Artificial Intelligence for Intelligent Transportation Systems

Moderator: Robert Sheehan, (ITS JPO, USDOT)

The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) recognizes the promise AI offers for achieving considerable benefits in ITS, such as improving safety, mobility, equity, efficiency, accessibility, productivity, resilience, and reducing individual and societal costs, emissions, and other negative environmental impacts. However, several challenges exist that could impede the successful adoption of AI for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and the potential realization of these benefits. Some of these challenges are technical while others are more organizational, ranging from data requirements, bias, and privacy concerns to ethics, liability, and stakeholder perception.

This webinar will start with the ITS JPO’s AI-enabled ITS Capability Maturity Model to help implementers and researchers assess readiness for implementation of AI. The presentation will be followed by great work by the Virginia Department of Transportation and the anticipated AI Decision Support System, part of their Regional Multi-Modal Mobility Program. Florida DOT will respond with exceptional insights into the application of the CMM for transportation planning and guidance for public agencies. Closing out the session will be a summary of the recently completed AI Assurance workshop, led by the USDOT’s Highly Automated Systems Safety Center of Excellence.

AI-Enabled ITS Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and Readiness Checklists

This presentation will highlight the AI-enabled ITS Capability Maturity Modal as an approach for organizations to self-assess their strengths and weaknesses for incorporating and mainstreaming AI into their ITS programs and operational processes. The AI-enabled ITS CMM fills a gap for transportation professionals by providing a more rigorous assessment (via comprehensive readiness checklists) compared to existing AI CMMs developed by commercial technology companies. Importantly, stakeholders helped to define capability maturity levels within the AI-enabled ITS CMM, which helped to inform the resulting readiness checklist items developed by the research team.

Presenters:

David Hale (Leidos)
Brandon Freeman (TrustThink)
Mohammed Hadi (Florida International University)

AI-Based Decision Support System (DSS) and Traffic Operations Strategic Plan

This presentation will highlight the VDOT Traffic Operations Strategic Plan that is currently under development and discuss high-level strategies recommended for implementing emerging technologies such as AI. A flagship example is Regional Multi-Modal Mobility Program (RM3P) awarding the much-anticipated project, Artificial Intelligence-Based Decision Support System (AI-DSS), in October 2023 (https://rm3pvirginia.org/2024/03/rm3p-hits-a-major-milestone-ai-dss-awarded/). The AI-DSS will improve collaborative responses to incidents.

Presenter:

Mena Lockwood (Virginia Department of Transportation)
Candice Gibson (Virginia Department of Transportation)

Applications of AI in Transportation Planning

In October 2023, FDOT’s TSMO Advisory Committee received a presentation on the aforementioned AI-Enabled ITS CMM and Readiness Checklists. This brings to mind “The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-First Century’s Greatest Dilemma,” by Sulyman Hustafa. This presentation will discuss the application of AI in transportation planning plus thoughts on the AI-ITS CMM’s usefulness, and what guidance may be helpful for public agencies.

Presenter: Eric Hill (MetroPlan Orlando)

AI Assurance Workshop

The U.S. DOT AI Assurance Workshop on May 29-30, 2024, engaged and supported collaboration with the transportation research community. Hosted by HASS COE and co-organized by the FAA Senior Technical Experts Program and the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office, the virtual workshop featured keynotes, technical talks, and panel discussions with academia. Session topics focused on government AI safety programs, research needs and priorities, risk assessment and mitigation, data assurance, design time assurance, and operation time assurance. https://www.transportation.gov/hasscoe/highlights/AI-assurance

Presenter: Huafeng Yu, Ph.D. (Senior Scientist, HASS COE, USDOT)

Accommodations

Live closed captioning will be provided for all webinars. When registering for the webinar, you will be able to request additional accessibility accommodations to participate. The deadline to request accommodations for each webinar will be 5 business days prior to the live event.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Enabled ITS Webinar