Across the U.S., the performance and safety of our urban infrastructure are not where they should be.
We see it every day: rising travel times, unpredictable operations, preventable collisions, and costs that continue to climb. Our cities deserve better.
Allow me to share a paradigm that may help reset how you think about what’s possible with technology and what the next evolutionary step can unlock.
Globally, infrastructure is evolving to meet new expectations: not just moving cars, but connecting people, modes, and opportunities. Cities are adapting to tighter budgets, faster delivery cycles, higher safety standards, climate resilience, digital transformation, and the pressure to compete for residents, employers, and investment.
Everywhere else, infrastructure is becoming dynamic, data-driven, and policy-led, yet in the U.S., most systems still operate like disconnected islands.
The analogy is simple and familiar to anyone who’s watched the Internet evolve:
When the Internet first began, every computer worked on its own. Then we connected them, first locally, then globally. At first, the system was fragile; one failure could slow everything down. But over time, we learned to reroute traffic, balance the load, and keep everything moving even when demand spiked.
Today, the Internet runs automatically — monitored, adjusted, and optimized in real time. It enables companies like Amazon and Netflix to bring unparalleled services at scale, absorbing large events like Black Friday or the release of the next Blockbuster. Nothing is 100% in real life, but we’re getting very close.
Transportation is following that same path:
- Manual control → officers and fixed timers responding by sight (like early computers disconnected from a network)
- Coordinated signals → corridors synchronized for smoother flow (like the first local networks)
- Adaptive systems → sensors reacting to traffic (like the Internet’s early ability to route packets)
→ This is where most U.S. cities are today
- Policy-driven optimization → allocating green time by city goals (like prioritizing bandwidth for specific services)
- Controlled Operational Model → centralized, data-driven command of the entire network (like today’s cloud platforms managing global traffic in real time)
Our assessment of transit operations shows something critical: 30–52% of all bus operating hours are spent waiting at red lights.
That is a massive, quantifiable opportunity for improvement, but one that cannot be unlocked by coordinated or adaptive systems alone.
That would be like expecting the early, dial-up Internet to support Amazon. It needed the cloud to scale and so do our cities.
The next phases — Policy and Control — moves transportation from connected infrastructure to an intelligent system. It’s the shift from reacting locally to orchestrating outcomes in real time.
Last week, results from Marysville and Dublin (OH) showed some of the results when a system implements city policies directly in real time: reduced delay, smoother operation, and improved safety.
In Waco (TX), the next phase is underway, proving the direct link between technology and measurable benefits: travel time, emissions, and operational efficiency, all quantified in a single operational model.
The hard data show that a Controlled (rather than prioritized) transit focus not only increases service levels, but it will removes material operational costs.
This opens the door for agencies to:
- Make performance measurable — express how much delay signals cause, and the opportunity to shorten trip duration and remove recurring expenses.
- Invest once — optimize one corridor or route.
- Re-invest the savings — scale optimization to every other route, creating a self-sustaining improvement program.
That’s the transit equivalent of Amazon starting to sell books — one use case that proved the model, then scaled into everything else.
- Leverage central control to layer on new use cases — like those already proven in Waco, Marysville, and Dublin, and many more to come.
That’s the transit equivalent of Amazon starting to sell books — one proof point that built the platform for everything else.
But remember, this is now like enabling Amazon to not only sell books, but to deliver almost anything you want to see materialize on your doorstep the next day.
Next week, I’ll share how Transit can be optimized to serve your city better while lowering operational expenses: The “sell books” stage. From there, we’ll show how this one implementation becomes the foundation to enable your specific use cases in software without needing to re-implement and financed entirely within existing budgets.
Too good to be true?
Stay tuned.