Scott Stanford:

Hey everybody, welcome to The Infrastructors, the premier podcast for engaging conversations with influential thought leaders in AI, tech, government policy, and smart city innovation. Today's guest, looking forward to this one, the Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at the Central Ohio Transit Authority, Sophia Mohr.

Sophia, thank you so much for taking a few minutes with us today. It's so great to have you here on the Infrastructors.

Sophia Mohr:

Thank you for having me.

Scott Stanford:

I want to talk about you first for a minute, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at the Central Ohio Transit Authority. It's always so interesting to me, someone in your position, was this sector, was this career something that you were interested in? You know, how far back were, was it after college? When did you become interested in this line of work?

Sophia Mohr:

Great question, and it's actually something I talk about when I talk to students, is that this job didn't exist when I was in college.

Scott Stanford:

Right.

Sophia Mohr:

And every job that I've had didn't exist. I have been in transportation for many years. Previous to this, I was in aviation for 17 years, and now moved over to COTA, which is the transit agency, have been here for about almost four years, and am currently the Chief Innovation and Technology Officer. But to kind of answer your question, I'm always looking for you know, what can we do that's new and different, and how can we change strategy of an organization? And that's what attracted me to this role.

Scott Stanford:

That's what attracted you to that role. When you talk about being in college, and again, none of these things even existed. What what were you kind of thinking you were gonna do for a career? What was your major? What were you looking to do?

Sophia Mohr:

So I have a bachelor's and master's in industrial and systems engineering.

Scott Stanford:

Okay. 

Sophia Mohr:

And what I focused on specifically is human computer interaction. How do people interact with computers? How do people interact with systems to get the job that they need to get done, and how can we make that as seamless as possible? And how do we design systems to support that? So that has always been my main interest. That's basically the same thread that's gone throughout my career is how, when we're building new things, how can we make sure that it achieves your objectives, whatever the objectives are. 

Scott Stanford:

Got it, I got it. Okay. Well listen, before we get into COTA for a second, I, you know, I was reading a little bit about you and I noticed in your, in your biography it said you played a key role in the first bus on demand service. And I was just curious, what is an on demand bus service?

Sophia Mohr:

Sure. So you've probably probably seen around the country where different transit agencies are doing on demand services. You're very familiar with private industries such as Uber and Lyft. 

Scott Stanford:

Sure.

Sophia Mohr:

But how can transit do that? How can they solve that first and last problem? So a lot of agencies are doing it with smaller vehicles, and are doing the same with our system called COTA Plus. However, during the pandemic, we had a line that we were trying to re-determine our services and where we should focus more, and we had a line that was gonna go down to. We got a lot of feedback from the community that this was their primary source of transportation.

Scott Stanford:

Okay.

Sophia Mohr:

What we did is, while we don't have extra smaller vehicles how about we do a buffer in demand? So we picked an area in Columbus where it is literally, you go through an app and you request the bus. It doesn't come to your house, but it does come to the stop.

Scott Stanford:

Okay.

Sophia Mohr:

And we were the first bus on demand in the United States, second in North America, and we were experiencing about a 12 to 15 minute response time. So it's been a really interesting project and it was one of those things that, how do you react to the situation that Covid put you in?

Scott Stanford:

That's amazing. I would think, you know, many cities would follow suit and use that bus on demand service. Are there others that have kind of taken that lead and have run with it? 

Sophia Mohr:

Yes, I know that there are others. I know we were the one who did it full-time. I know that some agencies have done it on the weekends, but if you really think about it, it's just a different size vehicle. It's the same technology.

Scott Stanford:

Right, right.

Sophia Mohr:

Framework. It's just a larger vehicle. So people kind of like, "What does that mean?" And then I describe it and it's like, it's just the same vehicle.

Scott Stanford:

Yeah, and believe me, someone who knows Uber very well, I'm the guy who gets the bills from all my kids. So I, I'm pretty familiar with them at this point.

Sophia Mohr:

Absolutely, yep.

Scott Stanford:

I think I support about 10% of their profits. Well anyway, listen, let's talk about Central Ohio Transit Authority. We'll call it COTA from here on in. Can you describe for me really just the COTA's mission and core services, just a, you know, as an overall summary?

