AI & Mobility Lab

Transport organisations, distribution companies, and public organisations face major challenges where AI research can contribute. Public transportation, road traffic, and logistics needs to ensure safety, sustainability, robustness, efficiency, accessibility, affordability , etc., while demand is ever increasing. The Utrecht AI & Mobility Lab collaborates with a variety of organisations on the development of innovative AI techniques to help resolve the challenges facing mobility and public transport.

Mobility patterns are changing rapidly. Cities are becoming busier and alternatives to privately-owned, petrol or diesel-powered vehicles are becoming increasingly important thanks to increased investment in sustainability. In the future, travellers will increasingly use combinations of multiple modes of (public) transport. Public transport increasingly runs on electricity, which brings new challenging related to scheduling. Railway transportation for both passengers and goods is expected to grow, which calls for more efficient use of the infrastructure, especially in densely populated areas.

Artificial Intelligence will make an important contribution to these developments. There are major challenges related to the management and control of vehicles and passenger flows, planning infrastructure, and the development of new tools and platforms for linking supply and demand such as MaaS (Mobility as a Service). In the lab, we are specialized in on data-driven techniques, operations research, algorithms, learning, human-centred AI and data-driven agent-based simulation. We favor a multi-displinary approach and believe that coorperation between AI systems and humans is crucial. The aim is to create major societal impact using a combination of these techniques.