Industry Veterans to Help Argo Safely Bring Autonomous Vehicles to Market
PITTSBURGH – As it advances its mission to make the world’s streets and roadways safe, accessible, and useful for all, Argo AI announced today it has established the Argo Safety Advisory Council comprising top experts and industry leaders in the fields of transportation, medicine, law enforcement, and cybersecurity.
The Argo Safety Advisory Council will provide external strategic counsel on Argo’s safety and security practices and policies, including feedback on maintaining a world-class safety culture, earning public trust in autonomous vehicles, scaling safely across multiple cities and countries, and responsibly launching and operating commercial driverless services. Argo created the Council proactively, further underscoring the company’s focus and commitment to bringing autonomous products and services to market safely.
“At Argo, our foundational value is safety,” said Bryan Salesky, Founder and CEO, Argo AI. “Autonomous vehicles have the potential to profoundly and positively impact transportation safety and accessibility in cities. I am grateful for the Argo Safety Advisory Council to share their collective wisdom and expertise to help Argo realize this goal.”
Since its founding in 2016, Argo’s culture of safety has underpinned its technical progress and roadmap to the launch of driverless commercial services. The Argo internal safety management system and governance nurtures the company’s safety culture and focuses on the safety and security of Argo technology, employees, and the communities in which Argo operates.
The Argo Safety Advisory Council provides an external perspective with members sharing their knowledge and expertise to further enhance Argo’s safety approach, while advising on additional ways to build trust and public acceptance in autonomous vehicle technology.
The Council includes world-class experts and demonstrated leaders in transportation safety:
- Christopher “Todd” Doss, Senior Managing Director, Cybersecurity at Ankura and former Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
- Dr. Mitchell Garber, Senior Managing Consultant at ESi and former Medical Officer for the National Transportation Safety Board
- David Kelly, Principal and CEO at Storm King Strategies and former Acting Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
- Annette Sandberg, Principal and CEO at TransSafe Consulting and former Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
- Robert Sumwalt, Executive Director of the Center for Aviation and Aerospace Safety at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and former Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board
Argo continues to make progress on commercial deployment of autonomous vehicle products and services. It is currently operating consumer-facing services with Lyft and Walmart, and recently began driverless operations in Miami and Austin.
Establishing the Argo Safety Advisory Council builds on previous proactive engagements with third-party groups to assess and validate Argo’s safety measures for driverless operations and test driver processes. In December 2021, third-party assessment found Argo procedures pertaining to test driver selection, training, and oversight meet, and in some cases exceed, industry best practices and standards as defined by the Autonomous Vehicle Safety Consortium’s (AVSC) and SAE International’s J3018 standard for safe on-road testing.