This project aims to develop a new Science of Design for societal-scale Cyber- Physical Systems (CPS).

Transportation accounts for 28% of the total energy use in the United States and as such, it is responsible for immense environmental impact, including urban air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and may pose a severe threat to energy security. As we encourage mode shift from personal vehicles to public transit, it is important to consider that public transit systems still require substantial amounts of energy; for example, public bus transit services in the U.S. are responsible for at least 19.7 million metric tons of CO2 emission annually.

Public transportation infrastructure is an essential component in cultivating equitable communities. However, public transit agencies have historically struggled to achieve this since they are often severely stressed in terms of resources as they have to make the trade-off between concentrating service into routes that serve large numbers of people and spreading service out to ensure that people everywhere have access to at least some service.

Ubiquitous access to mobile and web technologies enables the public to share valuable information about their surroundings anywhere and anytime. For example, during an emergency or crisis people report needs from affected areas via social media as an alternative to the traditional 911 calls. This can be valuable information for a range of emergency service officials. However, the utilization of this data poses several computational challenges as it is generated in real time, is heterogeneous, highly unstructured, redundant, and sometimes unreliable.

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are engineered systems created as networks of interacting physical and computational processes. Most modern products in major industrial sectors, such as automotive, avionics, medical devices, and power systems already are or rapidly becoming CPS driven by new requirements and competitive pressures.