MIT Mobility Initiative Thinks Forward

Few sectors of the global economy are changing as rapidly and dramatically as the mobility sector, and even fewer have mobility’s broad potential to shape the way we live. New technologies are upending long-static industries such as automobile manufacturing and highway construction, and altering the way we plan our cities and homes. The climate crisis is compelling the mobility and transportation industries to innovate in ways that are not only new but also clean and sustainable.

“It’s an incredibly turbulent but interesting time,” says Jinhua Zhao MCP ’04, SM ’04, PhD ’09, associate professor of transportation and city planning and founder and director of the MIT Mobility Initiative (MMI). “The transportation world is booming but in flux: the industry is being reshuffled, communities and cities are often confused and anxious about their mobility future, and the ecosystem pressure is daunting. While the major players like car manufacturers scramble to adapt, new players like autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence (AI) stake their claim. MIT wants to play a leadership role in shaping this new reality.”

Launched in 2020, the MMI provides continuity, context, and an ongoing forum for MIT researchers and key stakeholders in the mobility ecosystem, both inside and outside MIT. The Institute-spanning initiative includes 75 MIT faculty researchers from 12 departments and laboratories. Zhao has hosted a series of 62 virtual MMI Mobility Forums, showcasing the groundbreaking transportation research across the Institute and reaching over 10,000 participants and viewers from across the globe. Leaders from Hyundai Motor Group, Ferrovial, Ford, Liberty Mutual, Microsoft, US DOT, Chicago Transit Authority, and Transport for London presented during MMI’s annual Mobility Vision Day in November 2022.

“Transportation is a complex system with multiple actors in the public, private, and academic spheres,” says John Moavenzadeh, executive director of the MMI and former lead of the mobility platform at the World Economic Forum, who also developed and co-teaches the graduate-level Mobility Ventures course. “The future of mobility isn’t being charted solely in a research university. It’s being charted in a dynamic ecosystem of big technology players, startups, entrepreneurs, academics, and civic leaders. If we want to have a global mobility system that is safe, clean, and inclusive, we need to ground that system, to connect it across disciplines and institutions and people on the front lines. This is the type of thing that MIT can do very well.”

An Opportunity to Lead

Jinhua Zhao came to MIT in 2013 with a joint appointment in the departments of urban studies and planning and civil and environmental engineering. In 2018, he met with a small group of MIT leaders: Provost Cynthia Barnhart SM ’86, PhD ’88; School of Engineering dean Anantha Chandraksan; School of Architecture and Planning dean Hashim Sarkis; professor of engineering Sanjay Sarma (then the vice president of open learning); and Professor Emeritus Daniel Roos to discuss an idea for an Institute-wide project. “I observed that MIT had a long and proud history in transport scholarship,” says Zhao. “Transportation is not one single discipline but it requires and unifies all sorts of expertise. And all those disciplines need to speak with each other.”

By Zhao’s design, the MMI is perched on three pillars: technology, data, and values. The first pillar supports research in subjects including energy, vehicle design and development, and aeronautics. The second encompasses projects ranging from demand modeling to AI and big data. “The third pillar, values, is where we ask what transportation is for,” says Zhao, who also directs the JTL Urban Mobility Lab at MIT. “What purpose do our sophisticated technologies and intelligence serve? Do they alter our behaviors? Can we create a mobility ecosystem that furthers public health and creates greater equity and access? Transportation is currently the biggest contributor of CO₂ in the United States. Can we quickly decarbonize transportation while providing everyone the access to opportunities?”

Digging Deep

In March 2022, the MMI put out its first call for research proposals. “I applied with a proposal about safety and performance in autonomous vehicles,” says Cathy Wu ’12, MEng ’13, assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering. “There is a perception that the public expects autonomous vehicles to be significantly safer than human-piloted vehicles. We wanted to explore whether that should be the bar. To ask how safe is safe enough.”

To answer that question, Wu first had to ascertain how safe human drivers are. To her surprise, she discovered there weren’t sufficient data to make that calculation. Performing even a rudimentary analysis would require simulating billions if not trillions of miles of driving, a largely futile operation requiring enormous resources. Instead, Wu is using neural surrogate modeling, a machine-learning technique, to simulate and analyze specific driving and traffic scenarios. “That would establish a baseline,” Wu explains. “Then regulators could debate whether autonomous vehicles should be 5 or 10 or 25 percent safer. And whether that level should change over time.”

Andres Sevtsuk SM ’06, PhD ’10, the Charles and Ann Spaulding Career Development Professor of Urban Science and Planning, is also undertaking research projects with MMI. “We want to know whether we can have built environments that don’t require everyone to drive,” says Sevtsuk, who explores public transport, cycling, and walkability. “With the demographic shifts we’re seeing, away from suburbs and into cities, can we see something other than cars 2.0 emerge? New transport services, personal mobility devices like scooters, and the challenge of charging the growing electric fleet have thrown the field into a whirlwind. The MMI is helping to create clarity and also linking the private sector with city, state, and federal governments.”

Asking the Big Questions

Karl Iagnemma SM ’97, PhD ’01, CEO of the Boston-based company Motional, which develops autonomous vehicle technology for major ride-hail companies including Lyft and Uber Eats, says the MMI offers both an invaluable network and a fresh perspective for its industry partners. “In industry, we are too often tied up in shorter-term technologies and strategies,” says Iagnemma, who recently joined MMI’s Global Advisory Board. “MIT is looking at fundamental questions related to the future of transport and mobility. They ask the ‘what ifs’ that could lead to meaningful strategies across the sector, in business, autonomous transport, urban planning, and policy.”

In addition to providing a holistic platform to view mobility, the MMI is also training personnel to drive the sector toward greater efficiency, sustainability, and change. “The Mobility Initiative provides great value as a place where the brightest minds from private, public, and academic organizations can connect,” says Regina Clewlow PhD ’12, CEO and cofounder of Populus, a data platform that helps private mobility operators and cities deliver safe streets for all forms of transit. “But it will also produce graduates with expertise in transport and mobility to work in those organizations.”

Wu says the MMI is already playing a vital role in shaping transportation—and society. She also believes the initiative can serve as a test bench, a first-generation experiment in facing and resolving a complex global problem. “Transportation, in the end, feels like one of our more tractable systems,” says Wu, who studied electrical engineering and computer science as an MIT undergraduate. “We don’t really understand why people click on a specific social media link, or why they choose to take their medication or not. We do understand how and why people hit the brake pedal. And we have decades of modeling under our belt. If we do this right, we can create the methods and tools that can help resolve far messier global problems.”

This story originally appeared in the spring 2023 issue of Spectrum.

Illustration: Meredith Miotke