her most severe routes where they saw the bulk of the passing. She doesn't have exact numbers, but what the drivers are telling her are that the passings have actually gone down in that case. I was telling the colonel and talking to the colonel about it, Ohio has done a similar thing where they put four lights in the grill and they alternate. They are yellow initially and when the red lights come on, they turn the red. And then on the back of the bus, they have striped it like you would see on the back of an ambulance a fire truck, as well as add some extra lights. They've also started, this was done in Columbus and they've also started to see a decline. So I think the problem is not necessarily the way we train. I think the problem is distraction. It's people not recognizing the bus is stopping until it's too late. Huge. Am I mistaken, one time they used to have an arm that went down, is that it? They have a stop sign that comes out. Yeah, but was there an arm that went down one time, no. There is a company that makes a huge arm that comes down with a stop sign on it. My concern with that is, and it's on breakaway points, but my concern would be you're going to break it off and are you going to be causing more of an issue because now the person has lost control. But they do have the stop signs and the arm you typically see comes out to make the child walk 10 feet from the front of the bus, which is what we train. So I think the bulk of the issue is that distraction and not recognizing that the bus has stopped. But you've got caution to come on early. Who turns that off? The driver. The driver. And like a second to say a second. You have to give people a little warning to give them a warning. We train at least 200 feet, 5 to 10 seconds out from the stop. So that could actually be up to 666 feet going at 45 miles an hour. So that's what we train if there's a particular problem with that stop to put them on even earlier. So if there's a turn. Yeah. So we take all that into account when we do our training. But it comes down to, again, it's the behavior of the driver. I don't think it's a training issue. I don't think it is the notification by the driver. I think it's actually behavior issue. It's either a distraction or some people just don't care. Are there any rocks in the middle of the stop? Right. Now the other thing I heard there's cameras to take pictures of people and go through the set. Something that every state does, they do it themselves or the bus provides people to put them on? The bus provider puts them on depending on the state. For instance, the state of South Carolina, they buy all the state phones, all the school buses that are used in South Carolina. And I believe they are now starting to install cameras. The cameras take a picture of the license plate, is that what they do? Some will take a picture of the license plate, and the driver some will just take a picture of the license plate in the car. It depends on how the system is set up. Montgomery County, Maryland has a program where a company came in and they have installed cameras right now, 50% of the buses. And what happens is it takes a picture. The Montgomery County police, they have somebody that reviews it, the cameras or the film or the DVDs, and they issue a ticket to the registered owner based on that film. The fine is lower than what it would be if they actually caught the driver and there's no point assessed to it. If the person wants that ticket wiped off their record, they don't want to pay it, then they have to submit who was actually driving the vehicle so that the officer can then issue a ticket for a full amount to that person. Then the company that has installed these tickets, or these cameras that didn't cost Montgomery County anything, the company gets a percentage of the fee to pay for the camera setups. Montgomery County is actually looking at installing it in all their buses now. Is that effective in the cameras? From what I hear from Todd and Leon, who are the assistant director for their transportation that has had some effect. And that's one of the problems with our issues, or our state is it's hard to get a conviction because you have to be able to identify the driver and the vehicle. And even with that, they're not being down guilty of it. Because of the technicality, I can tell you, one case in Rutland where the officer couldn't testify that the school bus sign was the proper size and that the front fenders were black, which is required by our state law. And the hearing officer dismissed the ticket. So I have another case where the, are you aware of the types of caps that have the school bus signs? Okay, they don't fall under the definition of school bus, but they have to have the sign and the driver has to have a school bus endorsement. And they follow the same procedures where a car passed, the school bus driver was able to identify everything, called the local police department. And the law enforcement officer that arrived said, it doesn't meet the definition of school bus, therefore 1283 doesn't apply. And that's what we're dealing with, is the actual enforcement issues. So should we think about statutory change for those vehicles that are transporting students, but we have a much more narrow definition of what's a school bus? I think we need to look at, should we somehow include them? A lot of places where we say a school bus, maybe add or vehicles that are marked in accordance with- Right, that's what I'm wondering whether. I mean, we have the Miscellaneous DMV bill here. So we have an opportunity to address some, depending on what your recommendations are. I mean, ideally the best thing is public awareness. And trying to get people to be particularly sensitive when they see a school bus. I couldn't believe on the news that school bus driver got shot. How did you see it? Well, I guess it was bad weather and he sort of bumped another car. And the guy got just very irate and shot him several times. It was out in the Midwest, Ohio or something like that. I think it cracked up to Ohio. To answer your question about awareness, Senator, we did this last year, Governors Highway Safety actually produced a PSA. Yeah, after we had this discussion, we noticed that in fact there had been some. And that's been in regular circulation. I've seen it a number of times over the period of time actually. And recently I think it's the last couple of weeks. So it is in rotation, as Pat said, I think certainly awareness. We've talked about distraction, certainly it's an issue out there for everybody. Just school buses, first responders, V-transplows. I think from the enforcements of the PSA, as Pat has indicated, it is an issue for us. And I think one of the things Pat would say is, when you have a school bus and you're trying to identify, you have a car that's passing. You have the driver that really is focusing on his students. Where are my students versus, I'm trying to get a look at the driver, so I can identify him. So that would be, if you were looking to do that type of enforcement, it would need to be some kind of statutory change. I know we've talked about it like red light cameras, speed cameras. If you were to issue, I mean it's really issue of the registered owner. And then we've heard the argument, well, then you're forcing the person to give up. We've had those discussions. But I think if you talk to law enforcement, that's probably the most difficult thing is receive the case after fact. Getting a statement from the bus driver, trying to identify it. And then if the person will tell you who the driver is, it really makes it difficult for the prosecution. Yes, on a safety note, when I was coming up here, their school bus stopped running, killing them before. The two lanes going up, and it's to beat the bus is the game. You can see it, and the two lanes, I'm to the right. And then before the bus could put, or maybe the same time or close to it, I can't even remember how the lights on. It was undercover, unmarked cruiser, and hit the blue lights. And that brought the traffic right down. Now I know we can't do that every school bus that it was on route four. And it's two lanes that I'm sure those cars in the left lane would have passed that bus, even if those lights were on. So that was just surprised everybody, surprised me. I said, ah, good to go, I know. Every once in a while, if they could follow. What do they do, for example, say you're heading up, I would say up, up the mountain. And there's, they're picking up kids that would have to cross multiple lanes on that section of route four. In other words, if the bus is in the right-hand side heading, is that north at that point, or east, or whatever? If you're wondering whether the third lane could be. And the kids were over on the other side. Would they actually have those kids cross? I'm not sure, but I know that there was a bunch of cars waiting for the students to get on the bus. So I'm thinking that maybe if they were from across the street, they drove them over on that section. I think that would be particularly dangerous. So they were having to cross over. They probably picked them all the way back or something. The best practice that we teach for setting up stops is that in a multiple four lane roadway or three lane roadway, for that matter, where the child would have to cross multiple lanes, not just the one lane, then you go up, you come back down. Also on roads that are dangerous, for instance, route 15 in Johnson, they actually go down one way and then they turn around and come back and pick up the kids on the opposite side. That's what best practice is. That's what we teach. But it's up to, because it's not statutorily how you do it, it's up to the provider to make the best route decision for them. So most places I know of will not have them cross multiple lanes. If it is, as far as stopping, if it is a multiple lane road that has a divider in it, a substantial divider, like Route 7 in the Burlington, South Burlington area, this prime example, where there's that divider, the bus going south stops, northbound traffic would not have to stop because there's that divider. That's what we're seeing a lot in schools now putting in bus lanes because of that issue, where they will have a divider dividing the bus lane from the traffic. Because what happens is technically, if there's not that divider in there, any traffic that is there must come to a stop. So like on that Rutland report, all three lanes, the bus is in one lane, the other two lanes even come the other way, they're supposed to stop. Yes. So I wonder how often they just don't even know they're supposed to stop, but there's a lane between them and the bus, if they're coming the other way, they might, people might not know that. And it's the same in every state, right? It's pretty standard in every state, yes. Because we have a lot of folks from a lot of states. My guide is the same throughout the U.S., but I can find out that answer by just surveying that the NASDAF's numbers. And is the training of the bus driver, one thing that was helpful on a route that I used to drive with my kids in the morning, we would get behind a bus, but the bus driver would always pull off, there was a little pull off just ahead, so you'd slow down because they would pick up four stops, but you knew they were gonna pull over, so it was a little easier to wait. In our public relations part of our training, we actually mentioned that, that's one of the things we mentioned that, you know. So that other drivers are in a patient. Right, because there would be like 12 cars lined up behind them and then we could all pass. So we do mention that. I know I try every, at least every three years to hit each one of my instructors to watch them in a clinic and it might be, I might notify them on coming or it might be a surprise. So, I have a checklist to make sure that they are following the curriculum that we have prescribed. And the curriculum just didn't come from me. It came from a committee of four of our instructors that are experienced drivers and trainers that got together and came up with the curriculum. They don't, when they come to a stop, they don't go straddle, set a line to the lessons that they've stopped in traffic. No, we tell them to maintain their lane. What I have heard is some of the buses now are starting to pull, to at an angle. The problem with that is reducing the visual lights. Right, right, right. In the sun. Yeah. So, you know, trick somewhere, you're just trying to figure out a way that's going to be safe. You guys, boy, sooner or later, you're going to be in the lanes. Well, it doesn't seem like finds are the issue because you never get a case to go on. In the window of time, it's difficult too. We tried doing an event a year ago up in Colchester and we lined up a number of unmarked cruisers. There was a complaint up near St. Michael's College. That's a four lane highway, two lanes each way. And they were getting complaints and we're all set up, ready to go. And the day we set up, we found out the student actually left this district. So, it's hard when you're trying to plan or the route is just such a short period of time that it makes it difficult to make arrangements. So what did you do? What are your thoughts that you'd like that we did? I think I would let Pat, and when we were asked to come over, I think it was you had some concerns and wanted to hear what concerns, I think it would be helpful to Pat to take a look at what the other states like he had mentioned coming over just about the lighting. The first question I usually hear you heard it would like