Q&A: 'The danger is that AI gets dismissed as overhyped'

Bus-mounted camera enforcement changes driver behaviour and keeps dedicated transit zones clear of illegally-parked vehicles, improving transit on-time performance, accessibility and safety.

Hayden AI’s automated enforcement system is installed on hundreds of transit buses in New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, where it has helped increase transit bus speeds and reduce collisions along routes utilising this technology. But there’s a lot more it can do.

The company has expanded quickly over the last few years, which brings challenges of its own. 

Marty Beard, formerly at BlackBerry, was appointed CEO in August. His career also includes executive leadership roles at LiveOps, Sybase and Oracle. ITS International asked him a few questions…

You’re deploying rapidly and presumably that means scaling the team equally rapidly? What challenges does that bring?

The rapid growth absolutely requires scaling, but we are being highly intentional about how we approach it. Our primary focus is ensuring that we meet – and exceed – our customers’ expectations and deliver the differentiated solutions that the market demands. The key challenge is maintaining that high bar for talent and strategic focus across the entire business, from engineering to customer delivery.

Hayden’s bus zone and bike lane enforcement technology is well-established but as a company you’ve said it’s just the beginning – so what’s next?

Transit is the core of our business. What’s next for us is helping our customers get more value out of their bus-mounted automated enforcement programmes, by adding more systems and enforcing important zones that impact bus service and road safety, like bike lanes, no stopping zones, and double parking. But there is a lot we are working on beyond automated enforcement. A huge area we’re developing is asset detection – utilising our mobile vision technology to detect and monitor the condition of roadway assets. That means detecting issues and alerting our city partners as soon as they occur, like potholes, missing or obscured signage, overflowing trash cans, broken glass at bus shelters, overgrowth of foliage – things that are frequently changing and challenging for cities to keep track of manually.

You’ve said Hayden's asset management capabilities are growing every day: what can you detect and why is that important for cities?

If we can see it, we can detect it. That's the beauty of our vision AI technology. This means we can detect everything from missing signs and broken utility poles to graffiti and unauthorised roadwork. This capability is important for cities because it allows them to be proactive, not reactive, in addressing maintenance needs. Our technology is also configurable, so cities can choose which assets are the most critical to track.

You talk about “practical AI for cities”, with impact (rather than hype) being the key – can you expand on what that means?

AI is everywhere right now, and there is no shortage of companies promising transformative breakthroughs using AI. But too often, those promises are years away—or never materialise at all. The danger is that AI gets dismissed as overhyped or out of touch with reality. At Hayden AI, we’re doing the opposite by focusing on practical AI – technology that delivers real value today. We’ve built a product that is incredibly useful: that’s why 10 major cities in the US already use it.