Vanderbilt researchers are part of an artificial intelligence-driven project that has received a nearly $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to optimize bus service on one of Nashville’s busiest routes.
Abhishek Dubey, associate professor of computer science and electrical and computer engineering at Vanderbilt University, is leading technology research for the project, which is being done in collaboration with Nasvhille’s WeGo Public Transit. The aim is to reduce bus bunching and gapping on busy Murfreesboro Pike (state route 55) using real-time data, predictive modeling, and smart traffic signals.
“This will improve on-time performance, decrease wait times, and particularly benefit riders from marginalized populations,” Dubey said. “The project leverages existing infrastructure and partnerships with various institutions and companies. It also includes a plan for expansion to additional routes.”
WeGo CEO Steve Bland said Murfreesboro Pike has the highest ridership in the transit system.
“This funding will allow us to acquire the technology needed to provide more predictable service on a high frequency route with many traffic issues,” Bland said in a news release from the City of Nashville. “That will, in turn, help us develop the same technology for other high frequency routes in the WeGo system.”
Dubey, a senior research scientist at Vanderbilt’s Institute for Software Integrated Systems (ISIS), is also leading a consortium comprised of several different universities and regional transit agencies that has received more than $8 million from USDOT to accelerate artificial intelligence-driven multimodal transit operations across Tennessee.
Earlier this year, Dubey was recognized for leading research that uses AI to help improve operations for Nashville’s public transportation network, as well as improve efficiency of public transportation in Chattanooga for individuals with special needs. The Nashville research won “Best Paper” at the 15th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems (ICCPS), and the Chattanooga research was presented in a paper at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI)
Other Vanderbilt team members on the WeGo-Route 55 project include Vanderbilt research engineer David Rogers, research scientist Jose Paolo Talusan, and senior research scientist Ayan Mukhopadhyay. Aron Laszka, professor of computer science at Penn State University, is also part of the team.
Contact: Lucas Johnson, lucas.l.johnson@vanderbilt.edu