Sophia Mohr:

Sure. So COTA's vision is to move every life forward. And is one of the things that attracted me to this role is, it means that physically and figuratively, right? Is that obviously we're moving people, but when you move people, you move them toward the things that they need to get done, jobs, play, all those different types of things. But I think the other thing that it really means to me is that we leave nobody behind, is that we're focusing on the entire community. And our mission is to provide solutions that connect people to prosperity, innovation, dedication and teamwork, is that we're thinking about everybody. We're looking at innovative option because we know that we're an integral part of leading your life forward.

Scott Stanford:

It's amazing, it's just that there's so many people to take care of, right? You got the folks who are commuting to work. Some folks use the, the transportation system to go to the supermarkets and go shopping back and forth. You know, you talk about how these jobs that you have had and have now weren't around in the past, but how has public transportation in central Ohio let's say, evolved over the past decade or so? And what role has COTA played in the transformation?

Sophia Mohr:

That's a great question and it's probably important to know a little bit about Columbus, Ohio.

Scott Stanford:

Okay.

Sophia Mohr:

Is that Columbus, Ohio is one of the fastest growing areas in the United States. Many people don't know this but it's the 14th largest city, in the United States. And we're projected to be a population of 4 million in the next 20 years.

Scott Stanford:

Wow. 

Sophia Mohr:

So it's such a rapid change. Yet we, as a city had not evolved yet. And I think one of the great things that we are doing, that we're being very proactive about public transit. You may have been to cities like Austin or Nashville, that grew rapidly before us. And it is very congested, and it's hard to move around. And mobility is a hard problem to fix after the congestion, it's much harder. And what's been great about the central Ohio area is they are seeing and projecting what's going on and realizing we need to solve that problem now, we need to have that mobility channel here within the city and the heartbeat of the city to assure that we can grow and that we can continue to make it easy to move around. And I think that's one of the great things that's happening here. The other thing, kind of what I mentioned with the mission, is that we're really focusing on accessibility more than everything, we know that we have to serve all members of our community. And a couple of things, the highlight a couple of things that we've worked on, is we've highlighted our digital payment system. And one of the things that we're really proud of is that we've instituted fare capping. So with our digital payment system, once you're using it you will always get the best fare. So you'll never pay more than 4.50 a day, you'll never pay more than $62 a month. And previously someone would have to come in and buy that monthly cap and either, A, they didn't buy it 'cause they didn't know they'd use it, or B, $62 at one time was a hard financial burden for them. So instead, once you meet that $62 in a month, you are capped, you are no longer charged. And that's one of the amazing things that technology has done, is that we have made that accessible to everybody depending on how, what your needs are. And then along with this technology, we've also launched our income assistance program.

Scott Stanford:

Okay. 

Sophia Mohr:

That once you qualify, you'll get a 50% discount on all fares. So we've really made sure that technology is meeting the needs and solving problems that have existed for a long time in different ways to make it easier for our community.

Scott Stanford:

I know, you know, you mentioned congestion and things like that. I know, and as a New Yorker, I know, you know going on right now that even as we speak there's a whole, you know, they're, they're marching in the streets to not have congestion pricing in New York City. And I know they were meeting and deciding how much, and who has to pay and you know, delivery drivers and everybody's up in arms about the congestion pricing. But I assume with you guys, I'm sure you listen to the community a lot. You listen to their feedback on what they think should happen, how things can improve. How do you guys engage with and, I guess respond to the needs and the feedback, you know, of the community that you guys serve?

Sophia Mohr:

Sure. I think that's a really important function of not just this organization, but every organization, is that we have channels and avenues for people to provide their feedback. We're no different, we've had that for a long time. We have constant monthly meetings that are available to our community. We also make sure when we're rolling out system changes that we have public meetings. We are constantly looking to engage our community in that way. Especially because of all the changes that are going on, that we wanna make sure that we are holistic about our changes and we share the needs of everyone. So that has always been a part of what COTA has done.

Scott Stanford:

Has there ever been even just one one example where somebody from the community or a let's say a town hall meeting where someone came up with an idea where you guys are like, "Hey, that's not too bad. We'd love to implement something like that." And then got it done.

Sophia Mohr:

I think the best example is the one I just gave that I can think of in recent memory is because of the community, they said, you know, we rely on public transit. That allowed us to come up with the idea of buses and demand. They didn't necessarily come up with that, but they spoke up and said, we need a solution. And that's kind of how that was born.

