What happened at ITS World Congress 2025?
- Luigi Bisbiglia
- Sep 12, 2025
- 4 min read
The SBD Automotive Events Team has now returned from Atlanta for ITS World Congress 2025. The show brought together leaders from governments, transit authorities, automakers, suppliers and academia to debate technology, policy and deployment at scale. Topics ranged from AI and connected transport to data management, digital infrastructure and accessibility, and the event featured a large programme of conference sessions, technical papers and exhibitors.
To help clients and partners make sense of what was discussed, SBD has published a complimentary Flash Report that captures the key announcements, programme highlights and data points from the week. The report includes attendance and session metrics, OEM and supplier highlights and a focused set of trends that SBD analysts believe will shape transport and mobility activity in the near term.
Today we asked one of the report authors, Riley Keehn, to reflect on her time at the event and to pick out the themes that matter most for operators, OEMs and public sector bodies.
Expert insights from Riley
"ITS World Congress was another example of how the demand and excitement for collaborative industry events and conferences is still well and alive, just continuing to transition out of the traditional automotive space and embracing the wider transportation ecosystem (see also: IAA Mobility).
On that note, automakers were a hot topic at ITS, brought up in almost every panel discussion attended and with comments coming from global and state transportation departments, mobility service providers, infrastructure providers, and more - but their absence on the show floor and in panel discussions was duly noted. Mobility services and government safety initiatives have long relied on OEM cooperation, namely in the sharing of safety critical data (OEM, telematics, and driver behavior data) and in the design of connected and autonomous systems that interplay with other modes of transportation. However, as private companies around the world have begun safeguarding their data as a potential commodity to combat squeezed profit margins on physical products and components, the public sector is getting priced out of the data they rely on – amplified by an increasingly competitive (and scrutinized) market pulling away from data aggregation, which results in multiple costly contracts and inefficiencies stemming from a subsequent lack of standardization.
A solution, in part, revolves around trust – another theme which appeared heavily throughout ITS World Congress’ programming this year. Consumers must trust companies and government as responsible stewards of safety-critical data. OEMs must trust each other and governments as collaborators. Consumers and regulators must trust in the efficacy of technologies in order to drive adoption at scale… and so on.
A final note is that autonomy is here to stay. Electrification, as an example, was not absent from the conference, but the agenda and exhibit floor most prominently featured autonomous vehicles, ADAS, V2V/V2I connectivity for autonomous driving / safety applications (e.g., traffic calming, cooperative perception), and sensing/imaging technologies. There is a clear reason for this: while most stakeholders want to realize their investments towards electrification and other high-innovation domains, R&D funding, consumer demand, and political support has been inconsistent across regions. This is not the case for autonomy, however. Public-private interest in vehicle crash avoidance and crashworthiness, Vision Zero safety initiatives, and reducing road incident-related fatalities has rarely wavered globally, so autonomy is charging forward, focused now on accelerating implementation and adoption through more open collaboration (circling back to a need for aggregated, standardized, open data), purpose-built design, and considering equitable applications that will vary by region and user-type."
Riley Keehn Government & Regulatory Affairs, SBD Automotive
Quick takeaways from the Flash Report
Connectivity as an enabler for autonomy Panels emphasised that connectivity improves safety and system performance and that C-V2X is gaining traction as a scalable route to connected automation. A consistent theme was the need for a reliable safety link between vehicles and control centres.
Business model focus Conversations have moved from proving concepts to making services commercially sustainable. Delegates raised the problem of projects stalling when grants end and urged better funding models and stronger integrator capabilities.
Data access and trust Transport departments reported affordability pressures and fragmented contracts when buying OEM data. Calls for aggregated, standardised data sharing to support public safety were widespread. Trust and governance were presented as central to any long term solution.
Edge AI for operations Edge computing and agentic AI are being used to reduce latency, improve incident response and optimise traffic control. Attendees urged robust governance and long term planning to realise life saving benefits.
Operational matters remain urgent Automated valet parking, GNSS denied environments and equity in Mobility as a Service all emerged as practical deployment issues that need attention from operators and policy makers.
Don't miss anything from ITS World Congress
SBD Automotive’s complimentary Flash Report on ITS World Congress 2025 is available now on the SBD Portal. The report contains session level insights, data tables and analyst commentary that will help your team prioritise activity and evidence your next steps.
Download your copy from the SBD Portal and contact us at info@sbdautomotive.com if you want to book time with our analysts to review implications for your projects.
Don't worry if you don't have a Portal account yet - It's free to register!
