Government Involvement / Influence

Orf467 Transportation Systems Analysis Fall 2012/13 Next Steps in “Advanced Traveler Information Systems” Due: Monday, December 3, 2012 You may work in pairs as you did for the City Travel Demand Assignment but you MUST work together and so certify that on your report. Over the past five (5) years or so there has been an explosive proliferation of traveler information beyond the traditional user interfaces: printed schedule, road atlas and guide book. Radio and TV traffic reports that were until recently relegated to only the largest metropolitan areas that could afford a traffic helicopter and its communications infrastructure are now radio/TVcast in even the smallest of hamlets; let alone the other UIs: desktops, laptops, iPads, netbooks, PDAs, PNDs, featurePhones and smartPhones. The internet and wireless communications has provided the readily available communications and sensors, devices and manpower have been deployed to capture the underlying data. To this point, the UIs have become so powerful and cheap to the point that they are readily available, as is the communications medium. Now Google offers us “PredictiveFeatures” in GoogleNow: http://www.google.com/landing/now/#tab=movies&tab=currency To date, the sensors, devices and manpower required to gather the data have become only marginally cheaper; however, this is about to change. Since the connected PNDs, featurePhones and smartPhones are being “converted” to becoming “traffic sensors” and “zero cost” crowdSourcing is replacing the manpower the data is about to explode. What continues to be challenging is the conversion of the data into valuable/useful information. Given this evolving situation:

1. Investigate the information content currently available in today’s “Advanced Traveler information (511) Systems around the world. Prepare a “two” page summary of the good ones that you find. Highlight their most valuable contributions and compare them to the system(s) available in your home town(s). 2. Check out what’s available in Apple’s iTunes App Store for the iPhone in this area. (Check navigation section). What is great, what is missing? Describe the functionality of an app that you would design (one per group) 3. Check out what Google offers for “free”, including GoogleNow. What are it’s great points (besides “free”) and where do they fall short (if you worked for Google, what would you propose that they do in this area; one per group)).

05/20/18