“We are at the advent of a transformation in transportation that will be similar in scale to the rise of the Internet…aviation…the automobile itself,” Cohen told the Pennsylvania State Transportation Commission during its quarterly gathering at a Bucks County hotel.

Research and planning efforts in Pennsylvania – thanks to years of pioneering study at Carnegie Mellon University – have put the state in the forefront of the autonomous vehicle world, along with California, Michigan, Nevada and Florida, he said.

After developing an autonomous Cadillac and testing it on roads in western Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon has turned Pittsburgh into “one of the epicenters of this innovation,” Cohen said.