ideas about having seat belts on school buses. What's the impact to the school districts? What's the additional cost to the providers and such? But markings, those are certainly not as expensive. I mean we've, the school buses, if you look at the school buses now, nowadays when you get them at night, they have the outlines where the emergency doors are and the emergency windows are. So that's part of the business and just conspicuity. So I think if you could take a look, again we're also reviewing what NTS said to us from Representative Townsend as well. I believe in that one, one of the comments or suggestions was increasing or at least laying out the actual distance where amber lights were to be activated and when red lights, so. But you have to have a training. It has a training but it isn't laid out statutorily and that in one of the conversations Pat and I had is that should we be saying an absolute distance because when you say an absolute number it makes it difficult for the law enforcement. We had that issue when we were talking about vulnerable users. How does an officer know what's three feet versus four feet? Right, right. Or maybe it's 50 feet or 50 feet. And as you said, depending on road conditions sometimes you actually want to turn the amber on for a longer distance. Right, yeah. What Pat has suggested is do we use like seconds. It's easier to go 1001, 1002 from a distance counting as opposed to trying to say here's the measurement sticking with the distances. That takes into a kick out on how fast the bus is going. And I forgot the question but I had another idea that I knew a senator Mazel like if we had one blue light to the back. Senator, I don't want to issue a bad one from that. I said this the number of times in committee. That kind of, I'm very, very fond of it. Right up there with dirty hands. Making friends everywhere. We all want to do the what's best, but it's very difficult to come up with what is best. I have remembered my question. So do we know if the problem is more people passing, counter traffic or passing, but I would assume it's coming the other way. I can actually give you those. Nationally they are seeing 59%, 59.1% passing from the front and 40.9% passing from the rear. In Vermont in 16 we saw 41% passing from the front and 58 passing from the rear. 86% in 2017 passing from the front and 13% passing from the rear. And then last year we saw 70% passing from the front and 29% passing from the rear. But again, this is a small segment of the actual transportation. As I get more and more people involved or more and more drivers involved in it, I'm going to see a better picture of what's actually happening in Vermont and then we can keep better track of it. But here it's 2017 we saw a huge front passing and not so much of a rear. But I had 147 drivers respond back then. So let me ask sometimes when they just turn on that amber light, you can't stop. It's a warning, right? That red light. That they're about to turn on. You can't pass if it's the yellow light or can't. At this point, legally, yes, if the yellow's wrong. One of the issues I have by absolutely saying you can't is that if they're at the slim fear or they're lining up for a track of fear of events but they have it on. So that would back up track terribly if they had vehicles could be out. They're loading, I'm loading, you see that. But you don't, but you can't stop the same instant that the yellow amber light goes on. That's what I'm saying is unique. I stop when the amber light goes on. I'm not going to buy it. I agree with that, but I'm just saying sometimes you're coming and it's just going on and you can't stop. Let me clarify, are you talking about vehicles coming towards you? Okay, the vehicles passing you coming towards you that we've got to report it once the red lights are on. The passing that occurs when the red lights are on. So the drivers don't report if it's during the yellow lights. Yes. So there's other than just trying to get better public awareness and, I mean, it's very hard to legislate common sense. We say it all the time with seat belts. And we talk about particularly under texting. Texting with seat belts, everything else. Yeah. Personally, on the enforcement side of it, it would really help to make the, being able to prove the case a little bit easier via the using cameras. And as well as also, because it's hard for the driver to identify the driver of the vehicle, possibly looking at it, issuing to the registered owner, at least we're going to start putting the impact on drivers because as a parent, there was one of my kids and I got a ticket as a registered owner. Yeah, I might not turn my kid in because I'm looking at the increase in the insurance that I'm going to be paying, but I'm going to have a nice conversation with my kid with a penalty that they're going to not only define, but they're going to have a penalty at home. So I think possibly maybe looking at that something that in the same way some other states have started to look. Let me go outside the box and say, okay, what about, we've heard this discussion since someone's been here a long time about seat belts on school buses. And I know that's been up and down and I've heard testimony of why, not why, for or against, is that going anywhere? I mean, people say, well, how come you don't have school buses, seat belts? And for the same reason, who's going to enforce it and all the other thing goes with it, but there are many states have primary enforcements on seat belts. What's happening, we saw last year, two states have mandated three point seat belts on. So we're now up to, I believe a total of nine states that required, really nine states that required three point seat belts. California has the most, they've had it the longest. They've actually have seen a decrease in discipline issues on the bus. But the interesting thing is they've done a study of single vehicle school bus crashes prior to seat belts and single vehicle school bus crashes after seat belts. And they've seen a decrease. And the reason is, is the driver's not distracted by the kids in the back, because they're now seat belted in. One of the things I heard years ago, we had, one of the main areas we had, who were responsible for the kids being buckled up? The driver didn't care about it, I almost say, wow, you're not buckled, you're buckled. So, but, I've been asked that, I'm sure others have, but why, we have to proceed those, why don't kids have school buses? I just wanted to know that, yeah. So California, I refer to California because I think they have the most comprehensive one and what they do with their drivers is as long as the driver reminds the student when they are boarding the bus with their seat belt on, they are held harmless if something happens. Even if the child injures another child, the driver is held harmless because they've done the due diligence that have the seat belt on. What they've also seen is initially, they have students, and you have students that came up not wearing seat belts. So you know, the old high school students when they first instituted it weren't wearing the seat belts. But now that the kids have come up, they're now wearing them in the cars, now they're wearing them in the school bus, they're wearing them. New York is interesting because New York requires them, but they leave it up to the school district to mandate whether the students are gonna wear them or not. So it's kind of, okay, you put the money into it, but you're not gonna have the kids wear them. Sorry, I'm gonna ask you that question. Thank you. Thank you, I had Wi-Fi on the bus, but it was only activated if your seat belt. There, there, there. So, your any recommendation that you would like to offer if you don't recommend it with your cameras or look at that or? I do recommend, we look at cameras, I recommend we look at the financial feasibility of the extra lighting. Particularly either what Ohio has or what Rutland, North East is now using as well as the striping for that Ohio is using. And the most standard for a school bus company that manufactures buses that they have to follow is generic across the country? There is the federal standard that is generic across the country, they must meet those which include the thin striping around the door. And the lighting is optional if you want four lights versus two. No, that is mandated by FETS too. What did you say? The 8-way light system, those are, the main lights, the amber and the red light system you see now in the system, that is mandated federally. The auxiliary lights that Pat is talking about like bumper height or in the grille, those are optional. Our light, like you had Jager. Right. Seriously? What did you say? I love it. You came back to me. So, the cameras do work, especially when you go through the toll booth and you don't pay your fine. Their work, the bill gets sent right to your house, it doesn't make a difference who's driving it, they say, so the toll booths work that way. So, we're thinking the cameras would work the same way. It's the vehicle that actually went through that at that point, who cares who's driving it, the owner of the vehicle will find out who's driving it. That can happen on the bus rules or regulations. Right now, can't we have to be able to identify the driver and issue the driver? Huh, specifically. So, I'd like to change that to, send that to the owner of the vehicle. Yeah, it's strange that they make toll rules over everything all the time. They get it automatically. Get it all the time. And just one of the things is like the auxiliary lighting, the system, the seatbelts, the school district, they themselves, the ones that like contract, they can certainly specify that, like you was talking about Peas, that particularly like the seatbelt system, the school district can, if they're contracting like first student or some of the other. Well, they're not going to. They can say it's part of the contract you have to. There is one school district or one school provider, and I'm trying to think of their name. They're up in the Lamoille County area. Lamoille Transportation, maybe? Oh, yeah, Lamoille Valley. I think it's them are now, every bus they purchase now, comes with a three-point system. Really? I spoke to the Thomas Dealer Cressy dealership. I'm actually in communication with a lot of the dealers and manufacturers, but they have told me that, yeah, that they are now ordering their buses with seatbelts. So they're the only ones I know and remind that are doing that. I know that first student and a lot of the buses we see come in from first student and student transportation of America, some of them are new, but some of them are coming from other states. Can you run? How many kids get injured in school buses here? Did you say that already? Not sure how many injured. We don't keep those stats, but on an average, we have nine children that are killed in the loading, unloading timeframe of. National. National. National. That includes not only passings, but that also includes accidental runovers by the school bus driver. Does that happen in Vermont that we're aware of? The last one that happened in Vermont was the 2003-2004 school year. It was a child in Barrie that went to retrieve some papers under the bus and the driver was outside. Lost track and ran out of room. You know, it must be very difficult for a driver to see seriously. The hood is up here, and you gotta, if the kid does fall in the truck, you gotta make sure that kid goes across from there. Field trip. And that's. So I thought, field trip, you should drive the bus to see how it is. It must be tough. That's, again, one of the things we train is you have to count the kids. So if you have five kids that are going across, you should be counting five kids on the other side before you're doing anything. It is. It's a huge responsibility for the driver. Is there a camera from the bus that shows up inside your bus? No. They don't. Some states do, because we've seen, you know, DVDs. Yeah, I was thinking, well, that would be mandatory. There is camera systems that they can have installed that will do everything, you know, every angle you want. In Vermont, we don't require them. So a lot of the districts, they might have interior cameras. Some districts might actually have exterior. We are fortunate. Red light, the cameras. Counting the kids in transport would be a really good one. Well, it sounds like our school bus system is safer than general transport. I mean, the kids get around the weather paths, probably more frequently than school buses, so that safety efforts progress. School bus transportation. National is the safest in the U.S. If you look at percentage-wise, 1% of the kids that are killed going to and from school are on school bus. 50% are in a child's, or another student's car. Sure. And I think it's 40% are parents. And then the remaining is walking up ice lane. Well, when you're in school bus, you're a hammer, not a nail. It's much safer because you're not baking. And the bus is specifically designed for safety. And I can go in. That would take hours to talk about what they do on buses to make them safe. So if we were to explore cameras, we just recommend they explore them and not, I mean, I don't know what else we could do. Is this required of these additional things that Vermont has? Are they in statute or are they in regulation? Additional. Lighting or whatever. That's over and above what buses have to meet the federal standards. So do we have additional ones in Vermont? And if so, are they in statute or are they in regulation or are they just in a manual recommendation? Right now it is not in statute. Brother Northeast contacted us to see if it was legal to do it. Our research showed that because it's part of the eight way that they only come on when the eight ways come on. So our research was that if they're coming on with the eight ways and they're disabled once the eight ways are turned off, then it doesn't violate our red light permits or our color light law. And that's why we allowed them to do it. So I think in that case, if the state was to mandate the extra lighting, it wouldn't take a legislative change except for the mandating the lighting. But as far as changing our permit, our color light permit, I don't think we need to do that. Okay, 18 hours. Thank you very much for the information. