INRIX and MetroLab are pleased to announce the finalists for the 2026 INRIX x MetroLab Challenge, a collaborative research initiative that empowers universities to tackle pressing transportation and urban mobility challenges using real-world mobility data.
Now entering its third year, the INRIX x MetroLab Challenge brings together researchers, local governments, and transportation practitioners to develop innovative, data-driven solutions that improve how people and goods move through cities. The selected research teams will receive complimentary access to a comprehensive suite of INRIX transportation datasets, including Trip Origins and Destinations, Trip Paths, Historic Speeds, Real-Time Traffic, Incidents, Dangerous Slow-Downs, Volumes, Speed Distribution Profiles, Drivetime Polygons, and Off-Street Parking, along with technical guidance from INRIX experts throughout the research process. Together, these datasets enable researchers to analyze travel behavior, roadway performance, parking demand, congestion, safety, accessibility, and resilience at unprecedented scale.
“What excites me most about this year’s cohort is its breadth — from generative AI and digital twins to hurricane resilience and safer aging. Each of these thirteen teams is turning cutting-edge research into practical insight for the places people live and move. That’s the heart of MetroLab’s mission at FAS: connecting university expertise with the communities that can put it to work. We are very grateful INRIX has partnered with us once again to help make this happen.” – Kate Burns, Director of State and Local Innovation at FAS
This year’s INRIX x MetroLab Challenge attracted proposals from universities across the country addressing topics ranging from generative AI and digital twins to climate resilience, parking management, public transit optimization, environmental health, and equitable mobility. Following a competitive review process by INRIX, MetroLab, and an external transportation and mobility expert, thirteen university teams have been selected.
2026 INRIX x MetroLab Challenge Finalists and Projects
- University of Alabama: Explore how generative AI can model statewide travel behavior and simulate traffic impacts from major events.
- Columbia University: Build a landside mobility digital twin for Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG) to improve passenger movement, cargo operations, and disruption management.
- Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP): Quantify the true scale, timing, and social costs of cruising-for-parking to inform performance-based parking strategies.
- Florida A&M University: Analyze how hurricane-fueled wildfire risks disrupt and recover across Florida’s transportation networks.
- Florida Atlantic University: Compare older-driver travel patterns with broader mobility data to support safer, healthier aging and traffic management.
- Fresno Transportation Institute: Apply AI and GenAI to redesign public transit systems around observed travel demand and mobility patterns.
- George Washington University: Model citywide cruising-for-parking behavior and driver decision-making to evaluate curbside pricing and parking interventions.
- North Carolina A&T State University: Advance event parking strategies and evaluate infrastructure impacts for small and midsize cities using integrated mobility data.
- University of California, Irvine: Measure how drivers search for fuel and examine how physical search frictions shape consumer welfare and equitable access.
- University of Minnesota Twin Cities: Use GeoAI to reveal how snowfall reshapes street-level travel demand, accessibility, and local mobility throughout the Twin Cities.
- University of Oklahoma: Combine traffic volumes and mobility patterns to improve high-resolution air pollution and population exposure modeling.
Building on the Momentum of the 2025 Challenge
The 2026 finalists build on the success of the 2025 INRIX x MetroLab Challenge, where research teams demonstrated how mobility analytics can help communities prepare for disasters, improve roadway safety, validate transportation technologies, and support data-driven policymaking.
Highlights from the 2025 Challenge included:
- Mobility as a Hazard Signal: Lessons from Tornado-Prone Alabama
- From Smart Streets to Smarter Cities: Validating and Scaling Traffic Volume Estimation in NYC
- Detecting Vehicle Abandonment During Wildfire Evacuations
- Turning Data into Action: Advancing Freight and Vulnerable Road User Safety Through the 2025 INRIX x MetroLab Challenge
- From the Classroom to TRB 2026: Presenting at the INRIX x MetroLab Challenge Poster Session
These projects showcased how partnerships between academia, industry, and local governments can transform mobility data into actionable insights with real-world impact.
Looking Ahead
Over the coming year, each research team will work closely with INRIX and MetroLab as they develop and validate their research using INRIX mobility data. Their findings will be shared with the broader transportation community through presentations at leading conferences including the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting in January 2027.The resulting research will provide practical insights to help cities and transportation agencies make more informed, data-driven decisions.
About the Federation of American Scientists
The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) works to advance progress on a broad suite of contemporary issues where science, technology, and innovation policy can deliver transformative impact, and seeks to ensure that scientific and technical expertise have a seat at the policymaking table. Established in 1945 by scientists in response to the atomic bomb, FAS continues to bring scientific rigor and analysis to address national challenges. More information about FAS’s work at fas.org.
The State and Local Innovation (formerly MetroLab) team within FAS aims to take good ideas from the lab to local governments through intentional, regular and impact-driven policy alignment. This mission is twofold: to put science in cities and to understand, support, and enable transformative partnerships between cities and universities. More information about the State and Local Innovation team’s work at https://fas.org/issue/metrolab/.
About INRIX
Founded in 2004, INRIX pioneered intelligent mobility solutions by transforming big data from connected devices and vehicles into mobility insights. INRIX has harnessed machine learning and artificial intelligence to deliver precise and actionable mobility data. This revolutionary approach enabled INRIX to become one of the leading providers of data and analytics in people and vehicle movement. With partners and solutions spanning across the mobility ecosystem, INRIX is uniquely positioned at the intersection of technology and transportation. Learn more at inrix.com.