N1005 IBM Research: transportation

Measuring the Pedestrian Pulse during Johannesburg’s EcoMobility Festival

<br /> <br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj52eDx3IWlqYlTp2YK-vk2ZsaoJPLoI5zB-cBE2xCxztyXzeDxZBs3ileV8qnH2uoHMEXEcOlzvP8O9nqCn9a33HR_JjC1ztEcQIEfYT9m1ONpAzlkXB-k09lF6S9wMucClHq_gDYuMFob/s1600/profilephoto_fluus.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj52eDx3IWlqYlTp2YK-vk2ZsaoJPLoI5zB-cBE2xCxztyXzeDxZBs3ileV8qnH2uoHMEXEcOlzvP8O9nqCn9a33HR_JjC1ztEcQIEfYT9m1ONpAzlkXB-k09lF6S9wMucClHq_gDYuMFob/s200/profilephoto_fluus.png" width="173" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Editor’s note: This article is by Francois Luus, research scientist at IBM Research-Africa, Johannesburg</span></i><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">This past October, t<span style="color: #222222;">he central business district of Sandton in Johannesburg, South Africa (named for the combination of the suburbs Sandown and Bryanston) hosted the second annual <a href="http://www.ecomobilityfestival.org/">EcoMobility World Festival</a>. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="color: #222222;">It’s a month-long opportunity for</span> citizens to experience what it would be like to live and work in a city where active street life and social inclusivity is supported by a sustainable and forward thinking urban transportation culture and system that <span style="color: #222222;">gives priority to walking, cycling and public</span> <span style="color: #222222;">transport.</span></span><br /><a name="more"></a> </div><table align="right" border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; margin-left: 6.75pt; margin-right: 6.75pt; mso-border-alt: solid white 1.0pt; mso-border-insideh: 1.0pt solid white; mso-border-insidev: 1.0pt solid white; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-table-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-table-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-table-left: right; mso-table-lspace: 9.0pt; mso-table-overlap: never; mso-table-rspace: 9.0pt; mso-table-top: 1.15pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;"> <tbody><tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">  <td style="border: solid white 1.0pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.25in;" valign="top" width="216"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-left: right; mso-element-top: 1.15pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: large;"><i>As one of Johannesburg’s most dense business districts, more than 100,000 cars enter and leave “Johannesburg’s richest square mile” on a daily basis. The consequences of this congestion impacts residents’ health, productivity, CO2 emissions and air pollution, and general degradation of quality of life.</i></span></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Johannesburg <a href="http://www.ibm.com/blogs/think/2015/11/17/johannesburg-ecomobility/" target="_blank">Mayor Franklyn Mpho Parks Tau</a> and Local Governments for Sustainability converted certain road spaces into ‘ecomobile zones’. Central streets were entirely or partially closed to personal automobiles; park and ride facilities were offered; temporary express lanes for public transport were organized. Priority was given to moving people versus moving vehicles, with the intention of raising awareness and changing commuters’ behavior. And they asked for IBM Research’s help to mobilize – and measure – their citizens’ participation.</span> <br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">One of the most accessible forms of public perception is via social media, such as Twitter. Characterizing the social media conversation around ecomobility, primarily through topic-driven sentiment, is a valuable way of measuring public opinion and understanding.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">IBM Research, which opened its <a href="https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/46013.wss">latest lab</a>in Johannesburg last April, became involved in this project because of our focus on driving innovation in urban renewal. Using <a href="https://www.ng.bluemix.net/docs/#services/Twitter/index.html">IBM Insights for Twitter</a> for live social media tracking and sentiment analysis of whole tweets, we were able to build an interactive, topic-driven sentiment and opinion explorer for Twitter. The custom tool gave us, the mayor, and other city officials a direct and interactive way of differentiating conversations based on sub-topics, such as transport modes, public transport facilities, practicalities and environment issues.</span></div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><div dir="ltr" lang="en">Surely tonight <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Ecomobility?src=hash">#Ecomobility</a>'s rules could've and should've been relaxed to help people get back to their families at a respectable hour.</div>— Marc Lewis (@MarcLewisZA) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarcLewisZA/status/654348963089354753">October 14, 2015</a></blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><div dir="ltr" lang="en">We have relaxed and lifted ecomobility road closures. Thanks^TK <a href="https://t.co/IEpV9qdXGG">https://t.co/IEpV9qdXGG</a></div>— City of Joburg (@CityofJoburgZA) <a href="https://twitter.com/CityofJoburgZA/status/654349167725297664">October 14, 2015</a></blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Untangling Tweets</span></b><span style="color: black; 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; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Sentiment analysis of tweets is particularly difficult because of the frequent occurrence of abbreviated and colloquial speech. Aberrations in tweets can also preclude the use of standard natural language processing, which greatly complicates the task of accurate sentiment analysis. These difficulties are mitigated in part by statistically summarizing the basic sentiment determined by IBM Insights for Twitter.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">An important aspect of the tool that </span><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">IBM Research-South Africa<span style="color: black;"> developed, namely Twitter Engagement Analytics, was a visually-interactive, data-driven user experience that exposes the underlying Twitter insights in a very navigable way to users – in this case, the mayor and city officials. They could explore topics of discussion through live outlines of frequented hashtags, keywords and phrases during EcoMobility month to see – and contribute to – the greatest moments of engagement: the start of EcoMobility month in Johannesburg on 1 October 2015; the heatwave of 5-7 October; and the Grayston scaffolding collapse on 14 October.