N1005 IBM Research: crowdsource

<br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Dublin has one of the most advanced intelligent traffic systems in Europe. The city is full of sensors at its intersections (induction loops counting cars, remotely controlled traffic lights, and traffic cameras) and on its bus fleet equipped with on-board satellite positioning units, all streaming data in real-time. Now, it is turning to crowdsourcing. The city is plugging social media data into its <span style="color: #5b9bd5;"><a href="http://www.insight-ict.eu/">INSIGHT System</a></span>, powered by research done at <span style="color: #5b9bd5;"><a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/labs/ireland/">IBM Research-Ireland</a></span>. Two technologies <span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif;">use data from the commuting public to help urban traffic controllers get a better view of city roads to more-quickly respond to incidents, and issue alerts, thereby improving the accuracy of the Insight system and the availability of traffic alerts for Dubliners.</span></span></span><br /><br /><a name="more"></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPEZYYmJlcsPzrsWq8rqNJSZSvUq49nthIcOd6z4P0HEDgcw2pKNafU89uFs4z3PWtCuOfSGPEHURwTKDVIckCTQG67IljHfDMxy9HrBS_7DozXq0uhNKykBfIdTJlbVZusfE9YKDnGV1m/s1600/jakubmaracek.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPEZYYmJlcsPzrsWq8rqNJSZSvUq49nthIcOd6z4P0HEDgcw2pKNafU89uFs4z3PWtCuOfSGPEHURwTKDVIckCTQG67IljHfDMxy9HrBS_7DozXq0uhNKykBfIdTJlbVZusfE9YKDnGV1m/s1600/jakubmaracek.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jakub Marecek</td></tr></tbody></table><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">As IBM Research-Ireland’s <span style="color: #5b9bd5;"><a href="http://researcher.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=ie-jakub.marecek">Jakub Marecek</a></span> and his numerous co-authors from the INSIGHT project explain in their paper <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;"><a href="https://www.iit.demokritos.gr/sites/default/files/artikis-edbt14.pdf">Heterogeneous Stream Processing and Crowdsourcing for Urban Traffic Management</a></span></i>, at the International Conference on <span style="color: #5b9bd5;"><a href="http://www.edbt.org/">Extending Database Technology</a></span></span><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: NimbusSanL-Bold; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">, </span><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">crowdsourcing is as a tool for resolving ambiguity in intelligent transport systems. </span><br /><br /><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">"It </span><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: CMR9;">queries volunteers close to the sensors that disagree (with reports) and estimates what has actually happened, considering the reliability of participants' responses so far. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: CMR9;">“The benefits of this approach are two-fold. First, more-accurate information is given directly to end users. Second, the complex event processing component of our system makes use of the crowdsourced information to minimise the use of unreliable sources. The traffic modelling component may also use the crowdsourced information to resolve data sparsity.”</span><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-autospace: ideograph-numeric;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-autospace: ideograph-numeric;"><br /></div><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2iy5DLPJAkw" width="420"></iframe><br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Alerting the crowd</span></b><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-autospace: ideograph-numeric;"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">One part of the system is the <span style="color: #5b9bd5;"><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gr.aueb.boutsis.crowdalert.app">CrowdAlert app</a></span>, which ask its users for voluntary confirmation of traffic incidents and additional information. The </span></span><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">free Android app is available on Google Play. When an unusual event, such as a major slow-down, is observed in the induction loops and bus position traces, the users are alerted and, if nearby, are asked for their impression of the causes. In return, the users see a variety of alerts and traffic data on a map-based interface. The Dublin City Council, which manages the system, may also ask users further questions and offer award, such as parking credits for the answers. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-autospace: ideograph-numeric;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-autospace: ideograph-numeric;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">“The CrowdAlert app is city agnostic so it can be used in any city. However, the server handling the data for the application would need to be adapted depending on the types of sensors used in that city,” Jakub said. Warsaw, Poland is now considering a CrowdAlert deployment.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-autospace: ideograph-numeric;"><br /></div><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hYcxPmHh_CA" width="560"></iframe><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 105%;"><br />Crowdsourced tweets on the radio</span></b><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 105%;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-autospace: ideograph-numeric;"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"><br /></span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span style="font-family: helvneue light for ibm,sans-serif;">A prize-winning paper in  Association for Computing Machinery Recommender Systems  Conference</span></span>, <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2799673"><i><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Crowd Sourcing, with a Few Answers: Recommending Commuters for Traffic Updates</span></i>,</a></span></span><span lang="EN-IE" style="color: #5b9bd5; font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i></b><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">by IBM Research-Ireland's <span style="color: #5b9bd5;"><a href="http://researcher.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=ie-elizabeth.daly">Elizabeth Daly</a></span> and <span style="color: #5b9bd5;"><a href="http://researcher.