Revolutionizing Transport: How AI Can Drive Safety, Efficiency, and Environmental Benefits

Team Thoughts

Growing urban populations, underdeveloped infrastructure, and rising incomes in certain regions are driving more traffic, increased freight demand, and higher pollution levels. Artificial intelligence (AI) offers promising solutions to these challenges by supporting market access, helping countries reach underserved communities, and creating new avenues for market development and private investment.

AI technology is increasingly transforming our interaction with the world around us, finding critical applications across various industries. Its capabilities present a powerful toolkit for addressing complex, everyday issues, and this is particularly evident in the transportation sector, where AI is reshaping how people and goods move.

Through innovations like real-time traffic analysis to prevent accidents and route optimization to reduce emissions, AI holds potential to make transportation systems safer, more efficient, reliable, and environmentally friendly. Examples from both established and emerging economies highlight AI’s value in supporting economic growth. Yet, careful consideration of the accompanying challenges is essential for sustainable implementation.

While autonomous vehicles (AVs) tend to dominate discussions about AI in transportation, the applications of AI in this sector extend far beyond self-driving technology. AI is already at work addressing critical challenges in transportation on a large scale, including enhancing safety, improving reliability and predictability, and advancing sustainability and efficiency.

Boosting Efficiency: Developing countries often face logistical hurdles that impact their standing on the Logistics Performance Index. Limited infrastructure and inefficient customs procedures contribute to logistics costs that can account for 15% to 25% of GDP, compared to the 6% to 8% typical in more developed economies. AI-driven solutions help tackle these inefficiencies by optimizing movement across the supply chain. E-logistics, for example, leverages AI and internet-based technologies to streamline the demand and supply chain, such as by connecting shippers with delivery providers to reduce logistical bottlenecks.

Enhancing Reliability: Reliable transportation hinges on maintaining performance consistency and providing accurate arrival and departure estimates. In public transit, timely information on journey duration boosts both ridership and user satisfaction. However, reliability can be impacted by unstable infrastructure and heavy traffic. Companies like Uber and Lyft harness AI to ensure precise pickup and drop-off times, which has potential applications to enhance public transit reliability worldwide.

Advancing Road Safety: Road safety remains a major concern for both motorists and pedestrians. Poor infrastructure, vehicles lacking modern safety features, and human error contribute to high accident rates. Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are expected to play a pivotal role in improving road safety, with some studies predicting that AVs could reduce road fatalities by up to 90% in certain high-income countries by 2050. For example, when Tesla activated its first AV system, crash rates dropped by 40%. While AV adoption may take time in developing countries, optimistic projections suggest that by 2030, one in four cars globally could be autonomous, with 10 million AVs expected on roads by 2025.

Sustainability in Focus: The transportation sector contributes 23% of worldwide CO2 emissions linked to energy. Without effective interventions, these emissions could triple by 2050. AI-driven route optimization aims to decrease fuel consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by reducing unnecessary travel on roads and at sea. An eco-friendly AI innovation, truck platooning, enables trucks to wirelessly connect to a lead vehicle, allowing them to travel safely in close succession, boosting efficiency and reducing emissions.

AI has the capacity to significantly increase productivity across various sectors, and in transportation, these enhancements are already underway. By helping to create safer, more reliable, efficient, and eco-friendly systems, AI holds vast potential. Yet, alongside the promise for improved sustainability and efficiency, various economic, social, and political challenges must be tackled to fully harness AI’s transformative power for inclusive economic growth and widespread benefits.

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About author: Maria Krüger, Head of partners engagement, Linvelo?

[email protected]