Intelligent Transportation Systems-A Frontier for Breaking Boundaries of Traditional Academic Engineering Disciplines [Education]

Introduction The evolution of the modern transportation system has been instrumental in the prosperity of human civilization. Over the centuries, technological innovations have improved the performance and efficiency of transportation systems, which has in turn led us to the creation of the modern intelligent transportation system (ITS). Nonetheless, innovations in sensing, computing, analytics and communication technologies over the last few decades have vastly changed how we consume transportation services. According to the US National Academy of Engineering's report "The Engineer of 2020: Visions of Engineering in the New Century," information and communication technologies will be integrated in every process and structure in future, and these technologies will be critical to the seamless performance of every engineered product [1]. Auto makers are expected to market several vehicle models with vehicle-tovehicle (V2V) connectivity within a few years with a subsequent presence of autonomous vehicles on highways within a decade. Such breakthroughs will create new challenges for ITS professionals concerning the design and development of ITS infrastructure. Although multidisciplinary skills are essential for ITS professionals, the current pedagogy of training ITS engineers is inadequate for this new era of smart and connected transportation systems. Consequently, there is a great urgency to train a new generation of mobility professionals in traditional traffic engineering skills as well in cyberphysical systems. The focus of this article is to establish the importance of a new educational focus area in ITS at the undergraduate and graduate levels.