by Angela Miller
This week I’m attending an American Public Transportation Association (APTA) conference on Sustainability in Public Transportation. This is a fun gathering of people in the transit industry who think every day about the myriad opportunities to make our industry more sustainable.

As I sit here in this room today I am struck by a couple of things. The first is how out of place I feel – there is not one other technology person out of the entire group of people at this event. There are planners, and rail engineers, and facilities people, and operations managers. But as I scanned through the list of attendees, I was amazed that not one other person here possessed a title in the Information Technology area. This feels like a lost opportunity to me.

There are some excellent things about this conference – one of the biggest for me personally is a reminder that “sustainable” is not synonymous with “green.” Sustainability obviously also focuses on economic viability, on justice and fairness of the transit product, and on the environmental impacts. Both human and environmental impacts.

I am learning a great deal. The New York MTA has an amazing program for sustainability. They spent years on developing a mutlifaceted plan with specific details from the type of fuel mix and tires they will use, to transit-oriented design with their city, to recycling policies. I’ve listened to presentations on hybrid buses, on why biofuels are proving problematic, on how to provide more economical transit, business cases for LEED facilities, and innovative solar and wind generation programs. What is missing here?

Not one presentation on green IT. I sense opportunity.