Apply now for U.S. DOT Intersection Safety Challenge

The U.S. Department of Transportation is seeking applications for its Intersection Safety Challenge to transform intersection safety by incentivizing the innovative application of new and emerging technologies to identify and mitigate unsafe conditions involving vehicles and vulnerable road users at intersections.

Donor Name: U.S. Department of Transportation

State: All States

County: All Counties

Type of Grant: Challenge

Deadline: 09/26/2023

Size of the Grant: $6,000,000

Details:

Improving the safety of pedestrians, bicyclists, and other vulnerable road users is of critical importance to achieving the objectives of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) National Roadway Safety Strategy (NRSS) and DOT’s vision of zero fatalities and serious injuries across their transportation system.

The Challenge complements other Federal efforts to improve intersection safety, with the Challenge specifically focused on the use of technology. Further, the intersection environment itself is well-suited to innovative mitigative approaches leveraging, utilizing, and potentially repurposing existing traffic control and support infrastructure.

Of particular interest in addressing intersection safety is the development of systems that apply emerging capabilities enabled by advanced sensing, communications technologies, and artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). These include machine sensing and perception, data fusion, trajectory and path prediction, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications, and real-time decision-making. Technological advancements in these and other areas offer an opportunity to improve intersection safety at scale in new and effective ways. The Challenge encourages the formation of non-traditional teams combining expertise in emerging technologies with experience in traffic and safety engineering to develop new and potentially transformative intersection safety approaches.

The vision of the Challenge is to transform intersection safety through the development of one or more innovative intersection safety systems that identify, predict, and mitigate unsafe conditions involving vehicles and vulnerable road users in real-time.

The Challenge begins with a two-part prize competition:

Stage 1A: Concept Assessment — Participants submit an ISS Concept Paper. Up to ten (10) well-formed, differentiable concepts scoring highest against a set of uniform judging criteria will receive a Challenge prize and may advance to the next part of the Stage 1 Prize Competition.
Stage 1B: System Assessment and Virtual Testing. Participants develop, train, and improve algorithms for the detection, localization, and classification of vulnerable road users and vehicles using DOT-supplied sensor data collected at a controlled test intersection. Further, participants will use these data and algorithms in real-time to predict future intersection conditions and identify potentially unsafe conditions and events. Entries will be scored using a rubric testing the accuracy of algorithms against observed ground truth conditions. DOT will provide information regarding the perception and prediction competition of Stage 1B after Stage 1A awards are made.

Prizes

Total cash prizes: $6,000,000
Prizes will be structured as follows:
- Stage 1A: Concept Assessment
  - Up to 10 prizes may be awarded in Stage 1A, with a maximum of one prize awarded per participant or team
  - Each Stage 1A prize will have a maximum of $100,000
  - The total value of all Stage 1A prizes will be a maximum of $1,000,000
- Stage 1B: System Assessment and Virtual Testing
  - Multiple prizes may be awarded in Stage 1B, with a maximum of one prize awarded per participant or team
  - Each Stage 1B prize will have a maximum of $1,000,000
  - The total value of all Stage 1B prizes will be a maximum of $5,000,000.

Eligibility Criteria

The Challenge is open to individuals and teams (participants) from the academic, research, and business communities including, but not limited to, universities and other institutions of higher learning, research institutions, technology companies, and entrepreneurs. If any potential prize winner is found to be ineligible for any reason, including for failure to comply with Challenge rules, an alternate winner may be selected.
To be eligible to win a prize under this Challenge, an individual or entity (participant):
- Shall register to participate in the Challenge under the rules as outlined in this document.
- Shall comply with all the requirements under this announcement and any subsequently announced rules for the prize competition.
- In the case of a private entity, shall be incorporated in and maintain a primary place of business in the United States or U.S. territory,
- In the case of an individual, whether participating singly or as a part of a team, shall be a citizen or permanent resident of the United States or U.S. territory.
- Shall not be a DOT employee; and
- Shall not be another Federal entity or Federal employee acting within the scope of their employment (all non-DOT Federal employees must consult with their agency Ethics Official to determine whether Federal ethics rules limit or prohibit the acceptance of a cash prize stemming from a Federally sponsored prize competition).
In addition, these two restrictions apply to recipients of other Federal funds:
- Federal grantees or recipients of Federal cooperative agreements may not use Federal funds to develop submissions for this Challenge unless consistent with the purpose of their grant award or cooperative agreement; and
- Federal contractors may not use Federal funds from a contract to develop prize competition applications or to fund efforts in support of a prize competition submission.