How do we make cities smarter? Showcases from the ITS World Congress
Melbourne has recently hosted the 23rd World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems. The event covered not only transportation but smart cities, new mobility and big data. Hopping on a plane, I had very high expectations of both the Congress and the city. This year Melbourne again topped the EIU’s ranking of the most liveable cities leaving all places I’ve ever lived in far behind.
The Congress attracted around 11.000 participants and numerous speakers. Plenary sessions, reports, workshops — it took me about 3 hours just to browse the programme (checking details of every session was out of question). Inevitably, not every speaker was a polished TED-style narrator thrilling the audience. And not every great speaker eventually reached the stage — with many of them I had a chat in between the sessions, in the exhibition hall or at lunch.
The following highlights are far away from forming a comprehensive report — this is simply my private collection of inspiring insights. These projects, products, success stories and anecdotes give a good idea on how we could use data to make cities and rural areas smarter. And my impressions of Melbourne? Right at the end of the article.
Transaction data for urban planning in Sydney
Have you ever thought about using transaction data for construction planning? Doug Howe from MasterCard reported on a project in this area: In Sydney, MasterCard created a heat map of transactions (bank cards and cash) in the city for the local authorities. The goal was to assess the potential economic activity decline due to construction of the new light rail network. If a street is closed, businesses (retail and services in first place) may face shrinking sales due to lower foot traffic. Transaction data analysis helps better plan construction work and mitigate the risks.
More on MasterCard’s projects for smart cities:
http://mastercard.com/smart-cities
Less congestion on the road
Ben Wilson walked me through HERE’s project in the Netherlands where the authorities were interested in calculating congestion rates and average speed on the roads due to a new highway coming into operation. This new highway is parallel to one of the busiest roads in the country. HERE collected vehicle speed data throughout the day in real time BEFORE and AFTER the new road was opened. Data visualisations allow to see the average speed on the road increasing after the completion of the new highway.
More on HERE’s projects: http://360.here.com
Dynamic toll model
Takashi Nishio from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism in Japan presented a new toll system. At the moment it is static: Once set, charges for specific routes do not change. Real-time congestion data analysis will identify less busy roads and try to re-route vehicles on the fly. Should a typically congested road get less busy, a driver will get a notification on his smartphone. The system will incentivise favourable behavior by lower tolls and thus distribute vehicles more evenly.
Further details on ITS initiatives in Japan: http://www.mlit.go.jp/road/ITS/pdf/ITSinitiativesJapan.pdf
Crowdsourced data for cycling infrastructure
One of the most exciting and explorative talks that I’ve had was with Simon Jackson, Esri Australia. Simon is a GIS data enthusiast ready to dive into numbers and maps. I am always looking for show cases where data analysis directly affects real-world decisions. Simon had a handful of examples of this kind. One of them was particularly dear to me as an urban cyclist: Strava app helps the authorities like VicRoads, Australia, shape infrastructure. Crowdsourced ridership data reveals major routes and identifies commuting opposed to leisure cycling among other things. This in turn allows better allocation of docking stations, lockers, cycling counters, let alone lanes.
More on GIS data visualisations in Simon’s video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdSZQ6IDfuc
Promised anecdote
Can we predict drivers’ behaviour? Not really. Not always. Leon Daniels from Transport for London recalled an illustrative case. The US traffic authority erected a road sign “Caution: Falling Rocks!” in highlands. Half of the drivers, just as expected, slowed down in this area looking around carefully. The other half, on the contrary, sped up to avoid possible collision — an effect opposite of the desired one. This is a great example of a tremendous amount of variability in human behaviour.
And what about Melbourne’s liveability?
A German resident, I was somewhat disappointed with Melbourne’s public transport. This aspect of a city life is definitely easier to assess than education or civic engagement (both influence liveability indeces, too). Yes, the free tram zone is something truly unusual — a generous and welcoming gesture from the transport operator. Outside the free tram zone it might be a challenge to purchase a ticket. As a passenger, I want to do that right at the tram / bus stop — not in a nearby 7-Eleven store. For example, I spent 40 minutes looking for a way to top up my myki card in Brunswick at 7 p. m. on a weekday. Mission impossible. This problem could have been easily solved if the official transport app allowed on-the-go ticket purchase like in Frankfurt or Berlin.
Many trams are still high-floor making life of handicapped passengers, parents with prams and travellers with bulky luggage complicated. I failed to pull my 25 kg suitcase on board of the vehicle and was thus forced to walk to the Southern Cross. None of the trams on my line seemed to be low-floor.
Bike-sharing system, omnipresent in Frankfurt, Berlin, Paris, is obviously not so popular in Melbourne — with fewer stations and bike lanes. A big fan of cycling, I abstained from hiring a bike even having a voucher (freebies are always enticing, aren’t they?). Busy roads of Melbourne did not seem inviting enough: noisy and congested, they are designed for cars, not for cyclists.
Hopping on my bike here, in Frankfurt, I’m thinking though that it would be nice to explore Melbourne in detail, not as a busy business traveller. Perhaps, I’ll spot more of those factors which make it in fact one of the most liveable cities in the world.
Photo credit: Falling rocks — Fotolia, author — soleilc1.
