Empathy at the Intersection Wins 2025 AASHTO President’s Transportation Award

We’re proud to celebrate a major milestone for one of our clients and partners: the Empathy at the Intersection project with the Connecticut Department of Transportation has been recognized with a 2025 AASHTO (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials) President’s Transportation Award.

This national recognition highlights a project that set out to do something both ambitious and necessary — bringing human experience, emotional insight, and community voices into how transportation professionals think about roadway safety.

Designing Transportation with People at the Center

Empathy at the Intersection was created to challenge a familiar pattern in transportation: decisions driven almost exclusively by data, geometry, and standards, with less room for lived experience.

Our part was to adapt one of our driving empathy emulators (where you drive in the shoes of another). We took a bus driving challenge, yet to make it accessible to non-bus drivers [driving a bus is a complicated affair], we gave the users familiar car controls -yet kept the physics of the bus the same.

This meant users could begin to understand the complications of driving a bus, and it turned into a spectator sport.

Spectators gather around two car-bus drivers!

The result was a powerful reminder that safety outcomes are deeply tied to human behavior, perception, and emotion.

From Whiteboard to National Recognition

What began more than two years ago as a whiteboard concept has since evolved into a multi-format experience delivered across half a dozen venues, reaching thousands of transportation professionals nationwide.

The project’s success reflects the collaborative effort behind it. Partners from state DOTs, academia, research institutions, and the private sector worked together to shape an experience that was thoughtful, credible, and impactful.

Just as importantly, the project relied on participants willing to share their lived experiences — voices that gave the exhibit authenticity and emotional resonance.

Why This Award Matters

The AASHTO President’s Transportation Award recognizes projects that represent leadership and innovation in transportation. For Empathy at the Intersection, the award underscores a growing understanding across the industry:

Designing safer transportation systems means centering the people who use them.

By prioritizing empathy alongside engineering and analysis, this project demonstrated how immersive experiences can influence perspective, spark conversation, and ultimately support better decision-making.

A Shared Achievement

This recognition belongs to the many teams and individuals who contributed their time, insight, and creativity — including partners at the Connecticut Department of Transportation, MassDOT, academic collaborators, research centers, volunteers, and industry leaders.

We’re honored to have supported this effort and proud to see Empathy at the Intersection recognized at the national level.

The award is a testament to what’s possible when transportation professionals commit to understanding not just how roads function — but how they are experienced by the people who rely on them every day.

A Customized Fun Takeaway

As a subtle-observation to those who care for details, we lined the billboards within the experience with the sponsors' logos... in recognition that these events require a crazy amount of collaboration.