RE: [ABJ30-Friends] Discussion Items for the Mid-Year Agenda(ABJ30:TRB Urban Data Committee)

It is always difficult to figure out boundaries between different TRB committees, so don't forget that there is the Travel Survey Methods committee (ABJ40) that Guy Rousseau is now chairing (and I used to chair it a long time ago). Kouros Mohammadian and I co-chair a New Technology subcommittee and the subcommittee has long discussed GPS, and in fact, I said at the last subcommittee that GPS is not really "new technology" anymore and maybe we should stop discussing it! But, the integration of GPS into smart phones (3G and 4G) is new, so we'll keep it on our list. We also have a Call for Papers out on Cybermining of Social Media to capture travel and activity behavior. http://pressamp.trb.org/CallForPapers/default.asp?event=654&view=committ ee&utm_medium=etmail&utm_source=Transportation%20Research%20Board&utm_ca mpaign=TRB+E-Newsletter+-+05-11-2010&utm_content=Customer&utm_term= I believe that we will be editing this into a full NCHRP proposal statement. Elaine From: abj30-friends-bounces(a)chrispy.net [mailto:abj30-friends-bounces@chrispy.net] On Behalf Of Vladimir Livshits Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2010 10:12 AM To: abj30-friends(a)chrispy.net Subject: RE: [ABJ30-Friends] Discussion Items for the Mid-Year Agenda(ABJ30:TRB Urban Data Committee) Good questions, Emily. A few points for whatever they worth: In our case the first one is kind of rhetorical - we definitely will and are using already new data sources, including commercial travel speed data, GPS household surveys, etc. Some of them are also much more efficient ways, so you can get better/larger sample data at a lower price or a comparable price. We might want to consider a subcommittee on innovations in urban data collection and data management, including data acquisition, data retrieval systems, web-based data portals, etc. It seems to me that travel time and speed data bear the most relevance for the urban environments, so I would agree with you that it probably does belong to this committee. But what and how we collect is changing. I also would suggest another topic related to changing ways of using data and changing applications. We can call it "New requirements for urban data collection and management" or something like that. Specifically we have new emerged needs on the modeling side, that relates to necessity to collect more accurate GPS-based data for activity-based models and another big powerful trend - requirements for data for dynamic traffic assignments on regional or sub-regional scale and microsimulations on both supply and demand sides. We just completed region-wide intersection data collection for TMC and approach counts with simultaneous aerial photography for queue length and density and it was a somewhat difficult exercise - so different ways of doing it might be interesting. As more and more planning agencies move into simulating dynamic phenomena on a disaggregate level new requirements for data become more and more pressing. Vladimir Vladimir Livshits, Ph. D, M. Sc System Analysis Program Manager Maricopa Association of Governments 302 North 1st Ave., Ste. 300 Phoenix, Arizona 85003 www.mag.maricopa.gov vlivshits(a)mag.maricopa.gov (602) 452-5079 FAX (602) 254-6490 From: abj30-friends-bounces(a)chrispy.net [mailto:abj30-friends-bounces@chrispy.net] On Behalf Of Emily Parkany Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2010 8:32 AM To: abj30-friends(a)chrispy.net Subject: [ABJ30-Friends] Discussion Items for the Mid-Year Agenda (ABJ30:TRB Urban Data Committee) Hi! Kate Lawson and I were emailing about the agenda for the Mid-Year Meeting at NATMEC in June in Seattle and I was thinking that it may make sense to have discussions among the participants (in-person and on the phone). I came up with the following discussion topics. Please feel free to edit these (responding to the listserve or me: emily.parkany(a)gmail.com ) and add your own suggestions. 1) Do we need new sources of data? Have people been following the status quo or is the practice moving towards using archived ITS data for planning, GPS surveys, location-based data, etc. 2) Do we have the right skills? What skills do we need new hires to have? Can a TRB workshop or other training address this? 3) Do we have the right subcommittees? What is the impact of census data and archived data among the participants? Should the commitee be considering other subcommittees (for example: travel time, speed, and reliability---and the SHRP 2 Reliability efforts)? 4) Is the urban data committee the right "home" for Travel Time, Speed, and Reliability? [I lean towards yes.] Is there much coordination between these researchers (for example, folks on SHRP 2 Reliability projects) and the committee? Do these topics interest you? Kate suggests that they fit under a "Preparing for the Annual Meeting/State of the Committee" Discussion theme. The mid-year meeting is not very long but this may be our chance to raise some of these issues. When we put an agenda together, I will ask you to think about these topics and I'll solicit opinions that we can put into a Powerpoint presentation to start the discussion. This way, I hope that people can participate before the meeting, in the room, and on the phone. I look forward to hearing from you. Emily Emily Parkany Secretary, ABJ30 Urban Transportation Data and Information Systems