Contributed by: Lia Hunt, Cohort VII
Hawaiʻi had 94 traffic fatalities in 2021, a jump from 85 fatalities the year prior. Nationally, taxpayers support more than $140 billion per year in costs for emergency response, fatalities, injuries, and property damage.
Goldwings Supply Service, Inc., Applied Information, the University of Hawaiʻi, and the Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation are helping implement new technologies that will allow the state to better utilize and preserve our existing transportation system. Intelligent transportation systems that use connected vehicle technology provide the potential to prevent a significant number of crashes. A connected vehicle environment will allow vehicles and traffic signals to “talk” to each other, alerting drivers to potential hazards, letting emergency vehicles move through intersections quicker, and enabling traffic managers to adjust operations.
“We can’t build new roads as easily as other states can, so we have to focus on things like technology that give us that capacity in different ways,” said Ed Sniffen, Hawaiʻi DOT Deputy Director. These efforts are part of Vision Zero, an international traffic safety project to eliminate traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while increasing safe, healthy, and equitable mobility for all.
Goldwings utilizes a social value investment blueprint: process, people, place, portfolio, and performance. With each decision and interaction, we are mindful to share aloha and to be pono. It is with Hawaiian values that we conduct the art of business, delivering the art of the possible.
Learn more at the links below:
Cohort II Fellow AJ Halagao highlights his energy and climate documentary film, 'Illumination Hawai‘i.'