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.
I believe that we will be editing this into a full NCHRP
proposal statement.
Elaine
From:
abj30-friends-bounces@chrispy.net [mailto:abj30-friends-bounces@chrispy.net] On
Behalf Of Vladimir Livshits
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2010 10:12 AM
To: abj30-friends@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@mag.maricopa.gov
(602)
452-5079
FAX
(602) 254-6490
From:
abj30-friends-bounces@chrispy.net [mailto:abj30-friends-bounces@chrispy.net] On
Behalf Of Emily Parkany
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2010 8:32 AM
To: abj30-friends@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@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