Virginia Clean Cities will host the Mid-Atlantic Advanced Transportation Summit and Expo this week at JMU’s Atlantic Union Bank Center this Wednesday and Thursday, July 22nd and 23rd. The event will bring leaders from the alternative fuel industry and display new electric and alternative fuel vehicles to be rolled out in the coming years. WMRA’s Calvin Pynn asked Executive Director Alleyn Harned about the goal of this expo.
ALLEYN HARNED: This is a gathering of people working on advanced transportation technologies in the mid-Atlantic region, so in the multi-state region, coming together to talk about cleaner fuels, cleaner vehicles, and different types of mobility. We don’t make a lot of oil in places like Virginia, but we have this opportunity for affordability savings, for efficiency, and for fun with these advanced technologies. So, we’ve got heavy duty vehicles, medium duty vehicles, and even these smaller than car size work vehicles here and a whole slew of different and learning opportunities as we transition this technology in the decades ahead.
WMRA: Could you expand some on the learning opportunities? I know there are going to be some workshops, some speakers. What can people expect to learn from this event?
HARNED: Well, the greatest opportunity here is to come together with people in the Mid-Atlantic region to connect with individuals, with the people who are putting this work on, with the people who, connecting the people who may want to buy technology for their fleet or for their government, and the people who are manufacturing, distributing, and providing the resource for that technology. There’s really a tremendous amount of engagement opportunity. Over two days, there is a sequence of workshops on everything you can imagine, on renewable fuels, on policy and operations. And there are just this range of technologies in transportation electrification as well…