A.I. is solving traffic problems to get you where you're going safely

Except, possibly, professionals like her who are tasked with reducing it. Ricks has made her career out of caring about traffic patterns. Before her current role as the associate administrator for research, innovation, and demonstration at the FTA, she was the director of mobility and infrastructure for the City of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. She has spent countless hours thinking about cars, public transit, roads, and pedestrians--and how to make it all flow more smoothly. "When you're in the peak times for travel, when the system is so full, it only takes a small disruption to cause really big problems," Ricks says.