Trusted AI for Safer, Smarter Transportation

The U.S. DOT Volpe Center designs, tests, and scales artificial intelligence (AI) solutions that improve safety, efficiency, and decision making across the nation’s transportation system.

For more than a decade, Volpe has played a lead role in accelerating the federal use of AI at U.S. DOT, delivering multidisciplinary AI and machine learning tools and operational systems that address complex transportation challenges.

Our AI solutions adhere to current federal guidance, including OMB Memo M-25-21, “Accelerating Federal Use of AI through Innovation, Governance, and Public Trust;” Executive Order 14179, “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in AI;” and Executive Order 13960, “Promoting the Use of Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence in the Federal Government”—ensuring every solution is built on a foundation of innovation, governance, and public trust.

Our Approach 

• Rapidly prototype and transition AI tools into operations to improve safety, mobility, and efficiency
• Build end to end solutions: data pipelines, model selection and tuning, secure cloud deployment, and ongoing operations and risk management 
• Apply human centered testing to reveal safety impacts and unintended consequences before deployment 

Our Capabilities 

• AI Research and Engineering: Experience building MVP AI stacks and production ready models for real transportation problems 
• Scalable Platform Engineering: Cloud native infrastructure (Kubernetes, Helm, FedRAMP aligned environments) that supports rapid development, secure testing, and scale from pilot to production 
• Cost and Operations Control: Real time cost tracking and modular, elastic architectures designed for cost efficiency and rapid iteration 

Infrastructure and Environment

• Multi-cloud Foundation: We utilize a hybrid approach leveraging both Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provide a reliable and flexible infrastructure for AI development. This includes a fully managed cloud environment to build and test tools without needing to manually configure local software or hardware.
• Production-ready AI Tooling: R We maintain a mature AI application stack and cloud infrastructure to turn AI theory into practical solutions, including:
  • Versatile AI Models: Access to diverse models (such as Amazon Nova, Claude, and Titan) to power everything from natural language processing to complex data analysis.
  • Automated Assistants (Agents): Tools like Amazon Quick Suite and Strands Agents that create autonomous agents to streamline workflows, automate reporting, and analyze multimodal transportation data.
  • Secure Knowledge Bases: Implementation of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to build secure repositories that allow AI to generate insights based strictly on verified U.S. DOT documentation.
  • Smart Automation and Security: Specialized tools such as the Kiro Autonomous Agent and AWS Security Agent to automate coding tasks and monitor for digital threats.     

Why Partner with Us

• Domain Expertise + AI Experience: We combine transportation subject matter experts, systems engineers, and AI specialists to create solutions that fit the broader transportation ecosystem. 
• Secure, Scalable Operations: From FedRAMP aligned clouds to cost tracking and governance workflows, we embed security and accountability into every effort.
• Real-world Readiness: Our Human Factors Labs, virtual reality testing, and operational prototypes reduce deployment risk and improve human system performance before fielding. 

Get Started

Contact us to discuss pilots, architecture reviews, or full project engagements.