AI: Transforming Transportation

Artificial intelligence is reshaping how people and goods move. Across the transportation industry, agencies are exploring how this emerging capability can improve safety, efficiency and user experience while setting the foundation for enhanced systems in the decades ahead. Like previous breakthroughs that transformed global infrastructure — from the internet to smartphones — AI’s promise will be realized through deliberate, human-centered implementation.

The influence of AI extends far beyond its role as a technical tool. It represents a strategic capability that can enhance every dimension of how transportation agencies plan, operate and serve the public. As adoption accelerates, the industry is approaching this technology with pragmatic optimism — recognizing both its transformative potential and the importance of measured, responsible integration.

Unlocking the full power of AI in our industry will be shaped by four key factors:

Finding the right starting point for AI adoption

Agencies occupy different places on the AI maturity curve, so identifying a starting point is essential. This involves assessing organizational readiness, available financial and human resources, team experience with innovation, change management processes and leadership buy-in. With a clear-eyed view of this starting point, agencies can create a tailored AI strategy that teams understand and execute collaboratively to pursue short- and long-term goals.

Pursuing achievable use cases

For many agencies, early AI applications might save staff time or automate formerly manual processes. These cases might be small in scale yet deliver large-scale value because they familiarize staff with AI tools and broaden their collaborative networks. Possessing a stronger grasp of AI’s potential can illuminate pathways for higher value, but still realistic applications.

Cleaning data and expediting data sources

Agencies can feed AI algorithms vast quantities of information, thereby empowering computers to approach problems with learning and flexibility, instead of just hard-coded calculations and rigidity. However, such benefits rely on AI consuming robust, aligned and curated data drawn from a multiplicity of sources. The broader and cleaner the agency’s dataset, the greater AI’s ability to learn, solve problems, make predictions and advance the agency’s objectives. Agencies that meticulously collect, structure, store and protect their data in the near term will be better positioned to reap AI’s full benefits enterprise-wide in the long term.

Ensuring responsible, human-centered integration

Transportation agencies are keenly aware of their responsibility to glean the greatest benefits – safety, efficiency, access – for system users while mitigating risks to data security and AI-generated errors. This is why principles like “human centered” and “human in the loop” are embedded in AI strategies and enforced by sophisticated governance policies at every level of these organizations.

Transportation agencies are already setting an example for prudent AI adoption. Agency leaders are creating mission-aligned programs for employing AI that are enhancing system safety, efficiency and user experience in the near term, while setting the stage for refinements that promise to deliver a new level of system performance in the future.