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. It's hard to figure out what to do. Oh, I know. Well, we haven't got a text to read there, so. Can I ask a question with one fatality in 15 years? Why do I need that? No, I hear, as I said, this summer I must have got so many calls of people. People passing the buses all the time. Yet they're not running over a kid, but they're passing them violating the law and he shows the numbers that are going through the red light. And, you know, you're just trying to accept them. Yeah, that's what you're reporting on. Right, sorry. But it was still lower than it was in the past. Yeah, it's improving, but when you hear these stories, it was one of the summer and I already went on a sidewalk and passed the bus for a full sidewalk. You know what's an issue, so when I'm driving behind a, so in Burlington, many students take the Greenmont Transit buses, that's the way they get to it from, which do not have the thing. And so I think what's happening, at least in some parts of the state, is people are used to be here behind a bus. You expected the little sign to come out, if that was your little thumb. Now, it's actually in many places, more often than not, you can go around the bus, so I think people are losing that. But those are not school buses. They're not school buses. They're used for school buses. They're used, I said. We're looking at the arms with the lights and all the stuff, official school buses. Yeah, they ride the buses in the city. Yeah. Yeah, they have no control over that. They just ride a regular bus, like. With other passengers. With other passengers. Can I ask, why, that being new to this committee, why do buses still stop at railroad stations, at railroad tracks? Yeah, and it's something, yeah. I feel like it's more likely to get the kids killed. I don't know. You know, you stop right on the track. I'm not on the track. What happens? Don't stop on the track. No, stop, no, stop. The driver is basically aligned with the track. The thing is, but, and if a train's coming, what are they gonna do? Probably try and, the instinct is gonna be to hit the gas, go forward, killing all the kids and leaving them at the front, safely. I just always wonder, but I've always wondered, what's the point? When's the last time a school bus got hit? I mean, I'm not making like, when's the last time a school bus got hit by a train? How many times has a school bus been hit by a train? Just a couple weeks ago, it was one of it. And a train pushed it down the track. In Vermont? No, it wasn't in Vermont, no. But it's not just school buses that stop at your railroad track. Fuel trucks. Fuel trucks, fuel trucks, fuel trucks. This vehicle stops at all railroad crossings, okay? And I believe commercial buses, I'm supposed to stop for this one. That's good, I guess it's a test. I'm operating. I think they do. This is because we don't have the gates at every, that's right. No way, sir. We should do, upgrade all our railroad crossings. Yeah, there we go. Okay. The trains can go faster. Okay. Look at that. Before the senator asks another question, I can't answer. He's thinking. Oh, no, I'm just thinking we had, you know, we've had, we have relatively recent housing on our waterfront. So the last 25 years or so, when people move in, they don't make the sound of the train coming through. I remember that city council people were saying, can you tell them not to like this a little bit? That's like, you know, the train was here before. Yeah, I always say, who was there first? I like it. Good to know. But it was an issue outside of Burlington when I was on egg and it was on the, that's not a good smell. No, this was right into the side of Barry here. He went to a little trip and it was him and Carl here. Oh, yeah, it was the compost. Oh, the rats. The rats. I've never seen so many chickens and kicking through stuff. That's unbelievable. Senator Asker just got off. Where's the first Vice-Chair of the Joint Rules? Oh yeah. And his speaker and Vice-Chair sit together. They're going to vote. But I did about 1% of the talking. Correct. Oh, it was the Joint Rules this morning. I'm glad you came in because it had gone on for a long time. It was a little bit of a monologue after that. Next year's was looking for a committee. Well, we took care of it. Okay, next one this morning is a Thomas vehicle testing language. Joe Cigali, who's? Where is Joe Cigali? Where is Joe? I was coming. Who's coming? All right. I didn't give you language in the end, so. Okay, you are. Join us this morning. This is for the miscellaneous. I believe that is the plan. Miscellaneous. The MVW. You're not going to be right, are you? Someone's going to say that's pretty good. This is my job. A Thomas vehicle. I'm sure. Yeah, he mailed it. Peter says that his car can come get him. His car can come get him. I believe it. Really? His car? Yeah. I don't know if it's how it does with like security gates, but. I think it comes back to that side. It can. And it has the function, you know, where you don't have to do anything. It'll just take care of it. Oh, really? Yeah. Exactly the specific part. Well, I think what's fun is to see how it deforms compared to you. But it's like detecting the lines. I don't know how it does it. I think something will just go into your house. Right here, right here. And you know, when you nodding on, it could be pretty handy. I thought I'd get a call from this three-person thing. Yeah, I went home, but you know that. Here's when it stayed over. Yeah. Well, I have to say, I've commuted since 1973, and I've never not made it. I've never stayed over a couple of years or many years. I've never stayed over, but I've never had not made it home or made it to work. I mean, the worst thing that happens is instead of 45 minutes it takes about a half hour or the other night to have had it off. So you've got a business to look for you. This is one of your sleep. You have your car, like a similar to Peter's car. Yeah. Go out and do labor, go to parents, and then the car's there when you're ready to go to work. You would have fewer people. You would have fewer complaints from the riders than if I was driving myself. Perfect. I like it. And you just have your picture on the dashboard. So it gives them a shoe that can catch you with some recorded hands-on. So I would just call it out. I would just call it out. Right here. I want music there. That's your next career. Would you like to join us and go over this? Oh, I think Joe is waiting. OK, Joe is waiting. All right. OK. We want to take a five-minute break while waiting for Joe. OK. So we have joint physical. Tim, you're on joint physical. You're putting yourself on it. No, but I'm taking this a lot to myself. That's the last one. That's the last one, Stan. Anything with Missy on it? What do I ask? From them. Right. And then there's a postcard if you'd like to order some. Oh, that's it. They're here to deliver it for you for that time of the day. Oh, wait a minute. It's the advertising guy, you know? Yeah. They got you. There's the novel. There's only one. One year ago, I got a bag of pollen soil. Oh, I thought that was it. I appreciate it. OK. So post it on the screen. Yeah, all right. Good morning. Good morning. Apologized. Is that all right? Being late. So I'm here to talk about the proposed language with the DMV Miss Lamest Bill to allow for testing of automatic vehicles on public roads. Oh, that's a big bill. And so what I wanted to do was just start to give you some background information on the different levels of vehicle automation because it's important to understand that concept as we get into the actual details of the bill. And so I handed this out. On one side is sort of a kind of a simple overview of the different levels of automation just for reference later on. But I want to actually talk more about this table, this detailed table because it can kind of help understand the basic concepts. And this table is from the Society of Automotive Engineers and it's kind of the reference state legislation around the country is referring to when it starts talking about the different levels of automation. So just to go across the top, there's the different levels, 0 to 5 or 6 levels. There's a description of it. And then the first column, DDT stands for the Dynamic Driving Task. And so that is basically everything that an individual or an automated driving system needs to do to drive the vehicle. So to be able to identify and recognize events and objects that move the vehicle forward and backward and left and right, everything that we do to drive a car. So there's an OEDR, that's really a tough one, but it's object and event detection and response. What that really is is just simply the ability to monitor the environment around the vehicle and then to be able to respond accordingly. The DDT fallback, so the driving fallback means what happens when the system fails, who's, you know, is it the system itself that's going to take over control of the vehicle or is it a human driver? That's a key differentiation between these different levels. And then ODD is the operational design domain. What that means is where is the system allowed to operate? So it could be time of day, it could be weather, like when operating the snow, it could be specific geographic areas, and so on. So just starting with level zero, that's the conventional vehicle. It may have some automated features on it that, you know, we're becoming familiar with like blind spot or any locked brakes, which those are, you know, a certain level of automation, but they're sort of instantaneous and they're not sustained. And in this case, conventional vehicle, the driver is obviously responsible for driving the vehicle, is responsible for the fallback and anything goes wrong. And, you know, the design domain is not really applicable in this case. So levels one through five is when we start getting into automation. And the key difference between levels one and five and levels zero is that they're sustained, the automation is sustained in some way. Whereas level zero, it's kind of this instantaneous message and then it's done one through five might be sustained. So an example of just starting with one is adaptive cruise control. And at level one, the automation only works in one direction, like it could be backwards forward or it could be maybe left or right, but it's generally just one direction. And the driver is still responsible for monitoring what's happening around and still responsible for everything that happens with the vehicle. If the system fails, like adaptive cruise controls are working right, the driver is obviously responsible for that. And then the operational design domain is limited. So if we go up to level two, partial driving, automation, again it's sustained, but the vehicle, the automation allows the vehicle maybe to go left or right, forward or backwards. An example of that is parking assist, you see where the vehicles will kind of turn back in and park themselves. So it's not just going one direction. And so in that case, while the system, while that movement's going on, the automated driving system is in control of the vehicle. But the driver, the human, is still monitoring what's happening and the driver still has to fall back, meaning if the system fails, the driver has to be able to take over the car. And it's very limited in terms of where the system happens. So that's zero, one, and two. And the legislation does not address those. And the reason why is because the driver in all those cases is still ultimately responsible. So if we move up to levels three, four, and five, this is when the system becomes more capable of driving the vehicle. So starting with level three, conditional driving, automation. So the system can move the vehicle left, right, or forward. And a common example of this might be the current Tesla autopilot, which it can more or less drive the car for most of the time. The system does monitor the environment around it, but to a limited degree. But, and this is the key aspect of level three, is that the human driver always has to be ready to take control. The human driver has to be receptive. Sort of like the way you're receptive to a firearm. You're not worried about a firearm right now, but if it happened you would react accordingly. And then the operation design domain is limited to certain cases. So it might be this technologies can be used in stop and go traffic. Where you're staying in one lane, it can be used maybe where the lane markings are clear and the vehicle can read and interpret the lane markings. So the next level up is high driving automation. And in this case, the system is completely driving the vehicle. It's also completely monitoring the environment around the vehicle and responding accordingly. I have a question. I'll be talking about the ability to read the markings. In