Jennie Martin, Secretary General of ITS (UK) – Intelligent Transport Systems, explains how artificial intelligence can support the wider development of the public transport industry and outlines its current and possible applications. Automated transport is, undoubtedly, the most discussed and most hyped artificial intelligence (AI) application in reference to public transport. The true automated vehicle (AV) evangelist predicts a future where mass transit as we know it no longer exists: people may have stopped owning vehicles, but they will travel autonomously in private pods, not following preset routes and not sharing with random strangers. A complete change from bus, tram and rail services as we currently know them. This future scenario is mercifully unlikely to be realised.

For years tech companies such as Amazon, Alphabet and Uber have promised us delivery drones bringing goods to our doorsteps in a matter of minutes. So why are they taking so long to arrive? If our skies are to become as crowded as our streets, airspace rules need updating to prevent accidents, terrorist attacks, and related problems, such as noise pollution. But that's easier said than done. According to a recent study by Nasa, the noise made by road traffic was "systematically judged to be less annoying" than the high-pitched buzzing made by drones.

Driven by the rapid progress in Artificial Intelligence (AI) research, intelligent machines are gaining the ability to learn, improve and make calculated decisions in ways that will enable them to perform tasks previously thought to rely solely on human experience, creativity, and ingenuit y. As a result, we will in the near future see large parts of our lives influenced by AI. AI innovation will also be central to the achievement of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and will help solving humanity's grand challenges by capitalizing on the unprecedented quantities of data now being generated on sentiment behavior, human health, commerce, communications, migration and more. With large parts of our lives being influenced by AI, it is critical that government, industry, academia and civil society work together to evaluate the opportunities presented by AI, ensuring that AI benefits all of humanity. Responding to this critical issue, ITU and the XPRIZE Foundation are organizing AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, 7-9 June, 2017 in partnership with a number of UN sister agencies.

In partnership with... Driven by the rapid progress in Artificial Intelligence (AI) research, intelligent machines are gaining the ability to learn, improve and make calculated decisions in ways that will enable them to perform tasks previously thought to rely solely on human experience, creativity, and ingenuit y. As a result, we will in the near future see large parts of our lives influenced by AI. AI innovation will also be central to the achievement of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and will help solving humanity's grand challenges by capitalizing on the unprecedented quantities of data now being generated on sentiment behavior, human health, commerce, communications, migration and more. With large parts of our lives being influenced by AI, it is critical that government, industry, academia and civil society work together to evaluate the opportunities presented by AI, ensuring that AI benefits all of humanity. Responding to this critical issue, ITU and the XPRIZE Foundation are organizing AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, 7-9 June, 2017 in partnership with a number of UN sister agencies.