Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Readiness for Rural and Metro Areas: Nancenado-web
This presentation was delivered at NADO's 2018 Annual Training Conference, held in Charlotte, NC on October 13-16. For more information, visit: https://www.nado.org/events/2018-annual-training-conference/
RV 2014: Performance Measurements People can Actually Understand by Kevin BaconRail~Volution
Performance Measurements People can Actually Understand
How can we measure and make the case for streetcar, light rail and bus rapid transit in an understandable way? How can we use the results to inform the elected officials who are held accountable for transportation decisions? The New Starts Criteria, often used to evaluate projects, can be complicated and confusing to the public. Learn techniques to describe project benefits in line with the values of citizens and elected officials. Hear how California is replacing traditional level-of-service analysis with metrics aligned with environmental goals. Will it lead to more sustainable transportation options and healthier communities, instead of roadway solutions? Come along and find out!
Moderator: Zakhary Mallett, Director, District 7, San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, Oakland, California
Kevin Bacon, Urban Designer, Perkins+Will, Atlanta, Georgia
Amanda Eaken, Deputy Director, Sustainable Communities, Energy & Transportation Program, Natural Resources Defense Council, San Francisco, California
Hal R. Johnson, AICP, Manager of Project Development, Utah Transit Authority, Salt Lake City, Utah
Chris Quinn, Project Manager, