the future, providers anticipate that
connected vehicles will begin to
deliver a larger chunk of this, and
with that shift will come an even
richer data set, that is already
possible on a small scale.
“Connected car data
might show a rapid
deceleration, windshield
wipers being activated or
even, air-bag deployment,”
says Gordy of Here
Technologies. “Rapid
deceleration suggests there
was a dramatic event. Plus,
if we see airbag deployment
with that, we know it was a serious
accident. It goes beyond traditional
probe data. And helps drivers and
government agencies alike.”
Connected car data can also be
used to deliver real-time road
weather information to drivers. “We
take observations from multiple
vehicles on multiple segments,” says
Here’s Guthridge. “We can provide
| Probe Data
Making room for MaaS
The more data coming off vehicles the easier it is to
deliver multimodal transportation solutions in the form
of Mobility as a Service (MaaS)
Delivering a truly multimodal
transportation system starts
with truly mulitmodal route
planners. Some, like Google Maps,
suffer from the fact that you can only
choose one mode for your plan –
usually car, public transport, walking or
cycling. But in fact, many journeys
include two or more modes.
At PTV, transportation experts build
mulitmodal planning tools, which
enable its customers to plan futureproof
Mobility as a Service (MaaS).
“MaaS is the next step,” says PTV
business manager Robin Huizenga.
“One of the first things about MaaS is
to consider if it is going to make people
use public transit less, because they
Our goal is not to see a problem
and solve it, but to predict
a problem ahead, before it is on the street,
and try to solve it before it is there
Robin Huizenga, business manager, PTV
find it is easier to do so. But that’s not
necessarily good for society – you need
to find a balance between modes.
Governments are the owners of the
networks and they decide how its going
to work. Similarly, in the future,
autonomous vehicle OEMs will put
their cars on the streets and they will
decide how many will be operating,
based on revenues. At the same time
public transport providers might decide
to get rid of routes that don’t make any
money, but this is not good for society.
It is only the government that cares
about that, so it needs to have an
orchestration of this new system and
for that you need a tool to enable
modes to ‘talk’ to each other.”
that information into connected
vehicles to warn of ice or heavy rain
ahead. Ice is detected using data form
traction sensors.” Here has already
partnered with vehicle OEMs to
provide this type of information, but
following the recent announcement
of a deal with TTWN (Total Traffic
and Weather Network) to enrich its
weather information broadcasting,
Guthridge promises that road
weather could soon be an option for
public sector use in TMCs – “In six
months or a year we will bring you
news on that,” he says.
Reacting to what’s happening
with a traffic situation in real-time is
useful. But data is becoming even
more valuable now it is offering
increasingly accurate predictions of
what is going to happen in the future.
“We are working on predicting 24
hours of flow so we are going more
into predicting – and we are using AI
for that,” says Here’s Pluimers.
PTV’s Huizenga agrees that this is
where the organization’s services are
now able to deliver even more added
value: “Our goal is not to see a problem
and solve it, but to predict a problem
ahead, before it is on the street, and
try to solve it before it is there. So, if
we think there will be a queue, traffic
managers can take measures to stop
the queue before it happens.”
Loops and cameras may be aiding
this process for a while longer, but
with the growing granularity of
floating car data we are now, in a
very real way, entering a world where
all we need to make our roads, safer,
more reliable and less congested is
vehicles driving on them.
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July/August 2019 Traffic Technology International
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