Turning Pilots into Policy: Lessons from Michigan on Delivering Transport Innovation | Interview with Michele Mueller

With over two decades of public service, Michele Mueller has been a pioneering leader in Michigan’s transition toward smarter, safer, and more sustainable transportation. As a manager for the State of Michigan’s Connected, Automated, and Electrification (CAVE) initiatives, she has played a pivotal role in planning, developing, and deploying advanced mobility technologies that position Michigan as a national and global hub for innovation.

What you’ll learn:

• How Michigan decides which transport pilots are worth scaling
  What criteria are used to move a project from testbed to long-term deployment

• Why real roads expose problems test environments never will
  The practical differences between controlled testing and live traffic, and why the “last 10%” of deployment is where most risk sits.

• How to build public trust
  Why transparency, relevance, and showing people the tech can be more than technical detail.

• How government and industry educate each other in a shared ecosystem
  Where OEMs, tech providers, and infrastructure agencies routinely misunderstand each other and how Michigan bridges that gap.