GridMatrix partners with U.S. Department of Transportation data scientists to create tools that enhance public transit safety and climate change resiliency

Increasingly severe and frequent weather events consistently disrupt transit agency fleet vehicle operations in cities across the United States

NEW YORK, Feb. 22, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — GridMatrix, the leading provider of cloud-based transportation analytics, is proud to announce the launch of its new Bus Route Risk Index at The Opportunity Project’s (TOP) 2023 Summit.  Sponsored by the U.S. Census Bureau, TOP brings leading technology companies together with the nation’s largest federal agencies to solve complex challenges for the benefit of the public.  GridMatrix partnered with a team of U.S. Department of Transportation data scientists to develop its live bus route risk index as part of TOP’s Climate Change Resilience & Transit Systems cohort.  Raffi Mesrobian, GridMatrix Senior Data Scientist,  led the joint U.S. DOT-GridMatrix team that developed the index.

“The Bus Route Risk Index provides users with never-before-seen granular insights into the safety risks faced by public transit agencies, particularly in inclement weather. Having clear risk data for routes during storms can help users improve route planning, safety, and efficiency. On a broader scale, combining historical accident data with climate change information will allow transit agencies to take preventative measures to make their offerings climate resilient,” said Raffi Mesroian, GridMatrix Senior Data Scientist.

GridMatrix’s cloud-based software platform combining live weather and bus position data across  New York City

Climate change resilience and the related risks from new weather patterns are top challenges facing public transit agencies today.  Data scientists in the U.S. DOT provided GridMatrix with continuous feedback throughout the development process to ensure the project served transit agencies nationally.

GridMatrix’s live bus route risk index fuses multi-source data to quantify relationships between meteorological, collision, and traffic flow inputs.  Risk statistics for each bus and bus route in a city are then determined in real time.  For its first generation risk index, GridMatrix utilized publicly available data directly from New York City, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA), and the National Weather Service, as well as data from GridMatrix’s own cloud-based traffic analytics platform. These inputs offered real-time information on buses, weather conditions, current traffic conditions, and historical crash data.

Combining these data sources allows transit system operators to quantify risk relationships, such as whether a storm could lead to specific types of collisions and where weather-related collisions are most likely.  This data will also provide public transit agencies with new safety baseline metrics, allow agencies to efficiently alter services, and identify potential points of failure relating to infrastructure, driver behavior, and climate.

“It’s an honor to work with partners like the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Census Bureau to improve public transit agencies’ response to climate change,” said GridMatrix CEO Nicholas D’Andre. “GridMatrix’s collaboration with the U.S. Department of Transportation is a testament to our commitment to transit development.  This launch is another instance of our team bringing data driven decision making tools to the most complex and pressing operational challenges facing transportation agencies today.”

GridMatrix Vice President of Data Science David Von Dollen said, “GridMatrix’s work on the Bus Route Risk Indexing project shows the utility of artificial intelligence in the transportation field. We’ll continue to incorporate AI into our existing analytics suite to develop new and exciting metrics in the coming months.”

Following the announcement, GridMatrix will partner with public transit agencies to implement the technology at scale and integrate it into existing analytics offerings.

The Bus Route Risk Index comes on the heels of GridMatrix’s January deployment of its AI and Machine Learning software with a public sector agency in the New York City region. The deployment will proactively identify safety risks and provide metrics to reduce emissions, improve signal performance, and decrease congestion around the world’s busiest pieces of infrastructure.

GridMatrix’s award-winning software platform for real-time traffic analytics combines edge data from existing roadway sensors and cloud-based data sources to eliminate urban traffic congestion, accidents, and emissions.

The Intelligent Transportation Society of America has recognized GridMatrix’s software as a leading new solution for sustainable and resilient infrastructure.

GridMatrix is headquartered in San Francisco and was co-founded in 2021 by a group of former Apple engineering and operations colleagues.  The company’s recent work has been featured in Bloomberg, the Associated Press, and Government Technology.

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SOURCE GridMatrix