38. How and when could emerging technologies (including AI, autonomous and remotely operated transport technologies) change transport systems, and what implications does this have for maximising benefits and managing risks, for example manufacturing and freight and logistics?
Background
DfT’s ARI identifies 40 broad research questions that reflect areas of strategic importance to the department, where further insight and collaboration could enhance our evidence base, challenge assumptions and strengthen future decision-making. The ARI is organised around four complementary themes, and this question sits within the Cross-cutting Systems, Enablers and Uncertainty theme.
Delivering outcomes across growth and place, journeys for people, and green and healthy transport depends not only on what interventions are pursued, but on how the transport system behaves, adapts and changes under real world constraints.
The questions in this theme focus on system level dynamics that underpin all outcomes, particularly how risks, costs and change are managed in complex and uncertain contexts, including governance and public trust. Together, they reflect the reality that uncertainty is an enduring feature of the transport system, and that understanding these system level factors is essential to achieving progress across all strategic outcomes.
Within this theme, the questions are organised into four sections that reflect different system level dimensions — decision making under uncertainty, system resilience and risk, how change happens in practice, and the role of innovation, data and finance.
Section 1: How are transport decisions really made under uncertainty and competing objectives? This theme brings together questions that cut across all strategic outcomes, focusing on how the transport system behaves, adapts and changes under real world constraints.
Section 2: How resilient is the transport system to shocks, stress, risk and failure? This section focuses on the transport system’s ability to operate safely, securely and affordably under increasing pressure, risk and uncertainty.
Section 3: What drives change in the transport system in practice? This section focuses on the people, institutions and system capabilities that determine whether evidence, policy and innovation translate into real world change.
Section 4: How do innovation, data, finance and new technologies reshape the transport system, and with what consequences? This section examines how innovation, data, finance and new technologies influence system behaviour, risk and outcomes over time.
Next steps
If you have research relevant to this topic, are planning work in this area, or would like to discuss potential collaboration, please get in touch. For our monitoring and evaluation purposes, we are also keen to hear if the ARI has informed or influenced your research.
To get in touch and report the use, please fill in the form https://submit.forms.service.gov.uk/form/264718/dft-areas-of-research-interest-ari/
Link to DfT ARI: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dft-areas-of-research-interest/areas-of-research-interest-2026
Topics
Related UKRI funded projects
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TransiT - Digital Twinning Research Hub for Decarbonising Transport
Our vision for the TransiT Hub is to harness the transformative power of Digital Twinning, and associated digital technologies, to solve the most pressing problems of our age - the rapid and radical decarbonisation of tr...
Funded by: EPSRC
Lead research organisation: Heriot-Watt University
Why might this be relevant?
The project focuses on digital twinning for decarbonising transport, which aligns with the question's emphasis on how emerging technologies like AI can change transport systems and manage risks.
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Research Hub for Decarbonised Adaptable and Resilient Transport Infrastructures (DARe)
Our Vision is for climate resilient, net zero development of the transport system to be guided by systems analysis. When this vision is realised, decision-makers will have access to (and visualisation of) data that tells...
Funded by: SPF
Lead research organisation: Newcastle University
Why might this be relevant?
The project addresses the resilience and decarbonisation of transport infrastructures, which directly relates to the question's focus on how emerging technologies can change transport systems and manage risks.
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Services for Intelligent Mobility Management (SIMM)
We are in a period of unprecedented technological change in which the convergence of a range of underlying technologies in the domains of computing, communications, positioning and navigation, pervasive sensing and model...
Funded by: EPSRC
Lead research organisation: Imperial College London
Why might this be relevant?
The project explores how the digital economy can support decision-making in the transport domain, which partially aligns with the question's focus on emerging technologies changing transport systems.