Schedule

This competition addresses the need for explainability in personalized route planning for wheelchair users. Path planners like A* and Dijkstra are able to generate optimal personalized routes based on a map with start and destination locations; however, they lack transparency about why certain routing decisions are made, for example why given streets are included in or excluded from the recommended route. This absence of explanation can lead to misunderstanding and mistrust—especially among users with limited mobility, who often have unique personal routing requirements and constraints. Beyond distance, factors like curb height, sidewalk width, and the number of crossings can significantly affect route suitability, and tradeoffs should be clearly communicated. The goal of the competition is to explain why a specific fact route was preferred to a different route by the given planner, taking into account the user constraints and preferences, by providing counterfactual explanations. A counterfactual example is shown in the figure below. 

This competition is organised in the context of the European PEER project, and includes organisers from the municipality of Amsterdam. The maps/graphs are based on real-world data and were created by the municipality of Amsterdam, using various techniques including point-cloud based obstacle and width measurements and recognising suitable crossings from satellite imagery (Link1, Link2). The competition focuses on key AI components of explainable routing by providing counterfactual explanations, and its results may be used (attributed of course) in a demonstrator for accessible route planning. The competition is run open-source.

Please send us your contribution via: crc25ijcai@gmail.com

If you are interested in competing, please notify us with a short email ahead of time as well.

Note: In addition to the code base, each team needs to submit a report of 2 - 4 pages in the default IJCAI 2025 template, following academic standards, including an abstract, related literature, and a description of the work performed.