NYC Transit Tech Lab Announces 2024 Project Partners

The New York City Transit Tech Lab, a joint initiative of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and the Partnership Fund for New York City, has selected 19 companies to collaborate with regional transit agencies for eight-week proof-of-concept tests of technologies “designed to improve objectives in customer experience, climate resilience and curb management.” In addition to the MTA, the agencies include the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, NJ Transit and New York City DOT. The tech companies will employ AI, LiDAR, and other “smart technologies” to improve transit operations.

The Customer Experience, Resilience, and Curb Activity challenges were announced in January 2024 and solicited 150 applications from around the world. Applicants were asked to demonstrate how their solutions can improve customer experience, build a more adaptive transit system, and maximize the utility of curb areas on New York City streets. 

Customer Experience Challenge

• BusPas (Montreal, Québec) – Provides next-generation wayside signage that delivers real-time, ADA-compliant passenger information. The company also uses AI and Computer Vision to provide decision-making insights (e.g., shelter cleanliness). Partner Agency: NJ Transit.
• CloudMonitoring/REMS Plus LLC (Queens, N.Y.) – Provides real-time tracking, AI-driven insights, and predictive data to improve maintenance of critical equipment. Partner Agency: MTA.
• Convo Communications (Austin, Tex.) – Transforms interactions for deaf sign language users into seamless experiences, ensuring communication autonomy with mobile devices. Partner Agencies: MTA, NJT, PANYNJ.
• GoodMaps (Louisville, Ky.) – Utilizes LiDAR and advanced computer vision to create accurate digital maps, precise indoor positioning, and inclusive turn-by-turn navigation without installation of equipment or hardware. Partner Agencies: NJT, PANYNJ.
• Urban Solar (Beaverton, Ore.) – Provides ultra-low power displays that deliver ADA-compliant real-time information and messaging to transit users at bus stops with <10 second latency content updates and dusk-dawn screen illumination while operating solely on battery power for up to five years between battery replacements. Partner Agencies: NYCDOT, NJT.
• Velocia (Toronto, Ontario) – Enables clients to incentivize, subsidize and reward pre-defined rider behaviors based on a pay-for-performance model once a designated behavior has been achieved and validated. Partner Agencies: MTA, PANYNJ.

Resilience Challenge

• Advanced Rail and Transit Solutions, Inc. (Manahawkin, N.J.) – Provides an IoT (internet of things) telematics device paired with LiDAR that can optimize the EV charging process and provide visibility into passenger flows. Partner Agencies: MTA, PANYNJ. 
• AlphaRoute (Waltham, Mass.) – Provides a web-based optimization tool that augments the performance of legacy paratransit scheduling systems to improve service, maximize efficiency, and generate substantial cost savings. Partner Agency: MTA.
• Cascara Energy (Toronto, Ontario) – Develops an innovative cooling system that extracts heat from NYC subways, providing high-efficiency cooling to the transit system while repurposing the extracted heat to supply low-carbon hot water or steam to nearby buildings, offsetting natural gas usage. Partner Agency: MTA 
• FLX Solutions (Bethlehem, Pa.) – Manufactures the FLX BOT handheld robot that enables maintenance in hard-to-reach locations, reducing costly downtime of key equipment. Partner Agencies: MTA, NJT.
• Intelligent Security Systems (ISS) (Woodbridge, N.J.) – Provides under-train and vehicle surveillance systems for automated visual inspection of all types of railcar and vehicle undercarriages. Partner Agencies: MTA, NJT, PANYNJ. 
• irmos technologies (Zurich, Switzerland) – Provides an AI-powered health tracker for buildings and bridges that minimizes risks and enables predictive maintenance planning. Partner Agency: PANYNJ.
• QEA Tech (Markham, Ontario) – Conducts building envelope audits using AI and drones to quantify energy loss and recommend targeted retrofits that maximize energy efficiency and return on investment. Provides building envelope energy audits using drones, thermography, and proprietary AI software. Partner Agencies: MTA, PANYNJ. 
• Voltpost (New York, N.Y.) – Retrofits lampposts into a modular and upgradable electric vehicle charging platform powered by a mobile app. Partner Agencies: MTA, NJT. 
• Flower Turbines, Inc. (New York and Texas) – Makes small, game-changing wind turbines for many uses, including urban settings, that can add resiliency to power systems and charging stations. Partner Agency: PANYNJ. 

Curb Activity Challenge

• AIWaysion (Seattle, Wash.) – Provides an integrated camera, edge computing board and communication module within one unit to monitor curb parking events. Partner Agency: NYCDOT.
• AppyWay Ltd. (London, United Kingdom) – Utilizes LiDAR imagery and existing curb data to provide a comprehensive digitized curb inventory, enabling municipalities to fully manage curb regulations, parking permissions, and payments, and unlock net zero mobility. Partner Agency: NYCDOT.
• Populus (San Francisco, Calif.) – Provides a digital curb management software enabling municipalities to better understand curb demand, inventory and manage curb regulations, and actively manage new curb use cases with hardware-free smart zones. Populus integrates data from parking meters, sensors, cameras, and mobile pay, along with curb regulation inventories into a robust platform to improve curbside safety and efficiency in cities. Partner Agency: NYCDOT.
• Seyond (Sunnyvale, Calif.) – Provides integrated, privacy-sensitive tracking of vehicles and pedestrians using LiDAR. Partner Agencies: NYCDOT, NJT.

The Transit Tech Lab, co-founded by the MTA and the Partnership Fund for New York City in 2018, notes that it “provides a pathway for growth-stage companies to efficiently solve public transportation [problems]. To date, the Transit Tech Lab has fielded more than 900 applicants, tested 51 new technology solutions, piloted 35 integrated solutions, and deployed 11 at scale. This year’s proof of concept class is the largest in the Transit Tech Lab’s history.”