The 'Web 2.0' of Transportation Technologies

Sarah Goodyear: Your talk at Baruch College is titled "The Window of Opportunity is Now: How Wireless Can Move Us to More Sustainable Transportation." Explain what you'll be discussing.

Robin Chase: The pitch starts with my complete horror that we have less than five years to turn worldwide CO2 emissions around. One of the senior climatologists that I refer to said if that turning point of CO2 emissions happens in 2015, i.e. seven years from now, we have a 50-50 chance of averting catastrophic effects of climate change. I personally would like to improve those odds.

When we think about the transportation world, everything is major infrastructure change: Let's build more rail, more transit, more walkable communities. Let's create more fuel-efficient cars and move to hybrids and alternative fuels. Not one speck of that work is going to have a remote impact in the time frame we're talking about. So while I think those are critical and important things for the medium run and the long run, we need more people focused on what we're going to be doing in the next five years.

SG: How does wireless fit in?

RC: From my Zipcar experience and from watching congestion pricing played out in London and Stockholm, I've learned that money -- market pricing, or accurate reflection of pricing -- is what turns people's behavior on a dime. If we're serious, that's where we have to go. Marketing is everything and wireless technologies bring us to a totally different world of possibility.