Intelligent transportation company Derq, which helps cities prevent fatalities using AI at intersections, is collaborating with AT&T to accelerate the deployment of real-time safety and traffic intelligence across connected transportation ecosystems.

The agreement expands the relationship from initial investment to commercial collaboration, building on AT&T’s investment in Detroit-based Derq in late 2024. Under the agreement, the companies will work together to integrate Derq’s transportation intelligence into AT&T’s ITP intelligent transportation platform for cities and agencies.

Derq’s AI platform will serve as a data input into AT&T’s ITP, supporting more responsive, connected and safety-focused mobility systems. The platform provides detection and analysis of critical roadway events as they happen, including collisions and wrong-way driving, close calls and safety hotspots, and road hazards including animals, debris, fire and low visibility conditions, as well as speed, congestion and traffic pattern insights.

These continuous insights and alerts feed into AT&T’s ITP to support traffic management centres, emergency response coordination and connected vehicle applications.

“Transportation agencies need intelligent ways to connect infrastructure at the edge while supporting cloud-based, scalable data lakes, AI and ML pipelines for predictive decision-making, and insights across increasingly complex mobility environments,” said Usman Zafar, associate vice president at AT&T (www.att.com). “Our ITP is designed to support that transformation, and Derq’s safety intelligence adds an important layer of roadway insight that enables AT&T’s intelligent traffic management and advanced connected transportation use cases at scale.”

Georges Aoude, CEO of Derq, added: “This collaboration marks an important step in scaling the impact of our industry-leading analytics and V2X applications. Together with AT&T, we’re bringing safety intelligence into the infrastructure that cities rely on to manage traffic, reduce risk and protect all road users at scale.”

Derq’s safety intelligence will complement AT&T’s transportation technology, alongside its connectivity, data and network capabilities, as part of a broader transportation platform designed to support safer, more connected mobility across urban and highway environments. This creates a pathway to bring Derq’s AI-powered safety insights into connected transportation systems that support traffic operations, public safety, and future V2X and V2N applications.

While many offerings in the market today focus on analysing historical data and streamlining workflows, Derq’s platform is designed to identify and surface risks, fuelling earlier intervention and more proactive traffic and safety management.

An MIT spinoff founded in 2016, Derq (www.derq.com) has its technology deployed across the USA, Canada and the GCC region, with 20 patents and global recognition in AI and mobility.