MetroLab Network has partnered with Government Technology to bring its readers a segment called the MetroLab Innovation of the Month Series, which highlights impactful tech, data and innovation projects underway between cities and universities. If you'd like to learn more or contact the project leads, please contact MetroLab at info@metrolabnetwork.org for more information. In this month's installment of the Innovation of the Month series, we explore the work of Georgia Tech and the city of Atlanta on the Socially Aware Mobility Lab (SAM). MetroLab's Ben Levine spoke with Pascal Van Hentenryck, an A. Russell Chandler III chair and professor in the Georgia Tech Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and head of the SAM Lab; Jacob Tzegaegbe, senior transportation policy advisor for Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and part of the SAM advisory board; and Debra Lam, managing director of smart cities and inclusive innovation at Georgia Tech. Ben Levine: Can you please describe the origin and objective of the Socially Aware Mobility Lab, and who has been involved in the project?

Earlier this year six Amazon Scout delivery robots rolled out in a pilot program in Snohomish County, Wash. The boxy bots, which resemble six-wheeled ice chests, carry meals, groceries and packages to homes and offices in this region just north of Seattle. They join a small-but-growing number of automated couriers trundling down the sidewalks of London, Beijing and other cities and communities worldwide. These machines must run a gauntlet of pedestrian legs, nosy dogs and cracked pavement. Which raises the question: Why are companies investing in delivery bots at all?

Traffic wastes time and money almost everywhere on the planet, so congestion is the bogeyman many transportation planners hope to defeat. Attendees at the most-recent Transportation Techies Meetup – held at Mobility Lab in Arlington, Va., and focused on traffic solutions – got a taste of several early-stage tech/planning options. "Data and technology are becoming more and more crucial in planning for safer streets. This becomes even more important as autonomous vehicles begin to come online," said Paul Mackie, Mobility Lab's communications director. How are DOTs handling data for projects like AVs and Vision Zero?

Traffic experts met last week at Spaces NoMA for the fourth Playing with Traffic event of Transportation Techies. A handful presented their latest work in a rapid-fire show-and-tell of the wide array of open-source mapping and imaging that can now inform how streets are planned for both current users and future technology. Mapillary's Janine Yoong explained how combining computer vision – using digital images to train computers to understand objects – with human collaboration can inform the development of autonomous vehicles. Yoong and her team hope to use street-view images from across the internet to help driverless cars better categorize items that they "see" while also creating fresher, more accurate, and complete maps that can help computers understand their location. With this, Mapillary pulls images of streetscapes from around the world, including remote arctic research bases, that can train AV programs by processing as many objects and situations as possible.