Please join us on Wednesday, April 16, 2025 for the Pierce Seminar at 4 PM in Room 1-131 with Prof. Yinhai Wang. 

Abstract Title: Transforming the Future of Transportation Safety and Mobility with Customized AI and Edge Computing

Abstract: 

We are facing severe challenges in both transportation safety and mobility despite decades of conventional solutions and substantial investments. There is a pressing demand for more effective and deployment-ready solutions, leveraging emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). In response to this need, the University of Washington’s Smart Transportation Applications and Research Laboratory (STAR Lab) has dedicated itself to developing customized AI methods and edge computing tools to best serve the transportation needs. The award-winning Mobile Unit for Sensing Traffic (MUST) system, along with its machine learning-powered traffic sensing algorithms, exemplifies these efforts. In this presentation, the speaker will share his thoughts on the transformative potential of using customized AI and edge computing in enhancing transportation safety and mobility. Strategies for customizing edge systems to transportation tasks, including resource allocation, scenario-based customization, and the implementation of lightweight models, etc., and challenges associated with the development and implementation process will also be discussed.

Bio:

Dr. Yinhai Wang is a professor in transportation engineering at Civil and Environmental Engineering and adjunct professor at Electrical and Computer Engineering of the University of Washington (UW). He has served as director for Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium (PacTrans), USDOT University Transportation Center for Federal Region 10, since 2012 and for Northwestern Tribal Technical Assistance Program Center since 2022, and Washington State Transportation Center (TRAC) since 2023. Dr. Wang was an elected governor for the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society (ITSS) from 2011 through 2013 and served as the 2018-2019 president of the Transportation & Development Institute (T&DI) for American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). He is currently chair for the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Advanced Computing Applications Committee of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), vice president for Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC), chair for the ASCE Center on Technical Advancement, co-editor-in-chief for the AI for Transportation Journal, and the Connected and Automated Transportation Special Section Editor for ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering Part A: Systems. His active research fields include traffic sensing, transportation safety, transportation data science, edge computing, traffic operations and simulation, smart urban mobility, and AI methods and applications. He is a professional engineer registered in Washington, a member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences, a Distinguished Member of ASCE, and a fellow of both IEEE and ITE. He has been recognized by numerous awards, such as the 2023 ASCE Francis C. Turner award and the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Innovation in Education Award for 2018.