This workshop is intended to identify project opportunities that connect leading-edge academic research with the immediate problems facing local and state government, private industry, and entrepreneurs working in transportation and mobility infrastructure and solutions. It is the second in a series designed to meet future mobility challenges and opportunities, sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The inaugural workshop in Fall 2019 included a multi-disciplinary discussion of societal trends and needs.

City planners and civil engineers are increasingly looking at mobility systems not simply as transportation networks to move people or goods but as networks designed to meet the needs of the community they serve. Our roads and transportation corridors are evolving to adapt to new modes of travel, whether scooters, e-bikes, drones, or electric semi-trailers. Digital transformation, accelerated by COVID-19, creates an additional layer of complexity in considering how goods and services “move.” Innovations that will shape the smart and connected infrastructure of the future include:

• Autonomous, connected, and electric vehicles
• Breakthroughs in material science
• AI and machine learning in route planning, design, modeling, and wayfinding
• Connected infrastructure
• Communications networks as transit corridors in a digital world