Scott Stanford:

Love it, I love it. Collaborative projects, COTA companies like Rekor, you know, they use artificial intelligence to enhance those transportation services and it's, you know, they sub a lot of types of that integrated mobility innovation transit program. Can you share any of the collaborative projects like you have with Rekor? 

Sophia Mohr:

Sure. Some other examples that we have is that we have partnered with an organization called Rep One, which basically helps startups and corporations start to innovate. So if they have been a huge partner for us in our innovation lab, to see emerging technology that we can test out and try in our workspace to continue to solve problems that link technology that we're trying to face. And it's something that we're just starting up, but we're really excited to be able to work with a number of different entrepreneurs and understand how we can solve everyday problems. 

Scott Stanford:

Yeah. The technology, you know, it just, it changes so fast from from, you know month to month, week to week, that's how fast we go now, right? Looking ahead, you know, what are some of the key initiatives or goals for COTA, let's say, you know, looking way out, next five years. And how do you guys plan to achieve some of those goals? I mean, listen, five years we could have those floating, flying cars we've been looking for since we were watching the Jetsons when we were younger. But what, when you look out five years, you know what are some of those initiatives and you know, if you do have 'em. Are we too early to talk about five years from now?

Sophia Mohr:

No, it's, it's one thing that's on our mind all the time. Like I talked about with the growth of Central Ohio, is that we are expected to be 4 million people. We expect a job growth of 35%. So we are focusing on a community-wide effort called Link Us, that is basically going to be bus rapid transit, that is going to link all of the different areas of Central Ohio. One of the reasons that people love Central Ohio is it's really easy to live, because it's really easy to move around and get where you need to go. We wanna continue to be that, and we wanna look forward in solving those problems. And with the growth, you know it's harder to widen streets downtown, and we really need to look at a project like link Us that it's holistically looking at all the different pieces and how can we make sure that we can make it easy to move around. I think another thing that's worth mentioning when talking about the feature and talking about congestion, is what we're doing with Rekor. It is, as you know, a cloud-based platform, and it is one of the largest AI projects of kind, and the first in public transit, where we have engaged partners in the 13 County Legion. We're at, we're at nine agency and county partners. And for the first time we can react and prepare, and share for realtime traffic information. This has been in progress for a while, and we're really just getting started. But the ability for all of us to be on one platform, and to be able to interact and see the congestion and traffic that is coming our way is, is amazing. I mean, even though we are primarily focused on buses, what we like to say is that we're a mobility provider. And what that means to us is that we're involved in making sure how people move in the community. And that could be buses, but that also mean when we see congestion, we need to plan for that, we need to prepare for that, and 'cause we wanna make sure that people continue to move. And we find that to be very important. It's beyond the buses, it's more about how people move in the area.

Scott Stanford:

Yeah. You know, you talk about Rekor's technology, and I am wearing the shirt, so we'll talk about it for a little more. How does that technology enable you guys? I know you touched on it, but how does it enable you to proactively, you know reroute the transit vehicles around the incidents, and I have to assume that this, you know, greatly impacts the, you know, the transit times for the commuters, they have to love that. 

Sophia Mohr:

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head there, is if we are proactively able to see where incident and accidents have occurred, we can start moving our operations and rerouting to continue that on-time performance. Obviously in transportation, one of the biggest things is on-time performance, and that enables trust in our system and enables future customer experience and engagement. And you know, if you don't have on-time performance then it obviously could inhibit how people see you and trust you. So for us to be able to react and understand what might be coming down a route is huge. And that proactivity makes changes. And I've seen those changes real time where we reroute rerouted buses, because we see like an incident has occurred and that's huge for overall our brand and our community. 

Scott Stanford:

And I know the same Rekor technology that you guys use and partnered up with also benefits the emergency services in Columbus. You know, how has that impacted the measure on, you know emergency response teams?

Sophia Mohr:

Yeah, I think one of the great things about, as you highlighted, is that having an organization like the fire department as the partner, where it provides real-time location of where their vehicles are and really gives us better insight to where those incidents are. And in the turn, what the information we're providing them is information about traffic incidents that may disrupt their routes. So you can see that it's a partnership in terms of us getting information, but them also getting information so they can react and have that visibility to what may be occurring. In addition with the city of Columbus Traffic Management Center, you know, previously it would be a lot of phone calls and emails about incidents that might occur, with this platform, we're seeing that all pop up in real-time, and be able to react a little faster, from basically what our different agencies are involved in. So just having a platform like that, that makes, you know, time is of the essence sometimes in those situations, and having one platform that we're working on so we can all be re reactive and proactive, it is great.

