Renee Autumn Ray: Using AI to improve public transit
In the first of our monthly Transit Voices podcasts in 2023, Masabi co-founder Ben Whitaker talks to Renee Autumn Ray, Senior Director of Global Strategy at Hayden AI, a leader in smart enforcement technologies.
In this episode, you’ll hear Renee and Ben talk about effective uses of artificial intelligence and image processing to improve public transit, including how enforcing BRT lanes using AI processing of images from camera systems on some buses led to a 14% improvement in on-time performance and what effect that has on transit operators.
“When you think about things like needing to pay overtime for an operator who gets delayed on a route, potentially being able to reduce by one or two the buses that you would need, because they're not getting clogged and bunching together on the route, you can really come up with operational cost savings,” Renee explains. “[That’s] in addition to providing a better customer experience for riders by having them not be delayed in the way that sometimes can happen when the bus is stuck in traffic and unable to move because they're being blocked by an illegally-parked car.”
Renee tells Ben of some of her favorite techniques used to improve transit, while the pair also discuss how reducing fares or making transit free is not the silver bullet that some policymakers may think. “I think for the most part, focusing on increasing the frequency of the routes, the number of the routes and improving the way that the routes operate is gonna resonate a lot more and bring more riders than just making something free,” she says.
There’s also a plea to those who work in transit to use the transit system they administer.
“I have never run across someone who works full time in bike planning or operations that doesn't also ride a bike, enjoy riding a bike, want to advocate for it in their personal life,” she says, before going on to say she thought the same would happen when she started working in transit, thinking, “everyone I meet is going to be like a big nerd who rides the bus and I'm going to find my people… and the shock of the number of people in the industry, including transit agencies, who don't regularly or sometimes even occasionally ride the service, I think is a reason that the service performs poorly.”
You’ll also find out why Renee’s boondoggle is sidewalk robots, while her industry underdog is mobility hubs.
Have a listen to this 30-minute discussion to understand how building transit into neighborhood activity and life activity is going to make it easier for people to live life, car-free or at least car-optional.