</span></span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">The Good, The Bad & The Future</span></b></div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><div dir="ltr" lang="en">I took Metrobus to work today. Was early to work and driver was so friendly <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Joburg?src=hash">#Joburg</a> Ecomobility</div>— Londiwe (@marilynmthabela) <a href="https://twitter.com/marilynmthabela/status/649460345497616384">October 1, 2015</a></blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Commuters rediscovered the simple joys of walking as the last part of their journey when using shuttles and buses. Using services such as the Gautrain, a</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"> high-speed intercity rail,</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"> reduced commuter stress in some instances, and new Metrobuses received good feedback from riders. Free park and rides, shuttles and public transport services were one of the main sources of positive sentiment on social media, as were dedicated lanes for taxis, as they interfered less with normal traffic.</span><br /><br /></div><table align="left" border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; margin-left: 6.75pt; margin-right: 6.75pt; mso-border-alt: solid white 1.0pt; mso-border-insideh: 1.0pt solid white; mso-border-insidev: 1.0pt solid white; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-table-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-table-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-table-left: left; mso-table-lspace: 9.0pt; mso-table-overlap: never; mso-table-rspace: 9.0pt; mso-table-top: .05pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;"> <tbody><tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">  <td style="border: solid white 1.0pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.25in;" valign="top" width="216"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: .05pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">EcoMobility Influencers</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: .05pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Public participation in the conversation of ecomobility has been   estimated around 6,000 participants who posted 18,000 tweets. The most influential users to post about EcoMobility were: </span><br /><ul><li><a href="https://twitter.com/mrdannyglover" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Danny Glover</span></a></li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/News24" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">News24</span></a></li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/BBCAfrica" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">BBCAfrica</span></a></li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/eNCA" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">eNCA</span></a></li><li><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"><a href="https://twitter.com/SABCNewsOnline" target="_blank">SABCNewsOnline</a> </span></li></ul></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The role that Twitter played in helping citizens rediscover these joys of mass transportation was as an information dissemination medium constantly used by the organizers to inform the public of available public transportation and ecomobility events that highlight the benefits of urban ecomobility.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">On the flip side, </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">some park and rides, such as the Rosebank Gautrain parking lot, and the Gautrain ticket offices experienced high occupancy and volume at the start of EcoMobility month. General building construction around Sandton was perceived to be a serious safety hazard for pedestrians and cyclists, especially on Rivonia Road; and vehicle drivers complained that construction during EcoMobility deteriorated traffic flow. The temporary cycling lanes on Sandton Drive were also seen as a cause of traffic delay and the lack of dedicated cycling lanes on William Nicol Drive was a definite safety concern for some cyclists.</span><br /><br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><div dir="ltr" lang="en">NEED CYCLE LANES ON WILLIAM NICOL! Terrifying trying to cycle there today! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/EcoMobility?src=hash">#EcoMobility</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/CityofJoburgZA">@CityofJoburgZA</a></div>— Nemanja (@Nem_ZAR) <a href="https://twitter.com/Nem_ZAR/status/651057889411506177">October 5, 2015</a></blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Citizens expressed a great desire, on social media, for improved public transport infrastructure and safety. The government is taking great strides to transform all of Johannesburg into a pedestrian city with more seamless transportation transitions at key intersections and roadways, and by upgrading and building sidewalks.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Maude and West streets, for example, in the future will host widened pedestrian sidewalks and new cycle lanes. And a permanent cycling lane will connect Sandton and Rosebank. The linking between the Gautrain and its bus service with minibus taxi services is also being considered by the City of Johannesburg, since it could better integrate public transport. The Metrobus and Rea Vaya bus services are in the process of being extended to improve area coverage, as well.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Express lanes for car pooling and public transport would be reintroduced on Republic, Sandton Drive and William Nicol in the future. There was an overwhelmingly positive sentiment for dedicated lanes seen on social media, which motivates this reintroduction. Park-&-ride facility ideas were also well received by the public, as measured by 33 percent positive sentiment, versus 4 percent negative sentiment. These facilities will continue at Brightwater Commons, Emperor’s Palace, Montecasino and Westgate.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">All of these findings will help my city move towards a greener future, where every citizen can work and live together in harmony. I admire the community’s willingness to learn, grow and bear the demands faced by an emerging worldwide recognized city. </span></div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><div dir="ltr" lang="en"><a href="https://twitter.com/ICLEIAfrica">@ICLEIAfrica</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/ecomobility_">@ecomobility_</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/CityofJoburgZA">@CityofJoburgZA</a> I enjoyed spending time with you & love the work you're doing for the people & our planet!</div>— Danny Glover (@mrdannyglover) <a href="https://twitter.com/mrdannyglover/status/649835139632009216">October 2, 2015</a></blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>

