The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is employing a strategy of embracing technology and innovation, as part of its plan to meet the needs of a rapidly changing world that is emerging from the throes of the pandemic.

Seth Wainer, program director of innovation for the bistate agency, is overseeing the effort, centered on the establishment of an Innovation Hub nearly two years ago, which works as a unit of nearly 50 people within the agency.

“I would broadly describe it as making us better today and better tomorrow,” Wainer told NJBIZ. “We source a lot of ideas.”

That can include solving an immediate problem, with Wainer citing a widget deployed to detect whether elevators and escalators at Port Authority facilities were working correctly. The system was then applied to a separate issue involving air conditioning units vital to maintaining proper temperature control for data servers, which was brought to their attention by a frontline PATH employee.

“That’s a very straightforward fix and then you can think about scaling those,” Wainer explained. “We have also – and I’m very happy that we’re doing this – sort of drawn a bit of a line and said, let’s also consider ideas that are going to make us better tomorrow that require a little bit more of a reach. They require some technological maturity. They may require a new business model, for example. And so, I think a lot of the work around autonomous vehicles, some work around artificial intelligence, as well as things regarding electric flight or sustainability are all in that bucket. And I’m very happy that we’re going after that because I think that’ll make us really on trend with some of the broader developments that are going on in the world.”

These efforts can take all kinds of different shapes, sizes and scopes, from testing out pilot programs using next-generation technologies and tools to complete agency tasks, to using the advanced technologies to find operational inefficiencies and more.

The Port Authority rolled out several such examples over the course of the year.

In January, the Port Authority announced a partnership with GridMatrix to launch the San Francisco company’s cloud-based software platform to study traffic analytics on the Lincoln Tunnel, Holland Tunnel and George Washington Bridge.

The year-long pilot applies cloud-computing and artificial intelligence to improve operations on these Hudson River crossings, which are used by more than 180 million vehicles annually traveling between New Jersey and New York City.

The data and insights gleaned from the analysis will be used by Port Authority personnel to help improve operations at the crossings.

“The Port Authority is proud to provide opportunities for the exploration of new technology that can help people move seamlessly and safely through our facilities to keep the New York-New Jersey region moving,” said Rob Galvin, the Port Authority’s chief technology officer in January. “For more than 100 years, the agency has been at the forefront of technology to build infrastructure and physically make connections between people and goods, and this collaboration with GridMatrix reflects our goals to operate at the highest standards possible.”

In the spring, the Port Authority demonstrated several new technologies that could be applied to agency operations and functions. Officials point out that the number of Port Authority facilities provide ample areas to conduct these tests in a real-world setting.

One such test featured the use of a small, unmanned drone used for delivery purposes. In this case, Wainer chose a box of Girl Scout cookies, highlighting the Port Authority’s support of the Girl Scouts Heart of New Jersey, to be delivered from Greenville Yards in Jersey City to Brooklyn. Within 15 minutes, the drone flew more than 3 miles across the river and successfully made the cookie delivery. The autonomous cargo drone was developed through a pilot by Saleh Kojak, who manages the agency emergency management office’s drone program.

While it marked the Port Authority’s first test of drones for cargo delivery, the agency does currently operate a fleet of six unmanned aircraft through its office of emergency management at its bridges and marine terminals, and in uses ranging from major capital projects to maintenance.

“Technology moves very fast, you see cars with features now that they didn’t have 10 years ago,” Wainer said after the May test. “But we see the drone cargo space, especially for middle-mile, which allows shippers to move goods from a fixed point to a fixed point, as having strong opportunities over the next five years.”

Also in May, the Port Authority conducted a demonstration of an autonomous Trombia streetsweeper, which was deployed for a pilot at Port Newark. The Trombia tech is the world’s first fully electric autonomous streetsweeper.

