September 14, 2017
Submitted by admin on Mon, 2017-04-10 12:56
Leaders at the Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) Berkeley took center stage on Tuesday, April 4 at the University of California (UC) Center Sacramento, discussing how technological advancements and social changes will impact traffic, focusing specifically on how research at the UC ITS Centers on data and smart cities could improve traffic management.
As one session in a four-part policy forum series, moderator Alexandre Bayen, Professor and Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Berkeley and speakers Alexey Pozdnukhov, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC Berkeley, and Jane Macfarlane, Program Manager, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory discussed big data and smart cities and how the confluence of the IoT, networks, and big data can change everything.
The discussion began by acknowledging that transportation has grown into a complex “system of systems” facing aging infrastructure, increasing operating costs, fading control over private data, a growing array of entrepreneurial services, and a host of interlinked socio-economic issues of concern. Growth in cities today fundamentally contradict sustainability, but at the same time, modern technology has brought to life unprecedented opportunities to make transportation more efficient, resilient, and adaptive.
The forum specifically discussed the possibilities and demonstrated connected mobility modeling for real-time multimodal traffic management, where collecting real-time, precise data from connected vehicles will help map out congestion hot spots and see mobility patterns to better manage traffic with a holistic approach, including travel demand, public transportation, roads and freeways. One important application will be far more precise forecasting of travel demand and patterns.
In late March and April 2017, the Institutes of Transportation Studies at UC Berkeley, Davis, Irvine and Los Angeles presented a series of policy forums at the UC Center Sacramento, presenting the latest thinking and scientific insights on a range of transportation challenges facing our state and nation, including: Taxes, Infrastructure, Energy, and Emissions: The Road to Financial and Environmental Sustainability in California's Freight System (March 28); Big Data, Smart Cities: How the Confluence of the IoT, Networks, and Big Data Can Change Everything (April 4); What's Behind the Decline? Understanding Public Transit Trends in California (April 18); and The 3 Revolutions in Transportation: Sharing, Electrification and Automation (April 25).
Events are free and open to the public, but advance registration is encouraged. Register for upcoming events in the series here.
See the TechWire.net report on the Big Data, Smart Cities: How the Confluence of the IoT, Networks session here.