09 Oct 2015 GRITS 15 Nov 2016 - Social Media and Traffic Management 1

Gulf Region ITS 2016 Social Media and Traffic Management

Introduction Jim O‘Neill

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Business Summary

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Founded in 1992 by Hagen Geppert and Dr. Karl Will.

Corporations in Germany, USA, and Singapore.

Headquarters in Bernburg (Germany).

Offices in USA, Singapore, and UK.

Certified by ISO 9001:2001 since 1998.

Global Perspective

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GEWI Markets

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Solution designed for all market requirements

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Selected Customers

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Social Media Identified on TT Tour Sept 2015

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Traffic Technologies Tour Purpose:

Information exchange with public agencies in USA.

Capturing problems, trends, solutions, ideas.

Part of GEWI product development process.

Transportation Technology Tour Sept 2015

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Visited:

District offices – city coverage.

Statewide agency.

Multi-state agency.

Social Media:

All using social media/crowd sourced data to some degree.

Evolution of Crowd Sourced Data

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Passive:

Floating car data.

Toll tags.

Cell triangulation.

GPS.

Bluetooth.

Magnetic signature.

Traffic cameras

Active:

Social/App based.

Data Integration Challenges

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Location referencing.

Data quality. (accuracy/duplicates).

Data format (event codes, data mapping).

Harmonize and exchange data with other systems.

Twitter and Traffic

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Most agencies now “Tweet”:

By roadway.

By county.

Efficient distribution to media.

Fewer agencies use Twitter as a data source.

Challenging to integrate data into traffic management centers.

Integrating Tweets and Traffic

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Filter relevant tweets

Incident and location

referencing

Presented to Operator as

Project

Distributed to web, apps

and systems

Data verified and

harmonized

Waze and Traffic Management

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Waze

- Has location referencing

- Incident data.

- Speed data.

- Double parking data. “hot zones”.

- Police activity.

- Confidence factor rating 1-10.

Waze Data Integration

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Data collected

and “related”

Presented to Operator as Project

Distributed to web, apps

systems and Waze

Data verified, corrected &

updated

Social Data and Road Incident Management

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Monitor

Detect

Verify

Inform

Respond

Clear

Social Media - Detect

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Data can be collected and analyzed.

Data meeting certain criteria conditions can be presented to operators:

As new incident project.

As an update to an existing incident project.

Social Media - Verify

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Data with a location can be verified using the “relation” window:

Other incident data.

Cameras.

Speed.

Weather.

Incorrect data can be “muted”.

Data quality feedback loop is possible.

Using Twitter to Inform

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As Traffic & Travel Information is created, tweets can be automatically or manually created.

Using Waze to Inform

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As Traffic & Travel Information is created, updated information is automatically distributed to Waze for all their users.

Social / Crowdsourced Data Considerations

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Crowdsourced incident/speed data

Data not curated.

May suggest non-preferred alternates.

Users can “manipulate” alternates.

DOT can benefit from data exchange.

Use tools to relate/verify data.

Conclusions

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Social media is already playing a role in traffic management.

• Early warning of traffic events.

• Efficient distribution method.

• Can assist in verifying incidents.

Crowdsourced data has benefits for detection / verification.

Location referencing may be an issue.

Curation of user generated data is critical.

Questions?

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