Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment they have made of the potential (a) threats and (b) opportunities of artificial intelligence in respect of their Department’s responsibilities.

Technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning have many potential applications including in the transport sector. Innovation teams across the DfT support research and development initiatives conducted both within and outside of DfT. The role of these initiatives is primarily to investigate the potential for AI in predictive modelling on transport use and their potential for using data across transport modes to support analysis on transport use. For the most part these are academic initiatives at the research stage and are not used in the implementation of policies. The Digital Services team also pilots AI solutions for automated IT management.

As part of the overall development of the digital and data capability with the central Department, we regularly consider the scope and opportunities and threats which deployment of AI solutions may bring in our work. When identifying options, we will often pilot and protype solutions to explore their full value and potential or may use alongside existing services as augmented intelligence.