NJ Transit's Use of Modeling Software Miscalculated Storm Surge Threat Level

December 10, 2012

New Jersey Transit's reliance on a federal government AI-powered storm modeling software inaccurately assessed the risk posed by storm surges to the Meadows Maintenance Complex. This miscalculation left millions of dollars' worth of equipment vulnerable at the rail yard prior to Hurricane Sandy. Such incidents underscore the importance of trustworthy and responsible AI, particularly in governance and harm prevention. For those interested in shaping AI incident databases like Project Cerebellum and ensuring safe and secure AI practices, JOIN US here.

This incident also serves as an example of how HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM (Govern) can be applied to manage such situations and prevent future occurrences.

Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

MEASURE 2.6 — similarity 0.693, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MAP 3.2 — similarity 0.668, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MEASURE 3.1 — similarity 0.663, rank 3. TAIM detail and related incidents →

Alleged deployer: new-jersey-transit
Alleged developer: national-weather-service
Alleged harmed parties: new-jersey-transit, new-jersey-transit-passengers

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/536

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.