a snow storm, the markings are covered. What happens with an autonomous vehicle when... It doesn't work well. I'm just wondering, to what extent environmental conditions impact sort of the technology. So that's a great example of what I mean by that. I could have used it the other night because the markings are getting pretty faded and it's really hard to see. But I just wondered if the road actually is covered. So that's an example of an operational design domain. So like a level three vehicle if it needs to be able to see the edge lines and it can't see the edge lines, it can't be operating those conditions. And then the driver has to take over control. You won't be able to see them either. But you can see other things in the driver react accordingly. At some point they will make it with probably some kind of satellite imagery rights because where your vehicle is can be linked to something that has data about where the lanes are. Yeah, there's a little bit of debate about that because the vehicle itself should be able to especially when we get to level four or five should be able to interpret the environment around it and act accordingly without having to hook into a satellite or traffic signal for anything else just like you can as a human. And it'll be enhanced. It's safety will be enhanced if it can connect then. And the other sort of distinction too with this dynamic driving task is that it's tactical and operational so it's how you move the vehicle in the traffic around you. Whereas it's not strategic so that mapping comes in which is I want to go from national life down to the capital. And that's a strategic decision and then I call up the self-driving car and it comes and gets me and knows how to get me down here. So the mapping is, I think the thinking is that if we have to just rely on mapping it'll never be as ubiquitous as it needs to be because it's not as precise. Okay, so level four is the system is driving it the system is interpreting the environment around the vehicle and responding and the system, this is the key difference between a level four and a level three. In this case the system has the ability to put the vehicle in what's called a minimal risk condition if the system itself fails. So whereas level three it's the human that takes over the vehicle level four if the system fails there's backup system that might pull the car over to the side of the road it might put it in something called lip-home mode which just gets over go slow and the flashes are on and it gets it back to wherever it's stationed so it's the system not the human and it's still the operational design domain is still going to be limited like it could be an on-campus shuttle for example or it could be it's only running up and down State Street or at certain times of the day but the automated driving system is still in control of the vehicle. Now four is a little bit different in that there could be a situation where a human would take over but the human doesn't need to take over and then when we get to level five that's just complete automation and the human if a human is on board there are only a passenger the vehicle is doing everything and that's the simplest to understand but I mean and what makes this so complicated is that we're going to be going through this evolution of these different types of automation and there's going to be a mix of these vehicle types on the road. So I'll stop there. Is there any questions that before I kind of start I assume you want me to start walking through the bill itself? So the bill is anticipating the development of this technology and how many states have actually before we get into it is this modeled after legislation that another state may have passed? There's a bunch of states that have testing legislation there's the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators on the DMV's kind of national umbrella organization that has developed guidance on it some states like California for example because Google's out in California and they have a company that's developing a car called Waymo and they got way out of front in legislation and so if you look at their early drafts and then they've modified and modified and modified and so there's a lot to learn from California How does any manufacturer want to test here? Well because we'll probably have to encourage them to test here but because we have a unique environment right we're a rural environment and there's a lot of rural miles and we have seasons mountains we have gravel roads mud seasons but I don't think they're going to be knocking down our door to come here and I mean I sort of see this as allowing the testing of automated vehicles on public roads which is a little, it's not clear in statutes whether that's permitted or not and I think that the agency of transportation is probably going to have to take the lead just like Rhode Island is doing now to invite and maybe even fund some of the testing in our state so that we want Vermonters to be exposed to the technology so they can learn to become comfortable with it that's the prime reason for kind of encouraging testing And the vehicles that have been developed so far how are they propelled? Are they electric? For the most part they're electric and this gets to like a bigger policy issue too the thought is that this is another way for us to start encouraging more adoption of electric vehicles and it'll still take a little bit of time but this technology just works better on an electric vehicle than on a gas powered vehicle I think it's very forward-looking and in line with the demographics we're all getting old so see this is going to help us maintain mobility So we're going to disallow people above a certain age to get licenses and this is the trade-off Or you may never have a license Yeah, that's what I mean It's really when you think about mobility as your age is of major concern and independence and whatever So we're looking at that You're going to have to have an age for the autonomous vehicle Oh my god Joey is the best He picks me up right in front I know He never complains You don't have to tempt Yeah, you don't have to tempt I haven't really tried to give you the whole feel about why this is good but one of the prime reasons is safety that's why the transportation industry is so interested in it Your error is the major source Exactly But then also the mobility and accessibility benefits that you're talking about And then I think for Vermont you don't want to be behind in the technology You want to make sure that as it starts to roll out that we're a place that it works I agree We've got to get forward-looking not just old and unaffordable So would you like me to start walking through this? Sure And thanks for Enthea for we had a rough draft and we did their magic on it So this will be, this as I mentioned will be part of the miscellaneous the Enthea miscellaneous bill and it'll be added in the Chapter 41 of Chapter 23 and it's the Automated Vehicle Testing Act So through the, I can start with the definition so Automated Driving System is the hardware software that are capable of performing the entire dynamic driving task There's that term again, it's going to come up a lot which is driving the car on a sustained basis and it's related to levels 3, 4 and 5 So again, as legislation it's about testing the levels 3, 4 and 5 because that's really where the most risk is because the vehicle is taking over control Automated Vehicle is defined as a vehicle with Automated Driving System level 3, 4 and 5 the reasons I just described Automated Vehicle Tester or Tester means an individual company public agency or other organization that's testing an Automated Vehicle on public highways that could be VTRAMS that could be Department of Motor Vehicles that could be the University of Vermont or it could be a company that wants to come here and test and like I said, more than likely we're going to end up being a partner with whoever wants to come here and test Moving on to the next page Dynamic Driving Task I already described that Highly Automated Vehicle is level 4 or 5 and that's because the system is always in control and the system is responsible for the fallback so if there's a failure of the system the vehicle can pull over Manufacturer is pretty broad it could be that individual or company that designs produces or construct vehicle or equipment could be a manufacturer that included the original equipment manufacturer at different stages of the vehicle so if there's a car that's on the market right now and let's just say there's a Vermont company that's interested in Automated Vehicles and they buy that vehicle and they put some sort of automated driving system on there then essentially responsible for that vehicle Minimal Risk Condition is as I described earlier which is the ability to fallback and to either to keep driving in a safe way or to just pull over and stop the vehicle Operational Design Domain on page 3 is when, where the vehicle the automated driving system can actually be engaged to use and it could be environmental conditions roadway types specific locations Public Highway is as defined in that statute we may want to take another look at that John Dunleavy did look at it but I just want to verify that's the right reference because I think there's one definition of public highway like police officers I think can pull over people that they're concerned about even when they're not on a public highway so just want to double check that and make sure that's the right definition SAE J306 it's the society of automotive engineers and it's their practice that's this document that's being used throughout and it's where I pulled this table from here that defines what the different levels of automation are if you're really interested in getting into the weeds on this let me know I'll get you a copy test vehicle operator is the person that's actually in the vehicle and is under certain cases is the fallback so in number 10 we're making reference to a specific date of that document if it gets updated you're going to have to go in and update the statute the way it's written any subsequent versions or the most current well it says any subsequent versions so any subsequent versions I guess that takes care of it any questions on the definition so moving on to section 4203 paragraph A so I do have one question just wondering as we get through the meat of the bill is this only if I look down on private road this isn't intended to allow the testing on private roads is that I'm just looking at the definition only includes state or municipal highways I'm just yeah so if you're a road you know if someone were to say does that mean someone's real people from space are going to come and test on my road the answer would be not under this construct not unless they let them do it and you know there's situations around the country where vehicles are being evaluated on test tracks under road I don't know that's a private contract basically this is speaking specifically to use on public roads absolutely thank you okay so moving on page 3 to paragraph A so the idea is that the traffic committee would essentially have the authority to issue a permit to allow for the testing of automated vehicles can we refresh our memory who's on the traffic committee it's the secretary of transportation the commissioner of DMV and the commissioner of public safety and one of the most common things they do now is modify speed limits they have a few other statutory things that they're responsible for and they operate they have to follow the public notice requirements and the idea is that their staff by our traffic traffic system and management operations unit which is here the traffic signals and that's the signs and the lines and that sort of stuff and so the thought is that they would be part of the staff reviewing the application as well as others I imagine I would be involved to some extent and they would make the staff would make a recommendation to the traffic committee any conditions and so on and I'm going to talk generally about that process maybe rather than going through each paragraph but you know the bill allows the agency of transportation to develop guidelines for the application and at one point I was listing all the details that would go into that application and the legislation and I just thought it was just too extensive you know like name and so on and so here's examples of practices around the country that we can use to follow that and then it gives us a little bit of flexibility as things change over time one of the questions when we initially had a group of stakeholders together including BLCT and others and you know what's the role of the municipalities in approving the use of testing of automated vehicles because obviously you know most of the roads in the state are local roads they're municipal jurisdiction and so this requires that the tester contact the municipality and essentially ask them to write a letter and identify you know any they have to coordinate, collaborate with the municipalities it doesn't give the municipalities veto over this and so that's you know that's a policy question that certainly could be debated but the thought is that you know just in the way that we issue licenses for drivers right you know drivers can drive anywhere in the state highways and municipalities could certainly make their concerns known at public hearing you know you have to have faith that the appointed officials that are on that committee are going to listen and respond so that's kind of just that's really a nutshell when it comes to