Jon Masters ITS International Editor
Can the future be predicted? With what accuracy can ‘predictive analytics’ be used to help anticipate demand? This is a relatively new science for transportation and over the next few years it will be interesting to see to what extent it can solve some common problems.
Transportation authorities may be close to finding the golden chalice that is accurate prediction of how traffic will behave as congestion occurs. Predictive algorithms are not necessarily new, but the coming together of conditions needed for their application to transportation are. In the US, systems of software including ‘predictive engines’ are being combined with other deployed ITS technology of traffic management.
Team leaders of the two ‘Integrated Corridor Management’ (ICM) pilot projects acknowledge that the predictive models of their decision support systems will take time to evolve, because modelling the fluent and complex behaviour of traffic is an iterative process. The computational science behind it is well developed, however, so there is every chance that after a few iterations of tweaking the models’ constants and calibration, the ICM operators will be able to predict what’s coming and act accordingly.
The possibilities would seem to be endless. Another pilot project – LA Express Park – is using complex demand models to set dynamic pricing of parking for reducing inner-city congestion; and the same principles are being studied for application to high occupancy toll lanes. As4186 Xerox’s chief technology officer Natesh Manikoth says, other countries are likely to come to the same point.
Take India as an example of a path many nations are on or likely to follow. Our series of features beginning reveals where India is at now with its urban and inter-urban transportation. City networks are being modernised with emphasis on public transport. National highways are undergoing upgrade with national electronic tolling high on the agenda.
Developments in the US, Western Europe and elsewhere demonstrate what usually comes next: once highway networks become saturated – and further capacity building uneconomic – attentions turn to managing demand with ITS systems. Predictive modelling and the proactive network management it allows, appear to be crucial for getting real value from investments in ITS, for averting transport problems and effecting modal shift.
It will be some years before proof of this can be borne out. The ICM projects are at the cutting edge, but the majority of agencies are still at stages of ITS deployment.
Greater connectivity may speed up progress. Developments across the County of Los Angeles show what’s possible with wireless technology, so perhaps there will be an acceleration of predictive and proactive initiatives. A lot of data has to be collected and crunched and there are signs that this is happening, for public and private transport. “Imagine the power given to policymakers if they really could influence travel decisions,” says Manikoth. Power indeed.
As I write, the first events are now underway in the London 2012 Olympic Games – labelled by some as the first ‘public transport Olympics’. About 10 years back, London’s fledgling bid to host the 2012 Games was rumoured to be running a distant third to Paris and New York, largely due to the widely held belief that Britain’s capital city had a decrepit and inadequate transport system.
Then one of Britain’s most renowned transport planners stood up at an event and spelt out how London actually has a world class transport network – a little creaky, but with a little oil applied in places, one fit to accommodate an Olympic Games. A member of the International Olympic Committee was at that event. Some years later, not long after London had won the honour of hosting the 2012 Games, the transport planner told me he had received a postcard from the same IOC member. At the bottom it said: ‘Congratulations on winning my vote for London.’ Transport not a vital factor? Let the games begin.
Jon Masters
Transportation authorities may be close to finding the golden chalice that is accurate prediction of how traffic will behave as congestion occurs. Predictive algorithms are not necessarily new, but the coming together of conditions needed for their application to transportation are. In the US, systems of software including ‘predictive engines’ are being combined with other deployed ITS technology of traffic management.
Team leaders of the two ‘Integrated Corridor Management’ (ICM) pilot projects acknowledge that the predictive models of their decision support systems will take time to evolve, because modelling the fluent and complex behaviour of traffic is an iterative process. The computational science behind it is well developed, however, so there is every chance that after a few iterations of tweaking the models’ constants and calibration, the ICM operators will be able to predict what’s coming and act accordingly.
The possibilities would seem to be endless. Another pilot project – LA Express Park – is using complex demand models to set dynamic pricing of parking for reducing inner-city congestion; and the same principles are being studied for application to high occupancy toll lanes. As
Take India as an example of a path many nations are on or likely to follow. Our series of features beginning reveals where India is at now with its urban and inter-urban transportation. City networks are being modernised with emphasis on public transport. National highways are undergoing upgrade with national electronic tolling high on the agenda.
Developments in the US, Western Europe and elsewhere demonstrate what usually comes next: once highway networks become saturated – and further capacity building uneconomic – attentions turn to managing demand with ITS systems. Predictive modelling and the proactive network management it allows, appear to be crucial for getting real value from investments in ITS, for averting transport problems and effecting modal shift.
It will be some years before proof of this can be borne out. The ICM projects are at the cutting edge, but the majority of agencies are still at stages of ITS deployment.
Greater connectivity may speed up progress. Developments across the County of Los Angeles show what’s possible with wireless technology, so perhaps there will be an acceleration of predictive and proactive initiatives. A lot of data has to be collected and crunched and there are signs that this is happening, for public and private transport. “Imagine the power given to policymakers if they really could influence travel decisions,” says Manikoth. Power indeed.
As I write, the first events are now underway in the London 2012 Olympic Games – labelled by some as the first ‘public transport Olympics’. About 10 years back, London’s fledgling bid to host the 2012 Games was rumoured to be running a distant third to Paris and New York, largely due to the widely held belief that Britain’s capital city had a decrepit and inadequate transport system.
Then one of Britain’s most renowned transport planners stood up at an event and spelt out how London actually has a world class transport network – a little creaky, but with a little oil applied in places, one fit to accommodate an Olympic Games. A member of the International Olympic Committee was at that event. Some years later, not long after London had won the honour of hosting the 2012 Games, the transport planner told me he had received a postcard from the same IOC member. At the bottom it said: ‘Congratulations on winning my vote for London.’ Transport not a vital factor? Let the games begin.
Jon Masters
