Skip to main content

Transportation 2.0: Detroit shows way forward

OEMs, suppliers, and technology firms are in a race to modernise our current transportation systems. These changes will bring about adaptations in how people fundamentally interact with transportation and how they provide and receive goods and services. What new business models will emerge from these changes? What challenges? Will modalities be combined? These are the overarching questions that are vital to prepare markets, governments, and researchers for the future. Delegates at the ITS America Annual Me
May 25, 2018 Read time: 3 mins
© F11photo | Dreamstime.com
OEMs, suppliers, and technology firms are in a race to modernise our current transportation systems. These changes will bring about adaptations in how people fundamentally interact with transportation and how they provide and receive goods and services. What new business models will emerge from these changes? What challenges? Will modalities be combined? These are the overarching questions that are vital to prepare markets, governments, and researchers for the future.  Delegates at the ITS America Annual Meeting Detroit have a unique opportunity to hear about, and understand, the overarching questions facing us.


Connectivity, Autonomy and the Future of Transportation and Transport

AI, Machine Learning, and Autonomy are spreading through multiple modes of transportation and transport, and the use of these technologies will grow in ubiquity. As these technologies become standard, we will see multiple changes in the combining and expansion of modes and it will change the nature of how we interact with goods and services. How will markets change? How will the workforce adapt? How will cities and states manage the data generated? What type of productivity growth will this create? How will commercial fleets change? What opportunities and challenges does the future hold? What is the next generation of autonomy and what is beyond autonomy?

Electrification and Infrastructure

As we move to a new transportation network with increasingly electrified vehicles using more sustainable energy sources, investment in intelligent infrastructure becomes a critical need.  How do we build and maintain the core infrastructure? How does electrification change freight? What are the next steps in creating a majority electric fleet? What is next?

Regulatory and Financial Challenges Related to Deployment of ITS Technologies

ITS technologies hold incredible potential to make communities more safe, accessible, equitable, sustainable, and economically vibrant. Unfortunately, building and deploying ITS technologies will not be easy. Before technologies are deployed on a large scale, regulatory and funding consideration will need to be addressed.  How can cities, states, and technology companies work together to find solutions that will ultimately bring ITS technologies to communities large and small across the country?

Cybersecurity and Privacy Opportunities and Challenges

Cybersecurity and privacy are both key components of an intelligent transportation system.  How should the industry move forward in seeking out a universal framework?  What are the greatest challenges presented by cybersecurity?  What opportunities are created for new emergent firms focused on cyber security in the ITS space? What is the future of cybersecurity as edge and quantum computing come on line?

Transportation Systems Operations

Emerging technology is all essentially geared to the same goal: addressing practical challenges in the day-to-day operation of our transportation facilities. Whereas connected and automated vehicle systems showcase the future of transportation systems operations, proven intelligent transportation systems and traffic management technologies continue to offer the potential to improve the operations and safety of the transportation network.

The Impacts & Opportunities of Big Data

As the availability of operational data grows, the transportation community faces challenges associated with how to manage, store and analyse all of this data. These challenges, and associated opportunities, will be exacerbated by the deployment of connected vehicles. It is important to learn from other sectors dealing with this influx of data in order to address challenges and optimise benefits.

Related Content

  • Cohda Wireless: 'New York has the best urban canyons'
    July 21, 2020
    Dr Paul Alexander, chief technical officer of Cohda Wireless, talks to Adam Hill about DSRC versus C-V2X, global connected vehicle take-up, the uses of WiFi – and, of course, seeing round the Big Apple's buildings...
  • US ITS sector needs strategic leadership
    January 31, 2012
    The US is losing its advantage in the ITS sector because of a lack of strategic leadership, according to a new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Here, Stephen Ezell, one of the report's authors, talks to ITS International about what can be done to remedy the situation. A new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), Explaining International IT Leadership: Intelligent Transportation Systems, makes for sobering reading within the US ITS community.
  • AI: a means to an end
    October 12, 2022
    Artificial intelligence is a powerful tool to create a balance between safety, resilience, sustainability and inclusivity when it comes to connected and automated driving, says Margriet van Schijndel of TU/e
  • User-based insurance joins the battle for big data
    November 10, 2015
    User-based insurance is blazing a trail others would like to follow and is also discovering the challenges. The ITS sector needs to keep a very careful eye on the automotive industry: “There’s a war going on in the connected car space creating richer datasets than we ever imagined possible” says Paul Stacy, research and development director of Wunelli, part of the LexisNexis group. The car makers have gone way beyond infotainment, unlocking huge amounts of data in the process … facts and figures which the i