what the traffic committee is going to do is it helpful for me to go through each of these paragraphs with you or I have some questions but as I'm reading through about those who would seek a permit from this traffic committee you have to be 25 years older if you wanted to test so that's okay there's the tester which is you know the manufacturer or entity that owns the vehicle and then there's the what you're referring to is the operator the operator of the test vehicle and just to make sure and maybe questions will get answered so paragraph A as I mentioned traffic committee has got the authority to issue the permit paragraph B is that don't conduct a hearing to provide for comments from the public C is that anybody agreed by the decision of the traffic committee may appeal to the superior court D is that the automated vehicle or so that's not the person necessarily the person in the vehicle but the person that owns the vehicle shall make the test permit available to law enforcement and municipalities within their operational design domain so where the test is going to be happening and then following completion of their test they'll submit a report to the traffic committee summarizing results, observations safety, traffic operations etc everything they've learned essentially coming on to paragraph F so this is another key decision point so an automated vehicle tester shall not test an automated vehicle on a public highway unless the vehicle operator is a seated in the driver seat be monitoring the operation of the vehicle and see capable of taking immediate control so that seems very really reasonable right like you want to do the deed in the car but I'm just going to jump you ahead to paragraph G on page 6 bottom of page 6 so what this says is notwithstanding subsection F of this section a highly automated vehicle which is level 4 or 5 which means the vehicle has the ability to get into a minimal risk condition may be tested on a public highway without essentially without a human being inside the vehicle as long as the manufacturer has the ability to control the vehicle so that could be remotely essentially it's saying control the vehicle remotely and the vehicle I think we say or but I think it probably should be and has the technical ability to get into a minimal risk condition so the question about whether or not we should require a human being in the test vehicle is a key point and I looked at the test I looked at legislation around testing in different states so Florida, California, Colorado, Nevada they all allow testing without human being in the vehicle under the same conditions you still have to be able to control the vehicle remotely and it has to be able to get into a minimal risk condition other states don't have language specifically around testing but they allow the automated vehicles to operate on their highways without a human being in the vehicle that includes Georgia, Nebraska, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas. There are other states that explicitly require a human being in the car at all times so Connecticut is one of them Connecticut just had legislation passed recently Massachusetts doesn't have legislation but the governor issued an executive order and in that executive order requires a human being in the car at all times New York requires a person to be president of the vehicle Washington DC also requires a person to be in the vehicle and so the reason and so the association of motor vehicles administration they recommend that legislation accounted for a situation where a human doesn't need to be in a car so so that's what you would recommend is this language yes and is there still even one fatality oh no there's been more than one there was sort of one of the early ones was Tesla a few years ago which was probably like a level two type of Arizona I can't remember the state but it was that was sort of a famous one because I think it was no no I mean but like in Arizona there are a ton of this vehicle killed in the pedestrian right so that's the kind of I guess where there was nobody in the vehicle no there was a person in the vehicle yeah but the person didn't manage to yeah you know I still haven't seen the final analysis of that but you know there's a video you can watch of the driver inside the vehicle and he you know the way and then it was dark she was pushing a bike across the divided highway with a median you know and I don't know really I mean the laws of physics still apply right even if the vehicle has the ability to put that in the stands the laws of physics still apply it's not an intense section it's a acceptance of basic laws it would be a finding I mean that is the risk right I mean that's like the big challenge here is like ultimately we want the technology to remove the human from the decision making process because humans make most of the decisions but still not going to be perfect and we have to somehow shepherd that in you know in a safe way as possible so the traffic committee has the ability to put conditions on the permit and so if there was a tester that came and said well we do want to test vehicles without a driver on board you know the traffic committee can you know request whatever is necessary to make sure that's going to be done in a safe way and monitor them in a safe way you know key part of that is that the vehicle has already been tested in off-road conditions in situations that you know are similar to what they would find actually on a public highway so if the city of Burlington said they wanted to test it in a more urban as opposed to rural they could take position but they they couldn't override the traffic committee's decision is that if I understood what you were saying so if the city of Burlington wanted to lead the test themselves is that right? say if they wanted to say no I just want to go back to what you're saying is if the traffic committee said yes the municipality doesn't have the authority to say no that's right that's how it's currently and if the city of Burlington I'm using the examples you gave of those who said you could have a driverless vehicle versus one that required a passenger it seems congested areas for the ones that put an emphasis on having a person there so if this passed with the language allowing for a personal vehicle and Burlington said well we only want the vehicle the way it's written that they could not impose those conditions on the test well the city could not the city could request that the traffic committee or if a letter and all the other ways that were pressured to you know to respond so that is the way it's presented so I'm going to back up to F I think that's where I was 6 so I'm back on page 4 so actually so again in both cases certain cases there's going to be somebody a human being will be in the vehicle maybe be seated and be able to take over control so if we go over to page 5 that person that's in the vehicle needs to be an employee, contractor, other person designated and trained by the automated vehicle tester concerning the capabilities limitation of such automated vehicle in our application we would require that they demonstrate that, provide information and back that up this is paragraph E is something that so I had a group working with the DMV people and public safety people as we were drafting this in so they recommended that the person that's operating the vehicle to be at least 25 years of age or older and that's not something that's like legislation that I saw but it seems to make sense right, I don't think you can rent a car if you're once you're 25 years old but you can be a auto mechanic at 22 get some people's car and letting it go on the road so what's the difference between an auto mechanic and a person who's paid by a fancy company to test an autonomous vehicle or are you different? well I mean they're not in the car driving the car I guess that's the only difference I mean when they're working in the car it's not moving and you know, there might be it probably starts with a question you're hiring an engineer to be in the car and you're going to be there to observe it just seems that it's a self-selecting they're not they're not the guy holding the madrasail sign on the corner of the intersection in someone who graduated from BCC and was the one hired by Tesla to be in the car and observe things and monitor what it just seems that the age limit is strange because they're already meeting these other tests so anyways, I know that that's probably not the most important piece of this I don't think it's a you'll break the one where the other guy on the top of page 5 may I need to go back and reread it, it says an employee an employee of what? it says an employee independent or persons and trained by a tester so who who is the employee is it referencing some other prior definition I would read though maybe that needs to work for me but it's the employee of the automated vehicle tester or it's an independent contractor working under contract to the automated vehicle tester alright so you have two different things you have the manufacturer and then you have the tester so there's separate entities and then there's the operator this D is under the tester of the vehicle and that's one of the things that that person needs the operator the operator yes I think that sentence needs to be rewritten because it's and it's also not clear who and other person would be there ought to be there ought to be in the car that isn't there do you have a sense of that that was meant to include of other if you're just a person visiting yeah that's a really good I don't see the question it's not an employee or contractor I'm not sure we'll have to read it I'm not sure we'll have to read it otherwise they're not under any obligation so maybe we get senators danger senator joy tested a car the car dealership they ran over like 20 cars what 10 years ago it is oh yeah what was he testing just that started in the car she drove it out a lot but it just it was like a bumper car okay so we'll I guess I can work with you on language on that so you care if you just jettison this other person language and what the real basis of the 25 year I think you probably can link it to the definition of test vehicle operator who's the person who was in the vehicle on behalf of the automated vehicle tester and maybe we need to change the language so there's more distinction between the tester and the test operator because they're cleansing tests a lot yeah that's true the language is a little maybe just too close for a clear distinction but on D on top of 5 it's still not clear who other than an employee or an independent contractor should be the operator so it might just be the simple thing rather than reworking it, it's just believing out the other person but unless there's some group that the model legislation envisions I think you could just piggyback off of who they're already defining as a test vehicle operator who is an individual employed by or otherwise affiliated with the automated vehicle tester who successfully completed the test or safety driver training program and gave me so that's the definition of a person who's in the vehicle otherwise affiliated it's an unusual construct I think that's trying to capture independent contractors or if they're they might make sense on the definition to say something like an individual employed by or contracted folks and people who are ever formal relationship with, have been training and been certified as someone who can drive to this company or not drive from Sydney for this company or drive as needed so are automated vehicle testers affiliated with so are these clearly identifiable entities or they generally employees of the manufacturers of these vehicles you know I'm just let's define on page one page three I gotta go back to page one no you're using the wrong term the tester and the operator are different but confusing means of the individual the company that's applying for the permit basically the operator is the one who's actually in the car what state are we modeling this oh I took it just try this and design it into this so now we're talking about the automated vehicle tester that's line seven, line six the automated vehicle tester must register to be able with the commissioner of DNB pursuant to requirements of vehicles here this next one D requires five million dollars of insurance so that's common in all the legislation that I looked at this is a normal situation and this is testing vehicle so it's reasonable to have a higher level of insurance this next one is that the automated vehicle tester has established and enforces a zero tolerance policy drug and alcohol use by test vehicle operators while engaged in automated vehicle testing the policy shall include provisions for investigations of alleged policy violations and suspension of drivers under investigation why why do you restate what is already illegal I may have to have Jake or somebody come in and kind of provide the backup on that one I think overall the concept is that again this is testing a vehicle on a public road it's like a commercial vehicle and they should probably have a higher standard than just a normal person operating on a highway it just seems strange it's already illegal to do these things so is it necessary and what are the implications moving forward for others who are if you have a license to a commercial well here's a question if you have a commercial trucking license are you required to have policies that establish and enforce a zero tolerance policy for drug and alcohol use I think the federal CDL requires that the employer ask