Then in June, the agency hosted a demonstration of the first three-vehicle autonomous platooning at any U.S. airport, held at JFK International, along with Ohmio, a New Zealand-based autonomous mobility company. The demonstration focused on the use of eight-passenger driverless shuttles in a three-vehicle platoon traveling approximately 7 feet apart at 20 miles per hour without any physical connection. The autonomous vehicles, or AVs, were operated at all times by an on-board safety operator and supervised by Ohmio’s control center.

The Port Authority says it is looking to advance use of autonomous technology in public transit to improve customer service and reliability and to increase capacity. Examples of potential future applications could include piloting autonomous buses in the Lincoln Tunnel’s Exclusive Bus Lane to increase service to the Midtown Bus Terminal during peak travel periods, and of course, the airports, where officials say the technology can be particularly useful to transport passengers in a single movement for short connections.

“The Port Authority is constantly exploring ways to prepare our facilities for the tools of the future in order to further enhance the customer experience,” said Port Authority Chairman Kevin O’Toole during that June demonstration. “Following the success of last year’s platooning pilot, we are excited for this next phase. Autonomous vehicles will play a key role in transportation in the coming decades, and the Port Authority will continue to be at the forefront of this emerging technology.”

“We are laser-focused on advancing cutting-edge technology at our facilities, and autonomous vehicle platooning may prove particularly useful in public transit, including at airports,” said Port Authority Executive Director Rick Cotton in June. “This technology could help improve capacity, service and reliability, enabling travelers in the region to get where they need to go faster and more efficiently.”

Wainer pointed to that innovation push that is coming from the leadership, who he says identified it as a priority coming out of the pandemic. According to Wainer, the Port Authority’s leadership developed working groups around innovation to come up with recommendations and a strategy, which resulted in the creation of the Innovation Hub.

“The point of which is to leverage all the brainpower that’s already out there, to bring these things under one umbrella,” Wainer explained. “So that we can fast-track ideas that we want to execute. That we can learn quickly. Some people would say fail fast. We also say learn quickly. And that we can be a little more nimble.”

Wainer said that led to a fully funded year in 2022 for the effort.

“We had a few terrific wins. We had a few small wins. And we had a few, ‘you know – hey that didn’t work,’” said Wainer. “And now that we’re in 2023, it’s our second year. We have a more mature internal staffing model.”

He noted that while not everyone in the sprawling agency is familiar with the nascent unit, the word is spreading. And part of the mantra of the effort is for ideas to come from anywhere, especially from workers on the ground.

“We’re getting a lot of fun, frontline ideas,” said Wainer. “We’re also kind of hitting our stride in terms of repetition, repetition, repetition.”

“The Innovation Hub is set up where anyone at the Port Authority can come with an idea, and introduce it to a group of experts,” said Ignacio McBeatch, technology development manager for the Port Authority. “It can come from the maintenance guy. It can come from a chief. It can come from anywhere – the idea.”

Wainer compared the second year to building muscles and tightening the operation. “I’m seeing already year two is far more successful than year one,” Wainer noted. “And I can only just imagine how this will go if we can maintain our momentum and we can maintain our ability of execution. That’s obviously the most important thing in government. There are tons of good ideas. There’s never a lack of good ideas. But executing is really challenging, and bringing that to fruition, I think, is very doable.”

McBeatch said that the establishment of the Innovation Hub has marked an exciting time at the agency. “It was started because the Port Authority understands the importance technology plays and is pursuing these goals,” he told NJBIZ. “Technology is important not just for the sake of technology. But also for process improvement, operational improvement, cost cutting. It runs the gamut when it comes to technology.”

As for the trends of tomorrow that Innovation Hub is focused on, officials again pointed to AVs, electric flight and, of course, AI.

“AI is going to be a long game for us,” Wainer stressed. “Trying to make us better tomorrow will involve coordinating internal stakeholders and staff and figuring out who’s best on this.”

“The beauty of the Innovation Hub – and this entire thing the way it was set up – is to fast-track projects,” said McBeatch.

“On a very big picture level, the Port Authority is so well-positioned, if it really gets this right, to infuse 21st century technology and innovative practices into all the stuff we’re doing,” said Wainer. “And we’re doing a lot of stuff.”

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