In this thought-leadership piece, Q-Free CEO Mark Talbot shares why the future of mobility will be shaped by strategic collaboration. As agencies face rising complexity across cybersecurity, connected vehicles, and modern traffic operations, one principle becomes clear: progress happens when we move better. Connected. Together.

The article was also featured in the Nov–Dec issue of ITS International Magazine.

Partnerships are the blueprint for the next decade of transportation

Progress in mobility doesn’t happen in silos—it happens when leaders come together with shared purpose. In transportation today, no single company can solve every challenge alone. The scale, speed, and complexity of what agencies are being asked to deliver—connected vehicle integration, cybersecurity, and data-driven traffic management—have grown far beyond the capacity of any single vendor.

After decades in this industry, I’m convinced progress requires collaboration, collaboration requires partnership, and big goals demand big partnerships.

We demonstrated that premise in action at the ITS World Congress in Atlanta, where Q-Free brought together a broad coalition of industry leaders and the Georgia Department of Transportation to a first-of-its-kind live demonstration: a fully integrated traffic management network built across the exhibit floor. Our industry often talks about future technologies, but Atlanta showcased the future of collaboration, and how real integration between vendors can deliver real results.

That approach isn’t new. Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone proved the value of partnership more than a century ago, but today, the pressure to deliver outcomes at unprecedented speed is greater than ever. And that’s exactly why strategic collaboration is now a business imperative.

The Transportation Technology Challenge

The ITS sector faces a unique set of constraints that can slow progress. Standards evolve slowly. Procurement cycles are long. Agencies must balance safety, cybersecurity, and modernization — all while ensuring interoperability with legacy infrastructure. Historically, vendors tried to tackle these challenges in isolation, building proprietary systems that didn’t connect.

Building the future demands openness. Modern deployments require connected ecosystems with free-flowing data, not silos. To deliver future-ready mobility, agencies need solutions that unite networking, software, hardware, and security into one cohesive architecture. That can only happen when technology leaders bring their complementary strengths to the table.

To my colleagues in the industry: go-it-alone strategies are dying. The future belongs to those who collaborate, align strengths, and move forward together.

Q-Free and Cisco: A Model Partnership

One of the most powerful examples of this approach is our collaboration with Cisco, a global leader in networking and cybersecurity. For the past four years, Q-Free and Cisco have worked together to bridge the gap between operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT)— two worlds that historically haven’t communicated effectively.

What began as a technology showcase has evolved into a strategic partnership spanning connected vehicle technology and cyber security. Cisco brings advanced routing and switching capabilities that extend beyond traditional networking, while Q-Frees brings agile traffic control solutions capable of delivering innovative applications quickly and flexibly.

Together, we’ve architected interoperable, large-scale infrastructure solutions that enable agencies to modernize massive networks and unlock a wide range of CV applications at scale, such as red-light violation warnings, dilemma zone protection, and advanced pedestrian safety—all without the need for additional roadside boxes. Whether data travels via dedicated short-range communications (DSRC), direct Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X), cellular networks, or center-to-center links, our joint architecture supports it seamlessly at the edge where instant communications matter most.

I’m not claiming we have an exclusive relationship. Each of us works with partners appropriate for the mission, but we’ve built mutual trust, and we both have the bandwidth, ingenuity, and culture to bring real benefit to the customers we serve and the projects we collaborate on.

Cisco recognizes the critical need for a partner with deep traffic operations experience with signal control and advanced traffic management systems according to Mark Knellinger, Transportation Solutions Architect at Cisco. “Q-Free’s agile and innovative culture perfectly complements Cisco’s, enabling us to quickly co-develop open platforms that interact in real-time, delivering transformative outcomes for our joint customers,” said Knellinger. “This collaboration accelerates roadway safety, seamlessly integrating legacy infrastructure with leading-edge technologies, ensuring a secure and expandable path for the future of transportation.”

Communications That Build Confidence

With increased complexity comes the need for increasingly robust cybersecurity. Many ITS protocols were never designed with security in mind. Cisco’s expertise in securing device-to-device and device-to-network communications complements Q-Free’s approach to secure traffic signal control management, helping agencies design resilient traffic management systems from the ground up.

By integrating Cisco’s trusted network security solutions with our traffic control platforms, we help agencies consolidate technology stacks, reduce physical components, and manage cybersecurity holistically across their infrastructure. This alignment builds confidence—both for transportation engineers and for IT departments charged with protecting critical systems.

Ultimately, the strongest argument for partnership is risk reduction. When agencies work with a coalition of proven leaders, they avoid the pitfalls of fragmented deployments and untested integrations. This credibility of two or more industry leaders, each with specific skillsets, highlights why agencies and consultants are increasingly favoring consortium approaches for major deployments. They recognize that assembling teams of complementary specialists who can deliver best-in-class solutions within their lane reduces the risk, and downstream, the risk to the taxpayers they work for.

These ideas are not just theoretical—they’re being proven in the field.

The Coachella Valley Example

One standout example is our work in California’s Coachella Valley. Building on the success of the CV Sync regional ATMS under the leadership of Carlos Ortiz and his team at ADVANTEC Consulting Engineers, Q-Free and Cisco are collaborating on a pilot to extend the region’s connected vehicle capabilities.

The effort brings together multiple partners to test, and scale connected vehicle communications using several methods—cellular, virtual roadside units, and edge processing—to enable emergency vehicle preemption and transit priority across a distributed regional network. While Cisco wasn’t part of the original CV Sync deployment, their involvement in this pilot reflects a shared commitment to advancing secure, scalable CV communications and validating real-world interoperability.

This collaboration builds on the proven foundation of our citywide deployment in Franklin, Tennessee, where connected vehicle technology from Q-Free and Cisco is already in daily use by the city’s fire department. There, emergency responders leverage preemption capabilities across the entire network—demonstrating that connected mobility solutions aren’t just the future concepts, but operational tools improving safety and response time today.

Together, we’re helping agencies like the Coachella Valley Association of Governments expand their mobility ecosystem and demonstrate how collaborative innovation can move critical public-safety applications from pilot to practice.

The lesson is clear: when major technology providers align strategically, they can deploy transformative solutions faster, more efficiently, and at a scale that individual vendors simply could not achieve alone.

Major global events and large-scale mobility operations highlight the scale, complexity, and coordination required to move millions of people safely and efficiently. Cisco’s proven ability to deliver secure, high-performance networks on this scale underscores the strength of our partnership—and together, we’re exploring how our combined technologies can support future transportation operations that demand the same level of precision and reliability.

A Blueprint for the Future

Strategic, high-value partnerships aren’t a trend, they are the blueprint for how the next decade of transportation will unfold. From connected and automated mobility to advanced traffic management and secure network design, the challenges ahead are too complex for any single company to solve alone.

The winners will be those who collaborate—those who can integrate, adapt, and innovate through partnership. The agencies that embrace this model will deploy faster, reduce risk, and future-proof their infrastructure for what’s next.

At Q-Free, we are proud to lead this shift. By bringing together world-class partners, we’re building transportation systems that are greater than the sum of their parts—and ready for the road ahead.