a policy that's I think so but there's a difference between you were talking about what would be required normally well we don't have a zero tolerance standard it is illegal to drink alcohol or do drugs while driving while engaged in driving so that's what I mean it's already illegal these actions what are they driving they are well it's illegal to have alcohol whether you're a passenger or a driver because of changes that predate my time in the senate in a long standing for my tradition and it is most certainly illegal to do drugs in a long drive so you're interested in or being a passenger in a vehicle subject to a motor vehicle license so you're talking so you can have you drink before you go in and test well only if it gets you to point out to your address right which is the same standard which is the same standard that's point of way point of two I believe came in this school bus operator standard I can't answer your question about this one that's her I have a little bit of an answer and I haven't done a full comparison but it looks like a lot of this language has been drawn from the language was added to title 23 last year on the TNC operators having the zero which what does that mean the transportation network companies for Uber so you'll see in the next paragraph they're talking about background checks pursuant to section 751 the new language that was added in so you're putting the onus on Uber and Lyft to do background checks that the state can do like audit of but I think that language also requires that the companies, the transportation network companies have the forces zero power I mean the Uber Lyft issue was that there were people who were drunk while picking up climate, you know, paying customers and they also found in Massachusetts that when they did a review to determine whether people were like convicted felons and stuff that a huge number of people were not allowed to be paid for vehicles for hire so I'm guessing that's why we did it for the Uber Lyft regulations so the Uber Lyft regulations are mimicked very closely off of what the city of Burlington does in its vehicle for hire ordinance which is very similar to what other states are doing so they do the background checks but then the state, I believe it's two times a year and then as needed basis if they have reason to think that they need to check them can look at up to 25 driver record background checks sometimes with the city of Burlington I participated in these audits but that is also requiring the city of Burlington to have policy so I think that's where the language is being drawn from. We're treating in this proposed language the testers the manufacturers more like Uber's and Lyft's in that they are taking responsibility for who they're letting be let be the test vehicle operators Well it's not necessarily rational but there's an explanation for it it's different if I'm Jim because he wants me to give him a ride to the airport, he don't want me to be someone who has been convicted of 15 serious felonies of an assault on a person or habitually drunk while during the work hours when I'm on the shift but a vehicle being tested doesn't seem to be the same kind of activity that you know what I mean? It's very different in that there isn't a passenger in the vehicle and that's why you have a lot of the restrictions on who can drive vehicles for hire is you don't want someone who has a history of selling narcotics to then have the opportunity to be in a confined space with someone who's a vulnerable person or a sex offender Exactly. Alright so we can move on to the next page then so paragraph E is we've touched on this already which is so that automated vehicle tester has to certify that the legislative bodies of the municipalities where the test is occurring has certified that the legislative bodies of municipalities where the automated vehicle will be tested have been notified when the operational design domain is on their limits and that the post testing has been coordinated with those municipalities Section 9 this is all in section I know this is all section F that we're in Yes So this is the tester as they're preparing their application needs to contact the municipality basically So there seems to be inconsistency that we need to get worked out here so on the one hand the municipality can't stop testing that's been authorized by the traffic community on the other in number three it's saying the operator and automated vehicle can't comply with any provision of state and local traffic laws what if the local traffic law prohibits the use of unmanned vehicles so there have to be some language which if we were to actually go with the state preemption of local allowances we would probably need to finesse that So in legislation that allows for the use of automated vehicle to get in public and not be testing it's pretty common that there's language that says local jurisdictions can't prohibit the use of automated vehicles and after federal law they're kind of going that way with us too No we don't I guess I have some language we could throw in there that would be that specific I'm not picking on you but this will be a faster company LCT issue if we're preempting the ability of a community to say you know I don't know some of them might not care but others will We got to almost stop this one people waiting on the other unless you don't want more discussions Can we get a few more pages here Can we go through the last two pages quickly or do you do you think that she's going to stand down Please stop asking questions I don't know I'm ready to come back and I'm going to have more detail I think that it would be worth going into this a little more detail I apologize for the delay Good thank you Let's drag for when you come back what it means to clearly identify the last page You're going to have to talk about it now What that means I envision that it's not like student driver don't be alarmed it looks like the person's the person dropped dead is on the floor of the vehicle Thank you Thank you Okay you want to grab Tom This is This is They have the wrong bill It's somebody who says they're against S54 Which is a lot though No it's not Look at that It's like the marijuana Yeah Tom just sit here I'm just going to That's our own drawer He's the most important I am I don't know You don't get my trillion We give it to ACC I'm not invited I'll call He's a voter so we don't have to put laws on votes here We talk about airplanes Mike has a vote covers half the days It gets bigger every time we chat At least it's not abandoned Okay Michelle We're right ahead Last year the House Economic Development Committee asked us to delve more deeply into how we could better leverage our state airport systems for aviation economic development purposes including looking at energy systems which might be enhanced in terms of energy generation on state airports or may deliver services to folks that are going to be sighted at state airports and we were in the process of updating our aviation systems plan update which is a statewide aviation plan that gets updated on about a 5 to 10 year basis as our part of our requirements with the Federal Aviation Administration So we coupled this request of House Economic Development with our aviation systems plan update and Secretary Shirley, myself, Dan DeLeveret who's here from our Aviation and Rail Bureau went out to all the communities and used state airports with the exception of Island Pond and we held public meetings and invited a broad array of stakeholders to weigh in on this topic and ideas they had, etc. So we delivered a report to the legislature in January that outlines a lot of the findings from that One of the big sector areas that we have identified in our work since last year with the beta technologies and Tamil areas here to speak to you about their framework is this area of electrified aviation and how this is going to be a transformative element of our aviation delivery system going forward into the future and we have like some ideas about how we can support in advance the framework for not only electrified aviation but other sectors of aviation using the state airports as leverage Chris Kerrigan is also here with the Vermont Chamber and he's a key partner in all of this as well but I think it would be helpful to sort of open this with hearing from Tom to talk about this new sector and then we can step back into some ways that we can support the sector and other frameworks going forward so I'm going to seat the chair to Tom Great Wonderful Thanks for having me in to speak really just here to help you be aware or help in any way I can and so maybe just a brief overview and then if you have questions about what we're doing and what it could mean and what the overlap is with the state business that would be great so I'm the COO of a company called Beta Technologies we operate out of South Burlington on the Burlington International Airport Rounds the company's been in business for just two years and in that time we have conceived of designed, developed and flown our first electric aircraft it's the largest electric aircraft in the world by weight as far as we know are publicly released and we've also designed and developed a prototype system for recharging this aircraft and aircraft in the future the electric aviation space is one that's widely considered to be inevitable I can I say widely in terms of the industry itself and aviation so we are aware the industry is tracking well over 100 companies that are engaged in one form or another of electric aviation essentially building a prototype as a means to certification and production of Worldwide and one group in particular that we follow closely or we work with closely we've become a part of this industry they're tracking, they basically say of these there are 16 companies that are to watch list essentially in a positive way and so we're one of those companies and those companies include Boeing, Airbus, Embraer, Bell the main stays of what you would call traditional aviation aerospace companies these are all of the major players currently in aviation are in this space in addition to those there are other companies that are out of Germany and Silicon Valley that are founded for example by Larry Page the founder of Google that are startups that have been in business for nine years and are funded to the tune of 100 plus million dollars there are companies that I can think of offhand so it's a very it's very well established that the major players in aviation are going in this direction that's further validated by the fact that the centers for emerging technology like Silicon Valley and Germany are investing heavily in these spaces emerging markets like Singapore and Dubai are paying to bring technology in so it's a global phenomenon and we here out of of Burlington beta technologies it has been because we have taken the path of putting out an aircraft and saying this is the future a very sort of Jetsonian sort of view of things our founder Kyle Clark and early employees basically were focusing on the core enabling technologies of propulsion and bringing an aircraft to basically to fly that was essentially the thing it was I think a very quintessentially Vermont thing it was sort of like if you want to get something done start doing it right you know if you want to as opposed to just driving the pretty mixtures and so that's what we've done and it's provided a great platform and then you know you need to bring it to the table is Kyle was the former director of engineering he's an expert in power electronics and so in addition to developing the aircraft technology we've also developed the recharging technology and that prototype you know it's essential right you need this right I'm a former employee of Tesla I was there in the early days that the has really differentiated and enabled Tesla to create a viable business model today right is that that ability to overcome that objection of okay great but where are you going to charge it and of course you know we know even here in Vermont in a you know somewhat rural state by comparison we have I think a half a dozen Tesla supercharging stations but anyway so that's a really important aspect of this we want to be on the cutting edge of this we think we're proud to be doing this in Vermont and I'm happy to answer any questions that you have help understand how this this industry is emerging and how this is becoming a viable thing I guess one other thing I would add to that is the market right sort of the push pull the supply and demand aspect of the market there's two thought leaders in the space of note one of them is our client that's Martine Rothblatt she's a founder of Serious XM satellite radio and the and the founder and she maybe the one that has that robot that becomes a person yes exactly so she's incredible Martine is a pioneer founded Serious XM satellite radio and then founded United Therapeutics which is a pharmaceutical company is a part time resident of Vermont has a home in Lincoln and and so Martine is interested is as a pharmaceutical company is also interested in the problem of organ transplantation and how thousands of people on the waiting list waiting list for organs never receive their organs so working in conjunction with partners to develop methods to improve the rate at which we can organ transplants particularly long biotechnology is a sub entity of therapeutics and this vehicle that we're building is purpose built to deliver organs to hospitals simply because biotechnology as one of the few public courts decided that they would prefer to not increase the