Technologists have identified these realms of focus as ripe for innovation as the Transit Tech Lab, a private-public corporation, has launched its eighth annual challenge season where early growth stage companies are encouraged to apply for a spot to develop a technology solution alongside, and in coordination with, public-sector agencies.
“This past fall we had over 30 conversations with over 100 individuals to better understand what their most pressing pain points and challenges were,” Chloe Rosenberg, senior manager for innovation programs at the Partnership for New York City, said. The nonprofit has a mission of building relationships between the business community and government to make New York City a global innovation hub.
Rosenberg led an online panel discussion Thursday with transportation technology officials from various transit agencies serving the NYC metro region. Over the last eight years, she said, the lab has reviewed more than 1,000 applications, overseen more than 100 proofs of concept and 60 pilots, which has led to more than 30 direct, informed or pending commercial procurements.
The 2026 challenge centers on two focus areas: Advanced infrastructure, and data and workflow modernization. The selection process includes an evaluation of the proposals, proof-of-concept phases where selected applicants work with agencies to further develop the technology solutions, followed by one-year pilot phases.
New York City Transit (NYCT), which operates the subways and buses within the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), has three innovation areas it would like to see explored: scheduling and route optimization, predictive maintenance and inspections, and data handling.
The challenge is how to “mine the mountains of data we have” and generate deeper insights into the maintenance of the many pieces of transportation infrastructure, Nicole Payne, senior adviser to the NYCT president’s office at MTA, said during the panel.
As an example of data handling, Payne pointed to “the offloading of video footage” from buses and trains, to ensure proper data governance procedures and storage.
Officials with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation (PATH), recounted pain points that “cut across multiple areas of our business,” said Gregory Wong, PATH director of business program delivery.
“We have a lot of legacy tools that we’re relying on. A lot of the departments continue to rely on these legacy systems,” Wong said. “Many of our workflows are still manual, and paper-driven.”
The PATH system is also in need of a modern data platform that “supports ingestion, storage, transformation, analytics and digitalization,” Suleima Rivas, project manager and senior analyst at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said during the panel. IT infrastructure, she said, is an essential requirement for data.
“They [vendors] can also help us establish data governance frameworks. Everything from meta-data security levels to any rules-based file-naming,” Rivas said. “We need help defining meta-data security levels, categorizing content, indexing file locations, and making access rights more transparent across the board.”
“This is not just about technology,” Wong said. “It’s about making sure people have the processes and the training, and the sort of business context in mind when we’re introducing these new technologies to them.” Applications for the 2026 Transit Tech Lab challenge are due by Feb. 27.
