Advanced Infrastructure and Data + Workflow Modernization Challenges
Originally published by the Partnership Fund for New York City as part of the 2026 Transit Tech Lab Proof-of-Concept Results. Reproduced here with credit to the original authors. Read the original article and the full report.
Every day, nearly five million New Yorkers ride the city’s subways and buses, while hundreds of thousands more board Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road trains connecting the suburbs to the five boroughs. Over 900,000 vehicles travel more than 6,300 miles of streets, and beyond the region’s roadways and rails, the Port Authority’s airports handle over 150 million passengers a year while its port facilities move billions of dollars in cargo through one of the busiest harbors in the country. Behind the scenes, government agencies—including engineers, technicians, and office staff—keep it all moving. The scale of the effort it takes to run the largest transit network on infrastructure that’s continually being improved cannot be overstated, nor can the opportunity to make the work more efficient and impactful with new technology.
That’s where the Transit Tech Lab comes in. Every year, the Partnership Fund connects the greater New York area’s transit agencies with companies building solutions to their real operational challenges, from catching a crack in a rail before it becomes a safety issue to streamlining hours of paperwork with AI.
In January 2026, the Transit Tech Lab launched its eighth annual competition, soliciting applications from early- and growth-stage companies around the world to help the larger New York metro area’s transit agencies tackle two challenge areas: advanced infrastructure, and data + workflow modernization. This year, the program received 138 applications from entrepreneurs around the world.
Over 300 agency operators and executives from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s PATH commuter rail, NYC Department of Transportation, NJ Transit, and NYC Department of Design and Construction partnered to identify these challenges and select 17 finalists to move forward with 20 unique eight-week proof-of-concept projects. Kicking off in May 2026, these finalists worked directly with their agency partners to test their solution in a real-world environment. This report outlines each company’s solution, how it was applied, and the potential it holds to improve the public transportation experience for millions of people in the tri-state area.
By the Numbers:
- 138 Applications
- 24 Semifinalists
- 20 Proofs-of-Concept
Transit Tech Lab Net Promoter Score*
- Company NPS: 8.8**
- Agency NPS: 9.4***
*Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a metric used to measure customer loyalty and satisfaction with a company’s products or services. It is a single-question survey that asks customers how likely they are to recommend the company to a friend or colleague on a scale of 1–10.
**Responses from 17 company stakeholders included
***Responses from 18 agency project managers included
VIATechnik
Primary Partner Agencies
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
About Their Tech
VIATechnik’s Voyager, a digital twin platform, unifies BIM models, drawings, asset records, and live building data into one searchable, AI-powered interface for facility and asset management.
During Their POC
VIATechnik deployed Voyager for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s JFK Bergen Substation and the Bayonne Bridge, integrating seven and eight data sets, respectively. The deployment covered 838 assets at JFK and 1,985 elements at Bayonne Bridge, and was tested across 12 the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey users. Data ingested included design and model data (e.g., revit models, CAD files), asset and element registries, surveys, scans, and more. Voyager supported facility teams to find information and make more effective maintenance and operations decisions. 100% of surveyed users found Voyager can support challenging tasks like answering detailed questions about a facility, asset, space, or physical element, without needing to track down separate drawings, records, or subject-matter experts.
Company-Estimated Potential Impact
Users identified Voyager’s biggest value was that it could maintain a single, current source of truth for asset information rather than piecing it together from multiple disconnected systems.