carbon footprint or contribute to the carbon footprint in saving lives why would we do that why can't we do it in a renewable energy format so that was the genesis of this is it also faster than a traditional helicopter well potentially faster in terms of point A to point B because what we're building is what's called a V-tall an electric V-tall a vertical takeoff and landing so basically it's capable of landing on a helipad taking off and landing vertically but it has a wing so it transitions to wing-borne flight so it's more efficient essentially and that's what makes that and the combination of improvements in battery energy density are what enable this to be a viable technology what's the range so we're designing for a 250 mile range which is actually on par with a helicopter so the helicopters that UT United Therapeutics uses now is a Bell 429 which is a it's a dual turbine helicopter and what's interesting about the helicopters in comparison to the V-tall why now, what makes this so batteries for sure applications the desire to reduce greenhouse emissions of which aviation is thought to be seven to nine percent and notably the renew deal obviously there's been some publicity or notoriety around how aviation is part of that and so you know what makes it viable is that that Bell 429 a dual redundant helicopter is about five million dollars as an initial price but it's operating cost at $1,000 an hour as compared to what the operating cost of an electric V-tall has anticipated twenty percent of that and some people think that that may even be conservative in the long run it just completely opens up a whole new world in terms of the economics and that's what Martin and United Therapeutics saw in addition to that Uber has also seen this and they've said wow at one-fifth the operating cost of a helicopter they actually tried their service using helicopters they've done it in in France and I think some limited applications in the United States because they had demand for it and under certain circumstances they could deliver to that demand but when they found out about what the economics of an V-tall were they got really excited and they've poured a lot of investment into being a thought leader in the United States and trying to move the industry forward move the innovation forward in a variety of ways but they've become a real thought leader because they're basically saying we want to do this, we want to create they've got a whole program called Uber Elevate so they're out there leading as well but those are just two of what we see as nine major verticals vertical markets where V-tall will be useful and so some of these are pretty obvious cargo the FedEx, UPS, DHL will find ways to create efficiency that's what they're great at that's their business model so emergency, medevac, government use there's a variety of ways that these regional use, general aviation a variety of verticals where these aircraft can and will be useful the aviation industry at least is extremely bullish on this to the extent where Uber and others are saying not since World War II when we said let's build, I think it was 150 or 200,000 aircraft and now that's to the point where no aircraft manufacturer makes more than 1000 aircraft of any model anywhere in the world and so there really there is this understanding that this is not only an inevitable industry or segment of an industry but that it's going to be a real boom time for the industry they're talking on the order of a one and a half trillion dollar business by 2040 is Morgan Stanley's latest estimate so a massive, massive opportunity and fantastic that it's a massive opportunity in green tech which is of course where we're on I met some of your crew in Essex earlier this year and I wondered since then since you're doing your work out of the airport you know in the past we've done a lot in the legislature on aviation in their ups and downs how is working with the airport in terms of allowing you guys to I don't know if you need specific grounds where you've got clearance to perform tests and things what's that relationship like the relationship with the airport has been excellent in terms of flexibility and with heritage as well so we're currently located in a heritage and we're under we're currently doing a build out in what was what had become an unused hangar at the airport and so we entered into agreement to develop that space in conjunction with the airport their flexibility on that has been fantastic and that's sometimes what start-up businesses having been a start an entrepreneur here in Burlington I've worked with companies that have been successful dealer.com is what brought me here I ran sales and marketing for dealer.com and that was a great run and obviously we had a great exhibit and things were wonderful and then worked with some companies that weren't able to get off the runway so to speak and so there are a lot of challenges as a start-up here in Vermont it's one of them because attracting investment dollars from outside the state to here is one and often times start-ups that are successful find that they have to leave I'm sure you're no stranger to that story line that story arc has played out it's not always funny a lot of times it's just the flexibility and people who are willing to work with you so that the airport has been heritage has been really good in recognizing that and saying wow you are all trying to do something amazing and you're trying to do it here and that's got to be tough how can we be of assistance so allowing us to move has been good with regard to flight that was an even bigger challenge because of the regulatory issues we've actually had to move to Plattsford to do all of our flight testing and not allow us to do flight testing in the state of Vermont on what basis on the basis of our overpopulation so that's a real thing and it varies and they've been flexible it hasn't been all bad there are good people at the FAA because you're flying over because Burlington is in a populated area we tried and worked with Michelle to try to get that done at NAP State Airport and the FAA was insistent that Plattsford was the right facility for us and that we should do our things there it's just the easiest way to describe it is that the FAA does not have universal guidelines some decisions like flight tests are made on a local level and so if you're so is your FAA we've termination of a local or a national that was a local where are they located they're located out of Portland Plattsford no it's like there are good people who try to do their best within the constraints however to give you an idea of what happens when we were encountering this difficulty and worked with various consultants how do we work through this problem we have certain consultants who said listen best advice I can give you is to move your company to Los Angeles now as fast as you possibly can because their airspace is not crowded well because they're oh I'm sorry I was taking you too seriously that's basically because their local FAA folks are like we want innovation we're California this is where innovation happens but also because their airspace is crowded and because Uber is working with Los Angeles to be the pilot city that's so important to innovation but yeah that's kind of my question are there other any electric aviation company I thought there was another one in Vermont or maybe I was just thinking of you guys earlier not that I'm aware of unless I'm just having brain melt so you're working with the supply chain are there other like with the chamber that is working on all aviation supply chain in the state is that there are a few companies here that we work with the former founder Microstrain which is now part of Lord is part of our company Steve and Steve's been phenomenal for us and so and we work with Microstrain or Lord now on a variety of things so they're they're a company that we rely on for inertial measurement units technologies that help us develop everything that we're doing yeah I mean I guess that maybe it's a question for economic development more than transportation to all again what could the state do to encourage more innovation in this space and to make this electric aviation hub there's a aviation council what is it called? caucus? for everything but I remember Ryan Dooby was the co-chair or something for some period of time bringing together places like GE and Rutland but also a lot of smaller places that provide materials but the you know so they've been focused on producing expenses heritage was really the primary place where the focus has been just because they were bringing in they were employing all the people graduating from the aviation program in VTC and so it was really good now the question is like this I think what's hard is to know the difference between electric aviation as you're describing and advancements in drone technology there's a relationship there but different you have a lot of people doing drone things but that's being done everywhere whereas electric aviation is not everywhere yeah and my trillion would fit in this what's your reaction? I'm sorry I was doing two things at one time Mr. Chairman, what's the question? okay, economic development we've been fortunate to work with in particular house commerce for the last year on this particular topic and we drafted at the legislature's request a fairly brief report on economic development and economic development marketing as it relates to airports and aviation we do think that there is a we are a unique point in time to try to capitalize on the momentum in electric aviation and innovation in aviation in general long story short between the technology that beta is deploying and the unique assets that we've got in Vermont with our nine airports plus Burlington the unique geography that goes with that and in particular the proximity of our airports to one another we could be primed to deploy a a test bed for electric aviation that could attract additional manufacturers additional research and development led of course by beta and I'll say that he's I think dramatically underselling the progress that they've made in the last 18 months in particular from where I said they're leading not only the development of the airframe but the charging technology those batteries built by Dynapower and South Burlington and even the training components they built from the ground up a training regimen to be able to fly these aircraft that hadn't been done before either and that's been accepted by the FAA so ahead in every way and important to note also from where I said I was a popular mechanics reader for years until I figured out that everything they put on the cover actually didn't ever exist these things were on the cover of popular mechanics through the 70s and 80s these flying cars or whatever those were fictional this is real and that's really the most exciting piece of this they are still building planes they are still building planes they're actually I was thinking about this morning they're the only major aerospace company that has just not publicly state that they're working on electric VTOL do you see in the future a passenger plane a big plane carrying 100 passengers or is that the future 100 passengers super well for sure for sure definitely in fact there's one startup that's working on that already it's a company called Zunamero it's in part funded by JetBlue Technology Ventures they're out of Seattle so you'd imagine some former Boeing folks and there so they're starting with hybrid electric systems to do smaller regional jets so think of what delta connection would fly in and out of Brownington to LaGuardia that sort of size of plane with that sort of size of range but what people are also looking at is with the potential for electric aviation is is smaller airports right we sort of we've optimized the entire sort of global aviation question right we've sort of optimized to uphold along the spectrum which is how to make it efficient for the airlines to make money right the airline industry has had to weather it's ups and downs and now the whole system it seems to be optimized for their profitability and they're doing quite well I think delta made 6 billion dollars in profit last year exactly so they've optimized for their profitability but what's not been optimized for is for regional travel there's no direct flight from here to Boston that seems a little odd and fares are usually very high for shorter hauls so this is an area where people are they see the promise of electric and hybrid electric as a bridge to all electric regional transport essentially and we see that as a potential especially particularly for a state like Vermont you know I met with Mayor Weinberger recently and just to sort of bring him up to speed in a similar fashion about what the future may hold with EVTOL is the ability to essentially set up a port in Burlington that would take people directly to Montreal in 22 minutes directly to Stowe in 12 minutes directly to Sugarbush in 14 minutes that's a whole different world having electric jets that take people to Rutland or to Manchester or to Boston or to Albany and that's another will that happen overnight? No, of course not it will happen more like in the 10 to 20 year time frame but our technology will be looking to deploy this technology in a 5 plus year time frame so we're looking to certify 2023 full production by 2025-26 and selling Will you sell the vehicle or you're just going to use it internally for your client to transport so presently I would say our prognosis on the industry would be it's too early to say exactly