On November 15, 2023, T&DI hosted the 2023 Francis C. Turner Lecture, Revolutionizing Road Transportation with Artificial Intelligence-Empowered Technologies, by 2023 Francis C. Turner Award recipient, Dr. Yinhai Wang, Ph.D., P.E., Dist.M.ASCE, of the University of Washington. Dr. Wang gave a powerhouse presentation that initiated a lively Q&A session, which is included in the replay after the lecture.
Revolutionizing Road Transportation with Artificial Intelligence-Empowered Technologies explores the pivotal role of AI in optimizing road transportation systems, enhancing safety, mitigating traffic congestion, and reducing environmental impact, and includes real-world examples of how AI-empowered technologies are being leveraged to collect traffic data, forecast traffic information, optimize traffic system operations, and facilitate intelligent transportation systems. Dr. Wang also discusses opportunities for AI research and applications and potential challenges with AI, such as concerns related to privacy, security, and equity.
Dr. Yinhai Wang is a transportation engineering professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering and an adjunct professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Washington (UW). Since 2012, he has served as director of the Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium (PacTrans), a USDOT University Transportation Center for Federal Region 10, and as director of the Northwestern Tribal Technical Assistance Program (NWTTAP) Center since 2022. He is currently chair of the AI and Advanced Computing Applications Committee at the Transportation Research Board (TRB), secretary of the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC), vice-chair of the Committee on Technical Advancement at the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and the Connected and Automated Transportation Special Section Editor for ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering Part A: Systems.
Dr. Wang served as president (2018-2019) of the ASCE Transportation & Development Institute (T&DI) and is the founding co-chair of the ASCE Connected and Automated Vehicle (CAV) Impacts Committee (2017-2022). His active research fields include traffic sensing, AI methods and applications, transportation data science, edge computing, transportation safety, traffic operations and simulation, and smart urban mobility. He has published nearly 300 peer-reviewed journal articles with over 18,200 citations on Google Scholar and has delivered more than 210 invited talks and over 350 other academic presentations.
He received the 2023 ASCE Francis C. Turner Award and the 2018 Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Innovation in Education Award. He has also received numerous recognitions and awards for his research papers, such as the 2022 Outstanding Paper Award from the IEEE International Conference on Digital Twins and Parallel Intelligence, the IEEE International Smart Cities Conference’s Best Paper Award for 2020, and the ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering Best Paper Award for 2003.
Dr. Wang is a professional engineer registered in Washington, a member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences, a Distinguished Member of ASCE, and a fellow of both IEEE and ITE.