ATLANTA — The 2025 Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) World Congress took place Aug. 24-28 at the Georgia World Congress Center.
As the ITS market navigates the current geopolitical climate, along with budget cuts for public sector employees, RX, which produces the annual, rotating event when it stops in North America in partnership with ITS America, ERTICO and ITS Asia-Pacific, kept it successful with strong organizing strategies.
Navigating the Geopolitical Climate and Funding Cuts
While the geopolitical climate led to some European countries scaling back their participation, such as limiting stand size and number of delegates, RX grew its presence from Asia and North America.
“The largest representation we had was Japan, South Korea and Taiwan,” Jaime McAuley, Event Director at RX, explained. “We focused on growing our business around the world and created an international delegation program to recruit attendees from other countries.”
Also, due to government funding cuts, especially where travel is concerned, fewer U.S. public sector professionals were in attendance.
Responding to this trend, RX highlighted the value of the event in its marketing and offered discount programs.
Interestingly, the show saw more public-sector exhibitors this year as public organizations acted creatively when travel budgets were cut.
“[Some public sector organizations said] ‘Well, if we get an area where we can show the world what we’re doing, we can invest in that and pull the money from other budgets, not travel,’” McAuley explained.
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Powerful Design Choices
“RX acquired the show early in 2020, right before the pandemic, and there was always historical feedback that it was really hard to get attendees onto the show floor because of the strong conference program,” McAuley explained. “We’ve really excelled at that. I would say that we improve on it every single year to the point where the show floor is busy.”
RX has introduced F&B areas to the sides and back of the show’s exhibit hall, encouraging attendees to walk through the event for refreshments. There was coffee available on the show floor as well.
Also, they created theatres on the show floor for breakout sessions and introduced a transportation hub area, a space to network with lounge seating, and a meeting zone where attendees could schedule impromptu gatherings.
“We’ve asked the venue to remove lounge seating from the common areas and hallways to encourage attendees to use the show floor for seating and networking. This will help avoid delegates lingering in the hallways during breaks and instead drive traffic into the exhibit hall,” McAuley shared.
Additionally, to help drive traffic and energy, the event was more compact this year.
“The exhibit hall was on the bottom, right above it was the education sessions and right above that was the VIP lounge, the speaker lounge, sponsored meeting rooms, association offices etc.,” McAuley explained. “As we explore venue options moving forward, we know now that the more compact it is the more beneficial.”
Engaging Opportunities
The show expanded its outdoor demonstration area this year, renting a marshalling yard near the convention center to exhibit connected and autonomous vehicles in action.
Day 1 Deployment District was launched at ITS World Congress this year, the U.S.’s first permanent, real-world deployment zone for Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything technology, established in downtown Atlanta. This project, led by the Georgia Department of Transportation and other show sponsors and exhibitors, showcases “Day One” applications that improve safety and efficiency by enabling vehicles, infrastructure and road users to communicate in real-time.
The show also invited local fire departments and emergency response teams to observe the demonstrations.
“We were able to work with local partners, the City of Atlanta and Georgia Department of Transportation to really create an interactive experience for all attendees.” McAuley said. “And we got great feedback [and] I’d say more media coverage than we ever had.”
Also, Microsoft hosted a cybersecurity “Hackathon” at the event for the first time, a simulation that demonstrated how to prevent cybersecurity threats.
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