Potatoes and Transportation – A Recipe for Success

Earlier this month I was able to attend the National Travel Monitoring Exhibition and Conference (NaTMEC) in Boise Idaho. The event was hosted by the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) and the Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium (PacTrans). This was the first time in six years that this group has been able to gather in person and the energy from the event was palpable.

As I continue to immerse myself in the transportation industry, I was struck by a few things I learned from my time with this group.

1. Artificial Intelligence is here. It’s not in development. It’s not on the horizon. It has arrived. That statement wasn’t true 6 years ago when this group last got together in person, but there is no debating it now. Nearly every session on the agenda contained some element of AI. The first day opened with a Video AI Workshop, there was an entire track dedicated to Artificial Intelligence, Performance Measures and Operations in Travel Monitoring, and even presentations outside the dedicated track were talking about how AI is now in use in various ways. The conversation was no longer about whether AI will be useful for travel monitoring, but rather how it has been deployed, the results seen, and how each attendee can and should be using AI. It was the talk of the conference.

2. More data is coming. Collecting more data from the transportation system is the next evolution in travel monitoring. There were discussions about how AI might be used to collect data on micromobility and multimodal travel. We also had discussion on how we leverage AI to pull more types of data, like air quality and vehicle tonnage, from more areas of our roadways without investing in additional expensive sensors. Overall, more data is better, and the tools are evolving quickly to meet that need.

3. Data is king. Traffic monitoring professionals are passionate about their data. I knew this going into the conference but spending 4 days engaging and observing this group of dedicated professionals only cemented how dedicated they are to their work. The group spent many hours discussing how it’s collected, how accurate it is, how best to analyze it, and overall sharing best practices. It was inspiring to see both as a professional in this industry and as a citizen traveling our roadways.

Lastly, I learned that Boise is a fun and eclectic city. And Idaho really does love their potatoes! I am looking forward to the next NaTMEC conference in Nashville in 2026 and continuing to learn from this passionate and energetic group.