A $50 million prize awaits one of seven cities testing the best ways to deploy intelligent transportation.

“We don’t necessarily know the direction that the technology is moving,” said Alex Pazuchanics, a policy adviser in the Pittsburgh mayor’s office. “It certainly helps to have Carnegie Mellon [University] involved as one of the leading [players] in that field, but we don’t necessarily know that what’s on the table today is going to be top-of-the-line five years from now.”