Port Authority Sends Robots Crawling Through Lincoln Tunnel Catwalks

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey held a robot show-and-tell at the World Trade Center to unveil a new fleet of machines designed to crawl the narrow catwalks lining the Lincoln Tunnel, hunting for fires, crashes and stranded pedestrians to help speed emergency response. The robots, built by college engineering students, represent the agency's answer to a decades-old design problem: elevated 2.5-foot-wide walkways built into the tunnel that once carried human patrol officers in motorized carts but have sat largely unused for years.

As reported by PIX11, the robot project is part of the Port Authority's Innovation Hub technology development effort, and testing began this past spring. One entry, built by students at the New York Institute of Technology, is named ARES and travels along the catwalk at speeds between five and 15 miles per hour. It carries a compartment for delivering emergency supplies, including tire repair kits and fire extinguishers, to drivers stuck inside the tunnel. New York Institute of Technology, which has campuses in Manhattan and Long Island, fielded a student team that included graduate Ray Kahn alongside students Gunn Aggarwal and Yuri Kent Calumpit.

Two Competing Robot Designs Take Shape

A second robot, built by undergraduates at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, is called L.I.N.C., short for Lincoln Investigation and Navigation Cadet. According to the seed reporting via PIX11, L.I.N.C. responds to fires, crashes and unauthorized pedestrians found on roadways or catwalks. Stevens Institute of Technology has described the robot's six onboard cameras and AI vision models as tools to detect vehicles and pedestrians, alongside a thermal camera, per the university's own account.

Both robot models are equipped with speakers and microphones so staff can communicate directly with drivers below, and both send data, pictures and information back to security and Port Authority staff in real time. Yuri Kent Calumpit said cameras are mounted to look down on the street for AI detection software to analyze. Dominic Souza, a member of the Stevens Institute of Technology student engineering team, described L.I.N.C. as an inviting emergency-response robot that works alongside existing security measures to improve visibility inside the tunnel.

From High School Contest to Tunnel Prototype

The idea for reviving the catwalks did not start with college engineers. Engineering students developed their robot designs from preliminary concepts created by high school students, tracing back to a contest that Lincoln Tunnel General Manager Jerry Lindenmeier helped launch through the Port Authority's employee Innovation Hub, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Bergen County Technical High School in Teterboro won that original high school STEM contest in January 2024, and the agency later held a university-level competition, giving student teams the opportunity to build functional prototypes.

Students had access to tunnel specifications and Port Authority staff throughout the design process, and student teams road-tested their robot models during overnight closures of the Lincoln Tunnel this year. Port Authority staff are now evaluating the robot models along with the test data those overnight runs produced. Riz Baig, the Port Authority's chief engineer, said the project engages the community and seeks real-life solutions to the agency's infrastructure challenges.

Reviving Catwalks Left Dormant Since 2011

The catwalks themselves have a long history inside the tunnel system. Human-operated “catwalk cars” first appeared in the Holland Tunnel in December 1954, three-horsepower electric vehicles that topped out at 12 mph, before the concept expanded to the Lincoln Tunnel in 1960 with eight-horsepower gas-powered models capable of hitting 35 mph, according to Jalopnik. Those early vehicles were designed specifically to let the agency reduce foot patrol staffing from six officers down to four.

The Port Authority fully retired its manned catwalk cars in 2011, per Untapped New York. The Lincoln Tunnel now carries roughly 120,000 vehicles a day across its three two-lane tubes beneath the Hudson River, according to Stevens Institute of Technology, a volume that makes rapid detection of breakdowns or crashes critical to preventing gridlock that can stall thousands of commuters within minutes. According to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency publishes monthly vehicular traffic and E-ZPass usage data for the Lincoln and other Port Authority crossings. A July 9, 2025, vehicle fire in the Lincoln Tunnel caused traffic delays, and five people with minor injuries were evaluated by EMS workers, ABC7 New York reported.

Harsh Conditions and a Bigger Modernization Push

The tunnel's ventilation system includes 84 massive fans that continuously exchange the entire volume of tunnel air every 90 seconds, Jalopnik reports.

The tunnel robots are one piece of a much larger agency effort. The Port Authority's employee-driven Innovation Hub has launched pilot projects testing autonomous technology across the region, including autonomous airport shuttles at JFK and Newark, aquatic inspection drones and robotic street sweepers, according to Metropolitan Airport News. The agency's first autonomous shuttle van operated between Terminal A and the nearest AirTrain station at the P2 parking facility at Newark Liberty International Airport in September 2023, though it did not pick up passengers during the pilot, per Mass Transit.

The Port Authority's $45 billion Capital Plan covers 2026 through 2035. Gunn Aggarwal said the robot can reach tunnel emergencies faster and help solve problems before they spiral into backups.