Africa analytics South Africa transportation Measuring the Pedestrian Pulse during Johannesburg’s EcoMobility Festival

Editor’s note: This article is by Francois Luus, research scientist at IBM Research-Africa, Johannesburg This past October, t he central ...

Traffic at the intersection of sensor data and social media

5:00 AM N1000 0

<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>

crowdsource ibm research - Ireland smarter cities transportation Traffic at the intersection of sensor data and social media

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

Better roads are paved with big data analytics

10:00 PM N1000 0

<i><span style="font-weight: normal;">by Aisha Walcott, mobile engineer at IBM Research-Africa</span></i><br /><br /><table align="center" 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/AVvXsEieZpaY0IEOeUnZnHNtu06wt5LkPSdWesipD3sRiOTjO8XT5ZPl-v7HO62lCZiZbXzTKBBPorLPvIUqwawOfmYN5oVcALFN355YH2i0g1Fj_ti6hPsqkKeRreKWSpeNkthx0aEIC4PQQt27/s1600/aishawalcott.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieZpaY0IEOeUnZnHNtu06wt5LkPSdWesipD3sRiOTjO8XT5ZPl-v7HO62lCZiZbXzTKBBPorLPvIUqwawOfmYN5oVcALFN355YH2i0g1Fj_ti6hPsqkKeRreKWSpeNkthx0aEIC4PQQt27/s320/aishawalcott.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Evans Ondieki, Executive Committee Member,<br />Nairobi City County (L) with Aisha (R)</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Arriving at IBM Research - Africa in Nairobi, Kenya, I knew this was going to be my dream job. As a research scientist, you see the continent of Africa as a huge breeding ground for innovation, and an opportunity to make a tangible impact. As most residents and visitors to Nairobi would say, the bustle of the city paired with a flourishing tech and innovation scene provides an experience unmatched.</span><br /><a name="more"></a><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Unfortunately, those same residents and visitors are severely impacted by a tense traffic issue that challenges the city's infrastructure. In fact, the Nairobi government estimates that traffic jams and roadway problems result in a loss of more than $500,000 USD every day, when measuring lost productivity, fuel consumption, accidents and fatalities and emergency response.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">My role at the Research lab in Nairobi focuses on mobility: environment, water, roadways, and the overall city ecosystem. In a meeting this month with the </span><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Executive Committee Member, Nairobi City County Evans Ondieki, my team learned that, in parallel to the imminent traffic issue, the city's waste management system was operating inefficiently: Nairobi's 3 million citizens generate 2,200 tons of waste each day, but less than half is collected. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/09S5J-asEXs" width="500"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In fact, the city's waste management truck fleet was increased by 300 percent to accommodate the overwhelming amount of waste generated across the city and countryside, but the current systems are hand-written and riddled with inconsistencies like equipment failures, manual reporting that takes a day to process, and traffic jams that slow the pace of collection so much that many locations are missed. At a pace and volume that was too much for the county's fleet to manage, our team, along with colleagues from IBM Research-Ireland and IBM Watson, signed on to help.</span><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh78LKnJtrXFTN9hN6pRn5gfYtunoNGsbJDkgnRFRL3f8h6bOntSxxUj2i29UupwI22JaP_FAmELkGD6mMxgizIwZTSB5Lx9rwMUgu0u1ktems_uUGX_kESTZiyzAQQGRnzofUyHlxHt24/s1600/tierrabills.