By David Arminas
Derq has been awarded a federal contract under Phase 1 of US Department of Transportation (USDoT)’s Intersection Safety Systems (ISS) initiative.
Derq said it was selected as one of only three teams to demonstrate systems that identify, predict and mitigate dangerous situations involving vehicles and pedestrians at intersections in real time.
Traffic crashes accounted for an estimated 36,640 fatalities in the US last year, with intersections representing about 18% of all pedestrian fatalities.
Derq will deploy its technologies alongside transportation agencies and industry and research partners in the states of Texas and Virginia.
The work builds upon USDoT’s Intersection Safety Challenge from 2023-2025, where Derq was a Tier 1 winner in Stage 1B, which assessed real-time ISS concepts that leveraged sensor fusion and AI.
Predicting what’s about to happen
“Most systems today tell you what happened. Ours also predicts what’s about to happen and acts on it,” said Georges Aoude, co-founder and chief executive of Derq.
“As the only private company selected for this USDoT programme, with technology already running at intersections across the country, Derq is ready to prove that real-time crash prevention can become part of everyday traffic operations and protect communities at scale.”
Derq’s system fuses real-time camera footage with other sensor feeds, traffic signal information and Vehicle to Everything (V2X) messages.
By processing these inputs at the roadside, the system anticipates situations and conflicts, such as a driver running a red light or a pedestrian entering the road.
It then issues a warning, activates a roadside sign or adjusts a traffic signal in real time.
The system is built upon Derq’s portfolio of 23 patents spanning sensor fusion, road-user intent prediction, V2X-based warnings and real-time conflict mitigation.
Testing in Virginia and Texas
Derq will test its system at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute’s Virginia Smart Roads and at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s Rellis Proving Grounds.
Public-sector partners include Texas DoT, the City of Houston, Virginia DoT and the cities of Alexandria and Falls Church in the state of Virginia.
Additional industry partners include WSP USA, ITS America and AT&T.
USDoT has awarded $5.5 million across the three selected teams for Phase 1, covering prototype development and testing.
The agency anticipates an additional $11.5 million for Phase 2 to refine and assess the prototypes at real-world intersections.
Derq is a spin-off from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), founded in 2016 as an AI-powered intelligent transportation company helping agencies improve safety and optimise traffic flow.
Derq’s technology is deployed across the US, Canada and in the Middle East.