Research and consulting for intelligent transportation systems

ITS Group

AI-enabled sensing, edge computing, and transportation analytics for safer streets, resilient infrastructure, and practical smart city deployments.

Explore Projects Meet the Team
Smart City Traffic multimodal analytics, micromobility, and traffic intelligence
Edge AI real-time field processing, detection, and reporting
All Weather thermal and low-light sensing with solar-backed uptime

What we build

Practical smart city systems from data collection to decision support.

ITS Group develops field-ready transportation sensing systems, AI models, and analytics workflows for agencies, researchers, and industry partners.

AI at the Edge

On-site video processing, low-power inference, and privacy-aware detection that reduce bandwidth and speed up reporting.

Safety Analytics

Crash model calibration, risk mapping, work zone studies, stop sign violation analysis, and targeted countermeasure support.

Multimodal Counts

Trip generation, turning movement counts, pedestrian, bicycle, vehicle, and micromobility monitoring at scalable field sites.

Resilient Deployments

Solar-powered, battery-backed, weatherproof systems designed for harsh winters, hot summers, darkness, and remote corridors.

Featured projects

From railroad safety to statewide transportation intelligence.

Project work blends sensors, machine learning, transportation engineering, and agency-ready reporting so that pilots can become useful operational tools.

AI + edge computing + rail safety

A Railroad Trespassing Detection and Dynamic Warning System Based on Artificial Intelligence and Edge Computing

This system uses thermal cameras, machine learning, and local edge processing to detect trespassing events and trigger dynamic warnings without relying on continuous network connectivity. It is designed as an affordable, stand-alone field platform for MassDOT rail safety applications.

  • Off-grid solar power with battery backup for high uptime.
  • Thermal video for daytime, nighttime, low-light, winter, and summer operation.
  • Fast event reporting, local data storage, and periodic incident summaries.
  • Built for harsh field conditions including blizzards and temperatures above 120 F.
RGB and thermal transportation safety detection showing pedestrians in daytime and nighttime views
Thermal and RGB sensing support privacy-aware safety monitoring in difficult lighting conditions.
Massachusetts safety models + AI vision + multimodal demand

Advanced Technologies and Data Analytics for Safe, Smart, and Efficient Transportation (ASSET)

ASSET advances locally validated transportation safety and planning tools for Massachusetts. The work recalibrates Safety Performance Functions, automates sidewalk detection from high-resolution aerial imagery, and develops AI-driven multimodal trip counting for land use planning.

  • Massachusetts-specific crash and roadway data for arterial intersection safety models.
  • AI methods for sidewalk and pedestrian infrastructure mapping.
  • All-weather camera deployments designed for continuous 15-day field studies.
  • Scalable estimates of walking, cycling, vehicles, and micromobility activity.
Transportation analytics charts for multimodal trip generation and turning movement count studies
Analytics outputs translate field observations into planning, safety, and operational evidence.
Vehicle trajectory visualization for turning movement count and intersection analysis

Turning Movement and Trajectory Analytics

Trajectory visualization, turning counts, queue behavior, and intersection movement profiles for safety and operations studies.

Portable LiDAR sensing system for smart city transportation data collection

Portable LiDAR and Field Sensing

Portable and mobile sensing platforms for infrastructure, behavior, and multimodal movement measurement.

ITS Group research presentation on advanced transportation safety and sensing technologies

Driver Behavior and Work Zone Safety

Drone video analysis, nighttime work zone safety studies, stop sign violations, and evidence for targeted interventions.

Field systems

Designed for real streets, changing weather, and repeatable studies.

Deployments combine practical hardware with AI workflows that can operate under privacy, power, and communications constraints.

ITS Group installing an all-weather camera for pedestrian safety and turning movement count research
All-weather camera installation for pedestrian safety and movement counting.
Installing a low-power low-light camera for transportation AI data collection
Low-power camera deployment for continuous field studies.
Bike-mounted LiDAR system for mobile transportation sensing and smart city mapping
Bike-mounted LiDAR for mobile corridor sensing.
ITS Group UMass Lowell field team during all-weather smart transportation camera deployment
Team deployment with field-ready sensing hardware.
Zubin Bhuyan, PhD during winter all-weather camera deployment for ITS Group transportation research
Zubin Bhuyan, during winter deployment work.

People

Transportation researchers building deployable smart city tools.

The group brings together expertise in civil engineering, AI, computer vision, multimodal transportation, field sensing, and data analytics.

ITS Group smart city transportation research team field photo
Field work, research translation, and agency collaboration are central to the group.

Yuanchang Xie, PhD

Transportation safety, intelligent transportation systems, smart infrastructure, and applied research leadership.

Prof. Yuanchang Xie with ITS Group collaborators and transportation research partners

Zubin Bhuyan, PhD

AI and edge computing, field sensing systems, multimodal analytics, and transportation data products.

Xintong Yan, PhD

AI methods for transportation safety, sidewalk detection, imagery analysis, and infrastructure mapping.

Guanhe (Henry) Wu

Transportation engineering research, multimodal field studies, and LLM/VLM methods for traffic safety, operations, and smart mobility analytics.

News and recent activity

Research moving from the lab into public agency practice.

Research partnerships and consulting

Bring deployable intelligence to transportation safety and smart city projects.

ITS Group can support pilot deployments, field data collection, model development, transportation analytics, and decision-support products for agencies and industry partners.

Dr. Y. Xie