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=ie-MBERLING">Michele Berlingerio</a></span>, and their colleague <span style="color: #5b9bd5;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/francoisschnitzler/home">Francois Schnitzler</a></span>, Senior Researcher at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, details an algorithm that predicts the best Twitter users to follow or query about traffic in Dublin.</span><br /><br /><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">It crowdsources traffic updates </span><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: NimbusRomNo9L-Regu;">based on user engagement level and reputation, which combines the time, and mobility profile of the user; the time of day and locations the user typically communicates about; and the number of queries previously directed at the user. The team evaluated this proposed strategy using a collection of user contributed tweets and live traffic updates from Dublin City Council’s </span><span lang="EN-IE" style="color: #5b9bd5; font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"><a href="http://dublincityfm.ie/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: NimbusRomNo9L-Regu;">Dublin City FM</span></a> </span><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: NimbusRomNo9L-Regu;">radio station <span style="color: #5b9bd5;">@</span></span><span lang="EN-IE" style="color: #5b9bd5; font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"><a href="https://twitter.com/LiveDrive" target="_blank"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: NimbusRomNo9L-Regu;">LiveDrive</span></a></span><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: NimbusRomNo9L-Regu;"> account</span><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">.</span><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: NimbusRomNo9L-Regu;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-autospace: ideograph-numeric;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: NimbusRomNo9L-Regu;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: NimbusRomNo9L-Regu;">The station's DJ broadcasts LiveDrive tweet updates during morning and evening peak traffic times, after a producer monitors incoming alerts, and a camera controller, who has access to a number of the traffic cameras in the city, clarifies reported issues.</span> </span></span><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: NimbusRomNo9L-Regu;">Listeners are incentivised to provide real-time updates, via their own Twitter accounts to the station, with the possibility of receiving free parking vouchers, or a song request – not to mention, the general understanding that if they contribute useful information that benefits others, they too may benefit from the contributions of others.</span><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"> </span><br /><br /><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Using the LiveDrive tweets as the gold standard for other tweets, the researchers were able to build and analyse the reputation of other users who tweeted about traffic. They collected almost 40,000 tweets originating from and directed to the LiveDrive account by almost 2,200 accounts from October 2012 until February 2014.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><div dir="ltr" lang="en">There has been an incident on Nassau St at the junction of Dawson St. Nassau St is blocked and the left turn from Dawson St is also blocked.</div>— Live Drive (@LiveDrive) <a href="https://twitter.com/LiveDrive/status/434222094147411968">February 14, 2014</a></blockquote><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWsrKKUqhUUntGuFExtDqNfzCET9YLs7zPdjQ9ccEWQnBtQuYg1xMLTcSy7lLbaW3rUuKKILwH_JEJKM-rwf_q2sKs2AUIJVbQIg5oIcHuFH9ofre2b-ZEoxDfehwSk5BuCC3kEo2iWOOU/s1600/edaly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWsrKKUqhUUntGuFExtDqNfzCET9YLs7zPdjQ9ccEWQnBtQuYg1xMLTcSy7lLbaW3rUuKKILwH_JEJKM-rwf_q2sKs2AUIJVbQIg5oIcHuFH9ofre2b-ZEoxDfehwSk5BuCC3kEo2iWOOU/s1600/edaly.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Elizabeth Daly</td></tr></tbody></table><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">“We were amazed by the participatory model set up by the radio, which involves user by both broadcasting tweets about traffic, and by receiving alerts from them,” said Elizabeth. </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">“We then wondered: what if LiveDrive had a way to directly contact people using Twitter and ask them about updates on traffic and accidents?” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: ideograph-numeric;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">The researchers were able to accurately predict which Twitter user was most appropriate to provide information, depending on the time of day and location of interest. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: ideograph-numeric;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">“The work is in an experimental stage but speaking to the LiveDrive team they expressed interest in understanding the reputation of the users contributing updates saying some users ‘</span><span style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">are very loyal contributors and we really know we can trust their content. Having a way to see an indication of history of the person contributing the update would really make that easier.” wrote Elizabeth in her paper </span><i><b><span lang="EN-IE" style="color: #5b9bd5; font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2449423&cm_mc_uid=13896970384214436222099&cm_mc_sid_50200000=1444117961"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Westland Row why so slow?: fusing social media and linked data sources for understanding real-time traffic conditions</span></span>.</a></span></b></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "HelvNeue Light for IBM",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 105%;">IBM’s partnership with the Dublin City Council shows that Twitter data and crowdsourcing can successfully add commuters’ voices to the city’s transportation systems. Traffic managers will know about incidents sooner so they can provide commuters with realistic alternative routes and more accurate travel times. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: ideograph-numeric;"><br /></div>

Dublin has one of the most advanced intelligent traffic systems in Europe. The city is full of sensors at its intersections (induction loops...