UBER showcases ‘Movement’ data insights for New Delhi
Uber today launched insights for New Delhi from its proprietary platform, Movement, as part of a comprehensive data-sharing exercise on traffic patterns to improve urban mobility in the cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
Launching the Delhi module of this multi-city initiative, insights from Delhi specific traffic problems were showcased in the presence of Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State (Independent Charge) Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
Uber Movement has provided access to civic authorities, local governments, transportation researchers, technology and urban infrastructure think tanks to discover ways to apply data to address transportation and infrastructure challenges as well as plan future investments.
In April 2018, Uber had formally launched the second phase of Movement, making the data available for 4 Indian cities for the first time. Overall, the 12 shortlisted cities for Movement’s second phase span across 5 continents and 7 countries, namely: Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore Hyderabad, Amsterdam, Brisbane, Cairo, Melbourne, Nairobi, Perth, Pittsburgh, and Toronto.
One of these studies titled, “Examining the Impact of Traffic as Delhi Shops on Dhanteras”, uses data to calculate the impact of Dhanteras on travel times in New Delhi and hint at potential solutions. The data compares peak travel times from Vasant Kunj to Lajpat Nagar during Dhanteras (October 17, 2017) and the average peak travel time in the same week (October 16 — October 20, 2017). The study points to a ~30% increase in travel times between Ambedkar Nagar and Moolchand and over ~20% hike in travel time throughout the city. A consistent pattern in inbound traffic towards the city center is also observed.
Interestingly, the study observes only a ~10% increase in traffic at other time periods (AM Peak, Midday & Evening), and hints at potential solutions to incentivize commuters to travel outside the PM peak on this day to smoothen overall travel times. By mining data for similar festivals, such learnings can be applied to reduce the impact of traffic disruptions.
Examining the Impact of Traffic as Delhi Shops on Dhanteras
Another study measures the impact of dismantling the BRT corridor on travel times. The data reveals a ~31% decrease in northbound travel times on the Ambedkar Nagar-Moolchand stretch once the corridor was dismantled around June 17, 2016. (specific to before and after time-periods of the study)
According to an April 2018 study by consulting firm, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) titled, “Unlocking Cities: The impact of ridesharing across India”, traffic congestion during peak hours in four major cities — Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata — costs the economy $22 billion annually. Further, on average, travellers in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Kolkata spend 1.5 hours more on their daily commutes than their counterparts in other Asian cities during peak traffic times. In fact, peak-hour congestion, which implies the additional time taken during peak traffic to travel a given distance, in these four Indian cities is estimated at 149%, much higher than the Asian average of 67%.
“As public transport becomes increasingly digitised, high quality data is the foundation of everything we will do in the future. It is now urgent to find win-win data-sharing solutions (what to share, how and with whom) to make the most of the gold mine the industry is sitting on. Some public agencies like Kochi Metro and KSRTC already opened their data. Uber Movement is a right step in this direction to build trust and bridge between public and private players. Shared mobility is part of the eco-system and complements public transport system,” said Jaspal Singh, Regional Head, UITP (International Association of Public Transport).
“The issue of congestion is becoming alarming across most cities in India. Thanks to sustained efforts by our mapping team, we have been able to gather large amounts of traffic data for several key metros in India. Uber Movement can help driver data-driven policy making and provide the much needed impetus to academia, urban planners, civic authorities and government officials. Together with the government, we aim to continue playing a key role in solving for urban mobility challenges through this initiative,” said Ann Lavin, Senior Director, Public Policy and Government Relations, Asia Pacific, Uber.
“India is witnessing the world’s largest planned urbanization programme as a response to the unprecedented pace of urbanization in the country. A smarter transport and traffic management system is a significant element of this planned urbanization. The 9 Integrated Command and Control Centers launched so far, in various Smart Cities, are state-of-the-art facilities that relay real time data-sets on a range of urban indicators, including transport and traffic systems. By providing data of Uber rides to the public at large, Uber Movement is supporting a data-led approach to urban planning,” said Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.
Uber Movement was first announced in January 2017 and added 10 cities in the first phase: Boston, San Francisco, Washington D.C. and Cincinnati in the United States, Bogotá (Colombia),London(United Kingdom), Paris(France), Johannesburg and Pretoria(South Africa) and Sydney (Australia).
Intrestingly, in 2017 Rafael Greca, the mayor of Curitiba, (the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Paraná) had issued a decree to regulate app-based transportation services like Uber and Cabify so that the municipality would have access to anonymised data about each ride — date and time information of the beginning and end of the journey; total time and distance travelled; amount paid and breakdown of the calculation. This data was to be made available on a monthly basis.
Bogotá (Colombia) is the only city in South America, whose data is currently available on the Movement platform. The case of Curitiba is an interesting one as the city has proactively demanded data from the company.
By decree, Greca regulates Uber’s operation in Curitiba — Gazeta do Povo[19th July, 2017]
“The presence of last 4 years data and comparison will be very helpful for study of experts, traffic police, urban planners and activists towards search the reasoning behind decongestion during their study on various aspects of traffic movement and a common traveller can plan journey looking at peak and non peak timings around the city,” said Atul Goyal, President URJA.
Uber Movement can help city officials measure the impact of road improvements, major events, and transit lines. It serves as a tool for planners and policymakers to analyze transportation patterns, and make smart investments on future infrastructure projects. It also helps commuters discover patterns and analyze the impact of events, rush hours, and road closures in cities and help optimize travel time.
“Uber Movement has the potential to fill the huge gap in travel data for Indian cities. Indian cities struggle to collect travel information, which in turn affects the policy and planning decisions for mobility interventions. A technology-driven tool like Uber Movement can bridge this gap and empower Indian cities to understand mobility behaviour of population and plan for interventions that are smart, effective and sustainable,” said Akshima Tejas Ghate, Associate Director, Transport and Urban Governance, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)
Some notable international projects where Movement’s data was used to improve accessibility include : the measurement of travel times from supermarkets in Cincinnati ; Impact of Washington DC’s metro rail maintenance disruption on commute pattern changes and local traffic ; Impact of the 3 month closure of London’s tower bridge on travel times.
While these projects set an example of how determining the problem statement for the data can unlock insights, the universal nature of this approach opens interesting possibilities where it can be applied to any given set of facilities or services — be it traffic patterns in Gurugram or monsoon led disruptions in Mumbai.
“Planning for hassle free travel by avoiding traffic congestion & reducing travel time of commuters is one of the core priorities of governments in metros. The data being released as a part of Uber Movement along with other data generated by the government will immensely help the city authorities in planning & improved traffic management,” said Rakesh Reddy Dubbudu, Open Data, Telangana.
“Uber’s ‘Movement’ has the potential to serve as a repository of historic traffic data, which is not readily available otherwise. We appreciate the move to make this data public as it benefits not-for-profit, public-policy research organisations like ours, conducting research on congestion and sustainable mobility,” said Karthik Ganesan, Research Fellow, Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW)
Uber Movement Team, Uber Under the Hood, Open Data Charter, Open Data Challenges, Center for Open Data Enterprise, State of Open Data, Urban Design Committee
