celebrating 30 years of the ADA
CSG Associates in Action Private sector partners share their contributions to improving the lives of people with disabilities
The following has been submitted directly from private sector partners of The Council of State Governments. This content is shared directly and without any editorial contributions or changes by Capitol Ideas. The content and viewpoints are those of the authors alone.
AUDI
Driving Innovation for Independent Journeys for all Passengers
Brad Stertz | Director of Government Affairs, Audi
The new era of electric and autonomous vehicles is on the horizon. There are still some years until self-driving tech is mature enough, but significant efforts are required now to ensure vehicles deliver on the potential to provide increased mobility to those that are currently underserved.
From our conversations with stakeholders, it became clear that wheelchair manufacturers will need to make significant investments and create new standards for crashworthy wheelchairs. In order to trigger these investments, they would like to see:
Automakers and other innovators need sufficient lead time to develop new vehicle platforms that are truly accessible. We need to spark and drive innovation in parts of the larger ecosystem involved in the safe and independent journeys of our passengers.
• Clear signals of commitment from the automotive industry
ISSUE 3 2020 | CAPITOL IDEAS
Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and Volkswagen Group of America are on an Inclusive Mobility mission to improve transportation and the quality of life for people with disabilities.
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This program, started in 2017, directly engages with disability groups in the early stages of designing vehicle technologies, user experience and mobility services. We drive this effort from our Silicon Valley Campus, but are deeply networked within the global organization and integrated into the engineering and design processes to Germany. So, where are we starting? The first topic we pursued is wheelchairs because we need to establish requirements early.
• A new cross-industry standard for the physical docking interface between the wheelchair and vehicle • Changes in the way Medicare and insurance providers cover “transit” options on wheelchairs We hope to find interest among other innovators to shape these new emerging cross-industry standards through Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) or other standards bodies. Looking ahead, we’re also exploring what other interfaces to assistive devices or tech ecosystems may benefit from standardization. We are not looking to standardize the end user interfaces, which provide opportunities for innovation and differentiation amongst automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