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh78LKnJtrXFTN9hN6pRn5gfYtunoNGsbJDkgnRFRL3f8h6bOntSxxUj2i29UupwI22JaP_FAmELkGD6mMxgizIwZTSB5Lx9rwMUgu0u1ktems_uUGX_kESTZiyzAQQGRnzofUyHlxHt24/s1600/tierrabills.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">IBM Research-Africa's Tierra Bills working with Nairobi city officials.</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We applied our expertise in big data, analytics and mobile technology to design a first-of-a-kind solution to tackle these problems. Using an unconventional approach, we developed a pilot program in which the benefit was two-fold: by mounting smart devices to the city's waste management trucks, we could, for the first time, collect important data about the fleet, trucks and drivers, while also tracking problems on the roadways.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We became immersed in the work, driving our own cars, sensor devices in-hand, up and down the streets of Nairobi's South Ward C to test and learn how the data was being collected - comparing the readings to what was actually happening in real time. Once we fine-tuned the smart devices, the sensor were installed onto 10 trucks, or as we call them, our "data-collecting ants," gathering and transmitting data, via Safaricom's mobile network, about the truck's location, altitude, speed, acceleration, orientation, vibration levels, among other readings.</span><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia_kuJsElYI7mcz7Q3K0li2y-EpmB4igHV25JTEvbmYtgCjtLjK7Oksqlh56OLl72Ky9FtSNA85GFPW-cHuJQJqLl3H7rhLW3-y03gJScyR6kkqIQuNPlDJ1_jicrh2ss9IF30bepFrW7j/s1600/trucksensor_ibmers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia_kuJsElYI7mcz7Q3K0li2y-EpmB4igHV25JTEvbmYtgCjtLjK7Oksqlh56OLl72Ky9FtSNA85GFPW-cHuJQJqLl3H7rhLW3-y03gJScyR6kkqIQuNPlDJ1_jicrh2ss9IF30bepFrW7j/s1600/trucksensor_ibmers.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">IBM Research-Africa engineers Reginald Bryant (L) and Peter Maina (R)<br />installing sensor on a Nairobi Waste Management truck</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The application sends data in near real-time to our backend where it's processed, then relevant information is sent to a tablet or mobile device that the fleet supervisor can monitor. It provides analytics-based indicators and alerts to improve performance of the entire fleet, as well as maintenance of individual vehicles; assist the supervisory team on driver and truck tracking; and provide information about the storage depots and facilities within the city. The insights will help the city design a more efficient system for picking up waste, so that, for example, areas that are less frequently attended to can be serviced, ultimately helping to improve the ensuing issues of poor sanitation and theft.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In the bigger picture, road blockages, accidents, detours, even unmarked speed bumps and hazardous potholes, could be reported back to city officials for tracking and response. Besides the improvements to waste management, the ultimate goal is to condition Nairobi's streets and related urban infrastructure more efficiently. We hope that the overall economic and social impact of this work will be realized by all residents of Nairobi, and that our solution can scale to surrounding cities, regions and, foundationally, across industries.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Read more about the Silicon Savannah on the <a href="http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2015/07/silicon-savannah.html" target="_blank">Smarter Planet</a>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>

big data ibm research - Africa Internet-of-Things Nairobi transportation Better roads are paved with big data analytics

by Aisha Walcott, mobile engineer at IBM Research-Africa Evans Ondieki, Executive Committee Member, Nairobi City County (L) with Aisha (R) A...