but the early indication would be a great business strategy for beta would be to find a partner in each of those verticals that we can work with it works out great with United Therapeutics where they're a ready made customer they're helping us with research and development funds, we have a long contract with them to develop the aircraft a source of capital which is a critical oftentimes the biggest struggle it's an amazing thing for us is that they're funding our company in a large to a large degree and so finding other partners that are similar to that if we could just lather in repeat over across the verticals that would be we have a phenomenal business here and so that to us looks like one of the and I know the genesis of this whole thing it was the consolidation of rail and air and the extent to which the state and the agency would really promote and understand the connection between our airports as a resource and an important part of economic development of course is owned by the state we have smaller airports scattered around as you know and Mike what I'm wondering is how do you see sort of the emerging technology as it would relate to those state owned assets as well that would be one of them so in the scenario that I was just speaking up with a much lower cost per hour to operate these vehicles and with the ability to carry 4, 5, 6 passengers travel around the state via this means is realistic and then the question is okay that's more of a longer term is there a worthy investment in the shorter term and there are a position unsurprisingly would be yes there is a shorter term usage as just referenced what we would love to see is the state invest in electric charging infrastructure that would allow beta to have a test network but that would also allow for the aviation industry in Vermont to be able to grow the number of training companies, pilots and so forth because what's happening with really the first implementation of electric aircraft are these electric trainers, there's a few companies that are already producing electric training aircraft so because those become so much cheaper than the cost of the cost of training pilots comes way down and the ability for people to enter our flight school goes up and then of course those become a tourist destination imagine we don't do a lot of that think of how busy our state is in October for leaf paper season and if that's a viable option where people can do those type of tours are there any states that proactively come up with legislation for governing the use of state airports and facilities for these purposes we were just discussing policies around automated vehicles road vehicles and anticipating the future and so the same issues raise their heads perhaps irrationally but with the public when it comes to aviation the idea that they're going to think oh my god it's a new stage technology flying over neighborhoods on the way from Burlington to Rutland the percentage crash people are going to imagine things so is there any state that has tried to come up with any reactive set of strategies to allow for innovation while also managing people's procedures we're not aware of any states that are in this realm yet we do have a very preliminary draft legislation that Chairman Margot has at his request that would start to clear a path for the development of the electrified charge between ACCD and VTRANS and other state partners that we get those permits in hand to be able to offer space at state airports to some of the permits that would be needed to be kind of combined all know about for for the use of say Rutland or something it depends which agency you talk to and which parcel on a particular piece of property everything from wetlands to storm water to what I'm missing is if he wants to fly to Rutland because the FAA says it's okay for him to fly but what on the receiving end in Rutland needs to be permitted in this case the charging station is that permitted or just funded do we have to permit a charging station in some instances yes I mean it depends on the footprint are you creating more pervious surface is there a fire safety permit required for our electrician standpoint how big is the charging station well the smallest implementation would be about 50 by 50 you know a little bit more than that actually but picture a helipad was 50 by 50 and then you our initial prototype has a little bit more structure than that because you take your power electronics and your generator and so forth outside of that for well we would love to have you in Rutland in the party of space and open to do business and you already got the impervious service we have a good deal on uniforms very formal Michelle is there anything in the budget for charging stations at airports no there is not really cost hard to put a price tag on it because it really the main cost comes down to how much how much energy you're bringing in and how much battery you would have there if you decide to have battery in other words is it are you storing energy there or are you just connecting the grid to be able to charge so our initial prototype the idea is to build a recharge pad for about a million dollars that would go that would be located at a hospital so if we were to be putting one in at UVM medical we'd be saying okay here it is plus it's going to be 1.2 million dollars if I think it's probably helpful to understand that that's more of a boutique solution right you've got a limited footprint you've got to have a lot of power on hand therefore a lot of batteries because you can't be loitering at a hospital there's a lot that goes into that we actually have hotel units in those so we're building out crew quarters into those so that if if they get stranded you know on a day like today they come in with organs and then they can't get back out so they'd have to stay there so that's a pretty elaborate plan for a recharging station we haven't designed one that would just be for for example a state airport because it could be as simple as pulling power onto the airport and then getting the right connections and capacity but that's still expensive and I think we probably would want a battery system built in so that we're pulling power at the most economical time and not not just when they show up there's a great there's a phenomenal opportunity with these two because it helps to lower the peaks because you know when we put it in them so we're working with Green Mountain Power on essentially greetite energy storage allows them to pull from our facilities at peak times those few points where they save a lot of money by lowering so they're excited about time of power so they're I only know a little bit about what they do they create these big boxes that basically hold power and then they convert power and then they're like I don't know this was five years dating now but then part of the vision was that they would then be able to release it to the grid when needed so it was a very smart exactly how they're working with you guys on the big box yeah so our founder Kyle Clark was part of the team that designed that those are some patented devices that are now deployed by taskless commercial recharging operations that they've done massive scale in Australia for example but yeah so that is exactly the idea there so you've got battery capacity there that's on hand charges aircraft but it can also be grid tied for low to low is there any language that is going to be proposed in this year's bill like just to keep it alive and well or is that something you're looking for I think we're going to Secretary Shirley mentioned the language that we were talking about relative to a master permitting framework for state airports and how to get that in place to be a first start and so we may look to include that as we move forward in making the transportation bill I would recommend that both to you and to Secretary Shirley that as soon as you have something that's at least if it's not already but the moment something's ready to be shared without all the wrinkles that you wish you could pull back to go to a series of committees at least preliminary because around here crossover becomes this sort of absurd date where a policy committee who might throw in things that affect 10 other committees are like oh but we made crossover it's like well okay but the committee that actually focused on hermets whether it's transportation or natural resources hasn't seen it then it comes to here with like four weeks left in the session it can go to senate economic development linger there for three weeks and then they meet over and then we've got two committees here so the sooner some people see it so it doesn't create an alarm factor where people are saying oh my god we haven't had enough time and it's too late and all that just brand new well it's become an issue as our commerce and economic development committees over the last decade have increasingly put permit issues in and it's not that things shouldn't maybe originate there from time to time but if the clock management means that when committees do these massive ominous bills and then at the last second spit it out a lot of times things get yanked because no one's had a chance to see it not on the merits necessarily so it's just an encouragement so thank you although I don't care what you do with the House committees but the two senate committees that's where I'm really focused on well thank you any other questions comments very exciting presentations of us yeah I do drive a Tesla yeah I was lucky enough to I got a new I just got my second Tesla and it arrived in January and I didn't have my snow tires on so luckily I got them on yesterday and was able to come up here otherwise you wouldn't have seen my face today they're not all wheel drive it is all wheel drive that's what Peter's took on here to get you have to have more tires oh yeah you don't have more tires all wheel drive all season once you got all wheel drive first years I've done snow tires well one of the things is that they'll use a low rolling resistance tire because people are so acutely attuned to range that they'll use a very when I brought it into Nate's Automotive and Essex they're like you're ready to get those slicks off they call them slicks because there's almost no tread on them they just want to maximize the range so once the snow comes you better get your snow zone oh that's perfect one of the amazing things just to leave you with a thought is that when I was at Tesla I started here in 2006 and I worked there until 2009 when I came out to work at dealer.com I had like a two hour commute back and forth across the bay and so moving to Vermont just sounded like it's been great raised four kids here and love the state I actually, not to go on and on but I actually ran a summer camp and ran off for four years when I first got out of college and I thought to myself I would love to live here but what would I ever do how would I make a living so here I am 30 years later but the but the thing about Tesla was that everyone was saying exactly the same things you could almost just switch out planes and cars in the news articles that came out back then about oh it'll never work and this is such a dream and now we have our new wave of US Congress people basically saying we're gonna outlaw combustion engines by 2030 in 10 years and now we're already talking about so when we talk about the reality of electric aviation there are definitely you will find your skeptics but they're the same kind of skeptics 10 years ago about electric cars oh it'll never happen the batteries will never be there and here we are were you with Tesla with the same owner as it today? did he go on Mars? yeah I did he's a frenetic individual but you know when you've got that much brain power going it tends to it tends to but it was good to work with him worked with him in the beginning worked with the original founder most people think that he was the founder no, Martin Eberhardt was the founder and Elon came in because things weren't going according to plan they couldn't bring the price down but but I think the thing is with Kyle and this team I'm a business person, sales marketing I'm not an engineer I'm the only person on the team who's not an engineer this group of engineers that we have here is as good as any group of engineers 20 folks that I've worked with out in Silicon Valley where I was for close to 10 years this is an amazing group it could very well be the best assemblage of people and people who are working for free out of the gates simply working for equity people who have founded companies it's really a phenomenal phenomenal group of people and Kyle right on down the line can hold a candle to anything that's happening in California and when people come from California to visit they're blown away we had a group in from the west coast yesterday a potential investment group a potential partner investor they're looking at the space and they left with their jaws down saying we had no idea that you've come this far maybe that's my understanding of the thing but it really is I'm sort of like just amazed and happy to be part of the ride we could make you part of our marketing plan there you go they are we have 25 people right now we have 25 and since we've been publicized over the past year or the past month we were in Wired we've received applications for people we were featured in Wired January 10th and then again about a week ago those articles are on our website we've received inquiries from people all over the country we've already hired half a dozen people who have moved to Vermont from big companies