John Niles is Founder and President of Global Telematics, an independent research consultancy based in Seattle focused on designing policies, training, and productivity improvements for urban and rural passenger and freight transportation. As a Research Associate of San Jose State University he has lead team research studies over two decades for Mineta Transportation Institute on carpooling incentives, transit-oriented development, freight mobility, bus rapid transit, park-and-ride impacts, incentives for reducing solo driving, and road vehicle automation.

John is co-author of the 2025 Elsevier textbook, The End of Driving: Automated Cars, Sharing vs Owning, and the Future of Mobility (2nd edition), and many technical book chapters and reports emphasizing applications of information and communications technology. He is an activist for sustainability across economics, environment, and equity as a co-founding participant in two non-profit associations: Center for Advanced Transportation and Energy Solutions (CATES), and Smarter Transit, both active in the Puget Sound region of Washington State. He is also a board member at the International Ridesharing Institute, now ramping up The Pooling Imperative initiative.

John has earned degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and MIT focused on quantitative analysis. He is a U.S. Navy veteran with past service supervising aviation maintenance for internationally deployed maritime patrol aircraft. In recent years he has experienced urban mobility challenges and solutions worldwide as a traveler in Friendship Force International.