The Grainger College of Engineering
Illinois Center for Transportation

New ICT-IDOT projects

7/19/2026 McCall Macomber

Illinois Center for Transportation is pleased to announce the start of new Illinois Department of Transportation-sponsored projects, from most recent start date.

R27-290: Artificial Intelligence Technologies for Data-Driven Bridge Management
Nora El-Gohary, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Paul Van Metre and Mark Shaffer, Illinois Department of Transportation

Artificial intelligence is showing promise for providing quick analysis, summary and documentation of field conditions for bridges.

This project will provide IDOT with an overview of AI products available for bridge inspection and management. Researchers will review other state agencies’ practices and policies for use of AI in this field as well as develop recommendations for IDOT. Aid in formulation of AI policy for bridge inspection within IDOT may be considered if the department deems the technology essential.

Effective use of AI in bridge inspection and management systems will provide cost and time savings to the state, allowing for quicker bridge inspections, diagnosis of issues and documentation.

The project will end May 2028.

R27-293: Agentic LLM-powered Synthetic Transportation Agent Response System (AL-STARS)
Sybil Derrible, University of Illinois Chicago
Sheng Chen, Illinois Department of Transportation

Household travel surveys are conducted by regional, state and national transportation agencies and help to inform policies, operational strategies and infrastructure investments.

Household travel surveys help to gather data on travel trends and are a key part of transportation planning. Gathering this data has become challenging, however, as response rates have been decreasing.

This project will develop a web-based travel survey tool (AL-STARS) that generates realistic, synthetic travel data. AL-STARS will use an advanced AI model to simulate travelers in Illinois, allowing planners and modelers to test transportation ideas and survey questions virtually before real-world use.

The project will help IDOT make better decisions in infrastructure and policy by providing a more accurate, diverse and cost-effective way to understand how different communities — especially undersampled population groups — actually travel.

The project will conclude August 2029.

Researchers test asphalt cracking potential at ICT using the Illinois Flexibility Index Test, one of the performance tests IDOT uses to evaluate a mixture’s performance in the field.

R27-289: Effects of Target Air Voids on Hot-Mix Asphalt Performance Tests
Imad Al-Qadi, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Brian Hill, Illinois Department of Transportation

To test the performance of hot-mix asphalt, IDOT uses volumetrics testing, which tests the air void content and voids in mineral aggregate in compacted samples, followed by balanced mix design — which uses performance tests to evaluate pavement distresses.

This project aims to identify if compacted HMA specimens that are currently discarded after volumetric testing can be used in performance tests. Researchers will test volumetric specimens at 4% and 7% air void content in cracking and rutting performance tests and identify if an alternate rutting test can be used in production.

Successfully using compacted volumetric specimens for performance testing may reduce the time needed to identify if an HMA mixture meets IDOT performance test criteria at the start of production.

The project will conclude April 2029.