Between ATSPMs, hardware telemetry, safety metrics, and citizen complaints, today’s traffic engineers are managing more complexity than ever with the same staff, the same budgets, and less time than ever to make sense of it all. 

Artificial intelligence is starting to close that gap. Not as a distant concept, but as a working part of how agencies detect problems, investigate causes, and communicate results today, in production, in real cities. 

This session is a thought-leadership conversation about where AI is actually headed in traffic operations, moderated with real practitioners who are living this shift right now. 

Key Takeaways:

• Where AI is already at work in signal operations, safety analysis, and network monitoring and where the hype outpaces the reality 

• How one major city is deploying AI for smart streets initiatives, including automated bus lane enforcement 

• What “agentic AI” actually means for traffic engineers, and how it differs from the dashboards and reports agencies already use 

• What to consider before adopting AI into your own workflows: governance, data readiness, staff impact, and where human judgment still leads 

Speakers:

• Karen Lightman, Executive Director, Metro21 and Safety21, Carnegie Mellon University (Moderator) 

• Abraham Emmanuel, Deputy Commissioner, City of Chicago DOT

• Tamara Djukic, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, MLSquared

• Sara N-Marandi, VP of Product, Miovision

---