About the inventor of the Automated Transport System (ATS)

Automated Transport Visionary Waldemar "Wally" Frank Kissel, Jr., 62, has spent 50 years developing his concept for safe and efficient road transportation. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.

An experienced inventor and entrepreneur, Kissel operates multiple companies in Florida. He is a real-estate investor and developer (commercial, residential and multifamily) and also directs property management, broadband Internet, telecommunications and franchise businesses. Ideas are his element.

"As a boy," Kissel recalls, "I filled my notebooks with ideas for inventions. At age 12, I witnessed a fatal car accident, and road safety became a haunting obsession. I began thinking about ways to make car travel much safer."

Decades passed. Fascinated by rockets, math and physics, young Wally continued his education, became a mechanical engineer, obtained a MBA, married, pursued a career and went into business. Automobile safety remained a burning issue. Over the years many theories, requirements, rules and solutions were considered. Dozens of notebooks were filled. As he saw cities get snarled deeper and deeper in traffic, Kissel pondered solutions for that too. Finally, there was a framework, but something was missing.

More years passed. One day, a simple concept occurred to the inventor. A closed loop road system! All at once it came together. Over the years the concept has been refined and expanded. Technology that did not then exist before is now readily available. The need has never been greater. The safety advantages, dramatic energy savings and other benefits are very real.

The automated transport system described would result in profound changes to our society, and because of this, he expects the concept will be opposed as well as supported. But Kissel likes to make things happen and usually finds a way.

Kissel is founder and CEO of the American Standards Institute for Automated Transport Systems, LLC (ASI/ATS). In addition to defining and interpreting standards, the organization seeks to focus private technology and private capital into a coordinated plan.

"I recognize," says Kissel, "the difficulty of making automated transport a reality. The size of the project and the amount of capital needed are serious challenges; fortunately there is also sufficient financial incentive to justify private capital investment."

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