The company sent eight analysts to Pittsburgh last year to recommend technology-based solutions to the city’s transportation woes. Pittsburgh got an estimated $400,000 worth of free help through the company’s Smarter Cities Challenge program.

“IBM is saying, ‘Look, you guys have a lot of good data. You have a lot of good partnerships. You just have to develop applications so that data can be shared and get it out to people who are using the system,’” said Stan Caldwell, deputy executive director of Carnegie Mellon University’s Traffic 21 program and T-Set University Transportation Centers.