Speaker: C. Kenneth Orski, President, Urban Mobility Corporation
How to provide for mobility in a manner compatible with societal needs and concerns is a challenge facing ail nations in the developed and developing world alike. To explore future policy options, the Automotive Board of Governors of the World Economic Forum, a body of Chief Executive Officers of the world's automobile companies, has launched a cooperative program of research, technology forecasting and policy analysis. The program, led by the same MIT research team (headed by Professor Dan Roos) that conducted the highly acclaimed International Motor Vehicle Program (1986-1991), will examine future mobility options in the light of changing world demographics, evolving technology, and shifting societal trends. A key element of the program will be a "Mobility Observatory"-an effort to identify, evaluate and document outstanding examples of innovative surface mobility systems and strategies throughout the world. Data from the Mobility Observatory will provide a foundation for more detailed analyses and for development of specific strategies to guide industry and government policymakers.
Kenneth Orski, who is managing the Mobility Observatory for the MIT program, will describe some of the innovative mobility systems and strategies that have come to the attention of the Observatory. Among them will be the traffic calming policies of Western European cities; the control of automobile use through pricing in Singapore; the transit priority policies of Curitiba, Brazil: the regional "Verkehrsverbund" or transport associations in Germany, Switzerland and Austria; and the growing application of intelligent communication and information technologies in the management of metropolitan transportation systems in the United States, Europe and Japan.
Mr. Orski, founder and president of the Urban Mobility Corporation, has a wealth of experience in the field of international technology transfer. He spent seven years as Director of Transportation at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris (1967- 73), and three years as Vice President of the German Marshall Fund (1978-81) where he managed a program of international exchanges in transportation, urban and environmental affairs. As a senior official of the U.S. Department of Transportation in the early 1970's, he participated in many government-to-government exchanges and led official delegations to Russia, Japan and Western Europe. His current activities in the field of technology transfer include serving as Member of the Management Team for the international Transit Studies Program, a project sponsored by the Transit Cooperative Research Program and managed by Eno Transportation Foundation; and as director of the Mobility Observatory for MIT's Cooperative Mobility Research Program.
A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Mr. Orski has written extensively on urban affairs and transportation. He is editor and publisher of Innovation Briefs, a newsletter reporting on transportation innovations in the United States and abroad. Published bi-monthly, the Briefs have an influential audience of senior policymakers in industry, government and academia. He is former editor of Transatlantic Perspectives, a quarterly journal of opinion in the field of international technology transfer.