What's New?
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On February 26, 2026, U.S. DOT ARPA-I announced Stage 2 of the Ideas Challenge, open only to Stage 1 winners. Read the official Ideas Challenge Stage 2 document.
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On December 2, 2025, U.S. DOT announced 15 winners of Stage 1. The Innovation Workshop (“Ideas Bootcamp”) with the Stage 1 winners will be held on December 9, 2025 at U.S. DOT Headquarters in Washington D.C.
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The application period closed at 5 PM ET on September 17, 2025. We received 448 submissions and are encouraged by the enthusiastic response for the Challenge!
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View the Stage 1 Webinar recording (passcode: @9G?n$zY) and slides from August 20, 2025.
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View the Stage 1 kickoff U.S. DOT Press Release and video from August 18, 2025.
ARPA-I's $1 Million Prize Competition
Stage 1
Submit a Concept Paper with your breakthrough transportation ideas. Up to 15 winners will be awarded $20,000 each for a total of $300,000 in prizes.
Stage 2
Winners from Stage 1 submit full R&D project proposals for a chance to win one of five prizes that total a further $700,000. More details on Stage 2 coming soon.
ARPA-I's Strategic Thrust Areas
Knowledge
Tools that allow infrastructure operators to understand everything they need to know about their transportation infrastructure systems.
Construction
Constructing infrastructure safer, faster, more cost-effectively, and with a longer lifespan.
Optimization
Optimizing the movement of people and goods at scale in real time to radically increase system safety, enhance performance, and decrease costs, leveraging connectivity and automation.
Enabling and Foundational Technologies
Enabling and other foundational technologies that create the basis for future technologies.
Other ARPA-I Programs and Projects
INSIGHTS
The Infrastructure Systems Insights through Geospatial-sensing for Holistic Transportation Solutions (INSIGHTS) project is ARPA-I's first step towards enabling development of practical, cost-effective, continuously updated digital models of America's infrastructure at scale, including streets, highways, ports, rail lines, airports, and pipelines.
ARPA-I INSIGHTSX-BRIDGE
The ARPA-I eXceptional Bridges through Innovative Design and Groundbreaking Engineering (X-BRIDGE) program is focused on creating transformative materials, designs, and construction techniques that can deliver bridges at half the cost, in half the time, and with twice the lifespan.
ARPA-I X-BRIDGEWhat Are the Heilmeier Questions?
At ARPA-I, we leverage the Heilmeier Catechism to assess and think through proposed research programs.
- What are you trying to do? Articulate your objectives using absolutely no jargon.
- How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice?
- What is new in your approach and why do you think it will be successful?
- Who cares? If you are successful, what difference will it make?
- What are the risks?
- How much will it cost?
- How long will it take?
- What are the mid-term and final “exams” to check for success?
Learn more
Ideas Challenge
Visit our Challenge.gov site for authoritative resources on details of prizes and timeline.
View information on Challenge.gov
Send your questions to ideas.ARPA-I@dot.gov.