M Street Road Safety Technology Reverse Pitch & Pilot 

OVERVIEW OF REVERSE PITCH AND PILOT

The Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America), DC Highway Safety Office (DC HSO), District of Columbia Department of Transportation (DDOT) Vision Zero Office, and the DC Southwest Business Improvement District (SWBID) are proud to present the M Street Road Safety Technology Reverse Pitch and Pilot in the Navy Yard Neighborhood of Washington, DC, USA. The pilot area is M Street from Delaware Avenue SW to 5th Street SE, 50 feet on either from the M Street centerline, as shown below and in the hyperlinked source PDF.

While this M Street pilot area has not had any fatal crashes in the last three years (2023-2025), there were 213 crashes, seven of which resulted in eight people that were seriously injured per the crash data here. The M Street pilot area has a number of complex, multimodal transportation safety challenges, ranging from conflicts between modes at intersections to high traffic during major events. The road safety challenges in this call for reverse pitches are based on crash data and qualitative input from DC government representatives involved in road safety from first responders to transportation professional.

ITS America is calling for reverse pitches to identify possible transportation technology solutions from the industry to address the road safety challenges described in the Priority Road Safety Challenges section.

Reverse pitches should fully describe how the transportation technology solutions you propose will improve at least one of the road safety challenges on M Street, but would ideally address multiple safety challenges. This M Street Road Safety Technology Reverse Pitch and Pilot is intended to identify digital infrastructure and intelligent transportation hardware and software solutions as an added layer of protection between the physical infrastructure and behavioral road safety solutions to achieve Vision Zero through the lens of the Safe System Approach.

The DC HSO, SWBID, and ITS America will evaluate the submissions and invite viable technology solutions to pitch their road safety solution during a live reverse pitch event with DC government agencies in mid-May 2026. From the live reverse pitch event, highest scoring technologies within the project budget will be invited to participate in a two-month pilot from July through the end of August 2026. The pilot will commence following technology coordination, contracting, permitting, donation agreements, and final budget approvals by DC government in coordination with ITS America. At the end of the pilot, vendors will work with ITS America to share data on measurable safety improvements from their technologies piloted.

Call for Technology Solutions to Road Safety Challenges on M Street is due April 17, 2026 by midnight EST through the online submission form below.

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BACKGROUND ON M STREET CONTEXT AND CRASHES

The M Street corridor is an urban arterial with high multimodal traffic that presents complexities. The M Street pilot area was improved with physical road infrastructure changes in the last five years; however, safety challenges still persist.

While there have been no fatal crashes in the last three years (2023-2025), the M Street pilot area was selected because it is on the DC High Injury Network and given complexity of systemically addressing high-volume, multimodal road safety challenges. There were 213 total crashes that occurred along the M Street corridor between January 1, 2023 and December 31, 2025.

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MORE INFORMATION

Reverse Pitch Evaluation Criteria

This criteria will be used to evaluate initial reverse pitches submitted, reverse pitches included in the live pitch event, and those pitches selected to pilot found HERE.

Detailed performance metrics for the pilot will be shared with companies selected to install technologies. Companies that pilot will be expected to provide data on measurable road safety improvements to ITS America after the pilot period.

Procurement and Pilot Requirements

• Cost for your pilots should not exceed $25,000 in costs to be billed to ITS America. All costs that exceed that amount must be loaned or donated during the pilot period.
• Please denote hardware or other resources to be loaned or donated during the pilot period. These items will require a DDOT Application to Approve Donations be submitted to ITS America as part of pilot contracting if selected. A sample application is provided here.
• All reverse pitches must comply with all United States and District of Columbia laws and regulations, such as local privacy ordinances and those pertaining to use of drones.
• All technologies piloted must be compatible with existing DC physical and digital infrastructure.
• Technologies proposed should ideally be able to be installed by the DDOT to waive the temporary traffic control plan stamped by a license processional engineer required by the right-of-way permit.
• ITS America, in partnership with the DC HSO, DDOT, and SWBID, will coordinate with companies selected to pilot to ensure all required contracting, installation coordination, and right-of-way permitting can be provided.

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QUESTIONS?

For questions about the M Street Road Safety Technology Reverse Pitch and Pilot, please contact Sarah Abel at sabel@itsa.org. If you have questions that would need to be answered to successfully complete your reverse pitch submission, please reach out by April 8, 2026 at 11:59pm EST to allow time for answers before the pitch deadline. ITS America will post frequently asked questions and answers to the project webpage. 

If submission button is not working, use this link: bit.ly/40Ma0BZ

This project is funded by the DC Vision Zero Office and the DC Southwest Business Improvement District (SWBID).

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