Innovation

By Valentin Stoyanov, Retail/CPG/Transportation Practice, Cisco ISBG

Recently, without fanfare, the world passed a major inflection point in the development of civilization: According to UN-HABITAT, more people now live in cities than in rural environments. By 2050, about two-thirds of the world's population will live in large urban centers.

Transportation has always been a key enabler of human life on the planet. But urbanization is proceeding faster than transportation systems and services have been able to adapt, and it is not the only factor at play. Globalization, generational demographic shifts, and climate change, the latter fueled in part by transportation itself, are all adding to the challenge of growing inefficiencies of urban transport systems, and therefore – adding cost to individuals' lives and the economy.

The results are familiar to any city-dweller. Traffic congestion has reached unprecedented levels. In 2007, the Texas Transportation Institute released its Urban Mobility Report, which estimated that the cost of traffic congestion in the United States was $78 billion in 2005. These costs represent:

• 4.2 billion lost hours, the equivalent of 105 million weeks of vacation
• 2.9 billion gallons of wasted fuel, or 58 full supertankers

Unfortunately, the regulatory frameworks governing transportation haven't changed significantly in the last century: they are still focused largely on attempts to increase the capacity of transport systems to improve the supply of transportation services – the fundamental premise being that transportation and economic growth are tightly coupled. But, because of city design and capital constraints, we are nearing the limits of our ability to increase capacity, which demands physical infrastructure investment that is not only too costly, but carries a heavy environmental impact. Only in recent years local Governments began incorporating more aggressive demand management practices to avoid complete gridlock in our cities.

The key to surmounting this impasse is to look at innovative ways of implementing a balanced and integrated strategy that focuses on modern demand management, combined with maximizing the utilization of existing capacity on the supply side. One such innovation is "Connected Transport Demand and Supply Management (CTSDM)". It focuses on using the ubiquity of Internet technologies, and the consequent rise of pervasive connectivity, to deliver increased efficiency in planning and coordination, in operation, and in consumer use of transportation. By offering governments the ability to better coordinate transportation across jurisdictional lines, operators timely information to enhance the movement of goods and delivery of services, and consumers - better options and incentives for personal travel (or ways to avoid it), CTSDM will play a pivotal role in creating more livable urban environments while reducing the need to add transportation capacity. Consistent with Transportation's fundamental premise, there are two sides of CTSDM that need to work in synch – demand side and supply side. Connected Transport Demand Management (CTDM) is about linking transport planning to other vital areas of urban design and management to support an integrated regional planning framework that takes into consideration the fundamental change that has occurred in the past decade with our increasingly "connected" lives. It is based on the notion, that more and more, we are able to conduct some of life's major activities – work, socializing, entertainment, shopping – from any "hot spot" in and around a city. This includes people's homes, public spaces, cafes, hotel and airport lounges, rented work spaces. When not mandated by a policy or constrained by lack of connectivity, travel becomes a matter of choice, not a necessity.

Two other key technological advancements need to be added to this mix. Emerging high-quality video communications are fueling the rise of highly distributed environments, rich on interactions capability. And, wireless mobility solutions are increasingly delivering all of the above capabilities "on the go". CTDM therefore transforms transport planning from narrowly focused on limiting travel, to becoming a critical part of an integrated regional design framework that empowers the individual, and enables economic development.

Connected Transport Supply Management (CTSM) focuses on three essential urban transport service areas: Connected Public Transit (subway, train, bus), Connected Roads (traffic management), and Connected Services (parking, taxi, car-sharing, bike-renting). CTSM fuels intelligent information sharing. The integration of data from regional transportation networks offers endless opportunities for increased efficiency in the use of the existing infrastructure—in a few years, we will look back in wonder at how much time and money we wasted by our inability to effectively share transportation information. Pervasive connectivity can coordinate traffic lights or supply transport maintenance or emergency response crews with immediate access via portable devices to video surveillance images of reported trouble spots. That same connectivity can also integrate congestion information with GPS tracking information – for better personal and business travel navigation. Freight companies will use this capability extensively for asset tracking and cutting down "empty air" (unused capacity)—to reduce the impact of truck traffic during peak periods. Likewise, that congestion information can be used by corporate scheduling systems to tell employees whether they should work at an alternative location, rather than fight their way in during a major traffic incident.

The last example above highlights one of the most exciting frontiers in connected mobility: empowering consumers to make better choices about transportation. After all, in any urban region, there are only perhaps a dozen of jurisdictions and perhaps thousands of businesses using transportation, numbers somewhat amenable to top-down planning. But there are millions of individuals making choices daily that impact the sustainability of urban life through their use of transportation services. There is no way to organize them from the top; only by offering them ways to improve their travel experience can authorities hope to produce the behavioral changes necessary to overcome the transportation challenge posed by urban growth.

There are a few additional elements of integrated CTSDM that need to be highlighted. The first is the vastly improved ability to implement Intelligent Pricing – anything that involves fare collection and management, on both the supply and the demand side. Sensor and Video technologies at the services edge, combined with analytical software capabilities create the ability to design a real-time environment high in capacity, accuracy, and scale. Consumers are given greater convenience options through related mobile device services (paying a parking fee, buying a transit pass). We are also seeing the rapid growth of time-sensitive road pricing, which often faces strong political opposition. Intelligent Pricing can overcome such opposition by offering options with positive incentives for efficient travel, rather than relying solely on the negatively-perceived incentive of higher cost during peak periods. For instance, a universal mobility account lets consumers buy a single ticket that routes them through multiple transportation modes in the most efficient way possible (e.g., from parking lot to bus or subway). This allows more flexible pricing and can also encourage the modal shift from private vehicles to public transportation.

Another key element of CTSDM is the need for stronger than ever integrated Regional Transport Planning. It is not new, but CTSDM opens new horizons for increased cooperation and the development of a sustainable, long-term blueprint for urban transportation. Information technology is a key element, and an enabler of this strategy. We are starting to see more and more transportation authorities buy into the idea of the Internet as an integrator, using it as a common foundational platform on which many different transport applications and services can not only run, but interact with each other. Add in the growing popularity of city-furnished broadband communications, the rise of the "Internet of Things", connecting billions of devices, and you begin to see the foundation of a much more "connected" regional planning strategy. The Internet also brings authorities, and public and private sector closer, by helping them collaborate more effectively, to create better performing regional transport systems.

It is at this point that possibilities open up for CIO's and CTO's in the Transport Sector globally to drive innovation, by influencing the development of modern city-centered integrated transport planning strategies (public sector) and of connected transport services (private sector), that is – substantiating the promise of Connected Transportation Supply and Demand Management. Imagine the day when we will receive a highly personalized travel assistance service that uses pervasive urban connectivity to integrate and deliver information from multiple sources. Using a variety of information devices (e.g., mobile phones, PDAs, kiosks, PCs, car navigation) and enlisting the exciting capabilities of Web 2.0 and social networking technologies, this service will provide an up-to-the-minute data on the most efficient way to get around in a city or region. It will streamlines transactions (e.g. buying tickets or paying for parking), assists with route selection, and help consumers avoid trouble spots. Just one of the many possibilities that CTSDM has to offer.