Scott Stanford:

You know, Sophia, I have to assume other folks in your role around the country, right? Chief Innovation and Technology Officers, do you guys often get together and share ideas with different cities and different folks in your position?

Sophia Mohr:

Yeah, Chief Innovation Officer is something that has popped up in a lot of different transit organization, because of Covid, I haven't met as many of them. I'm actually meeting a whole bunch of them in a couple of weeks at Apta, so I'm really excited about that, and hearing the different things that they're working on. And it's so interesting because we have commonalities but obviously every city is different, and understanding the different challenges and problems that they're trying to solve has been interesting. And then also being part of the CIO forum for those in IT, and how the technology that we're using is also changing rapidly and the demands on an IT group within an organization like Transit has changed very rapidly. And I'll, I'll get to meet a whole bunch of them as well so I'm looking forward to it. 

Scott Stanford:

That's a lot, a lot of very intelligent, smart people in one room, I have to imagine with lots of, lots of great ideas that you know, someone like me doesn't even fathom the way you folks think, and it, you know I love to ask this question, and your position and all the things you're privy to. Do you see anything, is there anything being talked about in the pipeline, any of the, this amazing technology, any artificial intelligence technology that you see coming down the pike that's gonna be out and available to you guys let's say in the next, you know, six months or so?

Sophia Mohr:

I think obviously, just like every organization, we're all talking about generative AI, and how that may impact us as an organization. I think another thing that is coming up quite quickly is smart infrastructure and how different pieces of infrastructure can talk to each other. How can we be set up on 5G and you know, soon 6G, to shorten that latency of different pieces of infrastructure talking to each other. I think those are the big things that are going on in transportation right now. And I like to say that we're gonna see more change in transportation in the next five to 10, 20 years than we have in the last 50. And that's because of technology and all the things we're gonna do to transform how we move.

Scott Stanford:

Yeah, no, it, it's incredible. We interviewed recently a gentleman from Safe Fleet, and I don't know if if you work with those folks but I mean, we were going through, you know school buses and transit buses, and all the new technology that they have just to, you know make things easier for them and different cameras and you know, with the school buses, with the arms and whatnot, and it's just, it's insane to me the amount of technology that comes out so fast. And again, things that, that, you know guys like me don't even, you can't even conceive yet. I, I'll leave it at this. You know, technology is, is so prevalent now for us and what you guys do, even with the, you know cameras on the streets, cameras on buses, trains, you know, everything. It's just, technology is the way of the future for what you guys do, I assume. And you're constantly getting bombarded I would think with different ideas from other technology companies who are constantly coming out with new products.

Sophia Mohr:

Yeah, I think kind of like how I like to talk about it is, the customer experience has changed with technology, and Covid actually changed a lot too is the expectations of the end user have increased dramatically, and they're not making a distinguishing factor between public and private. They're expecting us to be just like they work with their banks, just like they work with their retail, just like they work with their doctor. They're expecting that we have the technology backbone to support and do basically what they do anywhere else they go. And I think that has been a transition for public agencies to adjust to that. I think it's been a really important thing, and I think there are a lot of things coming our way, and then when you put cybersecurity on top of it it's a whole other area that we can have, we can talk about. But yeah, technology is what's gonna change transportation, and it's really exciting, I'm really excited to be part of it. I think it's a really interesting moment in time for transportation, and the things that we're doing today are really gonna set the path for the next 25 and 50 years. So, it's a fun time to be involved, but it can also be a little overwhelming at time. 

Scott Stanford:

Yeah. Truly incredible. Just this conversation, I'm overwhelmed with everything that you, you know, that's going on. Sophia Mohr, chief Innovation Technology Officer, Central Ohio Transit Authority. Sophia, again, thank you so much, continued success. And you know what, there's probably another job out there somewhere that doesn't exist yet, you might be taking in the next five years. You don't even know. Sophia, thank you so much. Continued success, and again, thanks for taking a little time with us. 

Sophia Mohr:

Yeah, thank you for having me, I appreciate it.

Scott Stanford:

Take care.