Technology and Innovation Scan
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EFFECTIVENESS OF DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO DISSEMINATING Evaluation TRAVELER INFORMATION ON TRAVEL TIME RELIABILITY Technology and Innovation Scan Vaishali Shah Karl Wunderlich March 2010 Contract Sponsor: Texas A&M Research Foundation SHRP L14 Table of Contents Introduction and Context Setting ................................................................................................................ 1 Underlying Technology Trends: Better Data to Come ................................................................................. 2 Toll Tag Readers ..................................................................................................................................... 4 License Plate Matching .......................................................................................................................... 5 Cell Phone Triangulation using Towers ................................................................................................. 5 CellInt .............................................................................................................................................. 7 Delcan/ITIS ...................................................................................................................................... 7 TrafficCast ....................................................................................................................................... 7 Bluetooth tracking ................................................................................................................................. 7 GPS –Enabled Devices ........................................................................................................................... 9 Future Technologies ............................................................................................................................ 10 Synopsis of Underlying Technologies .................................................................................................. 10 Innovative Media for Traveler Information Users ..................................................................................... 11 Personal Navigation Devices ............................................................................................................... 13 Applications for GPS‐enabled Mobile Devices .................................................................................... 14 Crowdsourced Applications for Traveler Information ......................................................................... 16 Aardvark ........................................................................................................................................ 16 Aha Mobile .................................................................................................................................... 17 Waze ............................................................................................................................................. 17 Google Maps ................................................................................................................................. 18 INRIX Traffic .................................................................................................................................. 19 In Vehicle Systems ............................................................................................................................... 20 Mobile Applications for Public Transit ................................................................................................ 21 Synopsis of Innovative Media .............................................................................................................. 22 Traveler Information Market Participants ................................................................................................. 24 INRIX .................................................................................................................................................... 24 Nokia/NAVTEQ .................................................................................................................................... 25 TomTom ............................................................................................................................................... 25 Clear Channel ....................................................................................................................................... 25 Westwood One .................................................................................................................................... 26 Google .................................................................................................................................................. 26 Synopsis of Market Participants ........................................................................................................... 26 Outlook for Traveler Information and Specifically Reliability Information ................................................ 27 Considering Safety ............................................................................................................................... 29 Considering what Reliability Information is Needed ........................................................................... 30 Looking to the Future .......................................................................................................................... 30 Glossary ....................................................................................................................................................... 33 References .................................................................................................................................................. 35 INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT SETTING Traveler information can be acquired by travelers today through a number of media. These media range from traditional roadside signage and broadcast media to newer electronic wireless and web‐based media. The resulting mix of traffic and transportation system status data has greatly increased information accessibility, and permitted an ever‐greater degree of traveler‐specific customization. Organizations providing traveler information continue to broaden beyond traditional public agencies and news organizations to private corporations, data integrators, and social networking applications. Methods for measuring travel conditions have also evolved beyond traditional technologies such as loop detectors and infrared sensors to video imaging, cell phone tracking, Bluetooth monitoring, GPS traces, and traveler‐to‐traveler information sharing. In step, methods for integrating multiple data are becoming more sophisticated and complex, blending multiple sources of data including real‐time and historic data that is both quantitative and qualitative in nature. Furthermore, the means for transmission of information are increasing in sophistication beyond dynamic message signs, and web content toward in‐vehicle devices with innovative voice‐based transactions and heads‐up displays (HUD). These concurrent trends in technology and innovation will provide the potential for traveler information granularity, coverage, and accuracy far exceeding what has historically been available, and consequently offers the opportunity for delivering trip reliability information in a variety of forms, both traditional and newly conceived. Trip reliability information for travelers can be interpreted through two distinct lenses (1) information on historic trip time variability of a specific trip, and (2) the reliability of traveler information (e.g. how reliable is the message “expect delays” or “20 minutes to downtown).” For the first interpretation, one use of reliability information is to aid in determining an appropriate departure time and route based on the traveler’s risk acceptability for late arrivals. For example, a traveler may budget 75 minutes for his trip to the airport because he has been informed that historically the average travel time to the airport during that rainy Friday afternoon that he is travelling is 45 minutes, but the 95th percentile travel time is 70 minutes. For the second interpretation, the traveler while driving to the airport may be informed that the travel time is between 40‐50 minutes and that there is a 10% probability that the trip will take over 50 minutes given current traffic conditions. The aforementioned example is one of many metrics through which trip reliability can be delivered to the traveler. The Literature Review document provides the definitions of trip reliability metrics; outlines the prevalent formats and types of reliability information disseminated mainly through Variable Message Signs, 511 phone, and web sites; describes how reliability information is communicated in other fields such as weather forecasts; and highlights more recent means for transmission of traveler information including personalized e‐mails, texts and tweets. This Scan document focuses on technology and innovation trends likely to impact the provision of traveler information over the next five years. This scan is organized into three exploratory sections, each ending with a synopsis of findings. Following the three exploratory sections is a section discussing the outlook for traveler information. The first section of this Scan identifies the underlying technology trends that will drive the availability of better Page 1 reliability data. The second section presents innovative media that have become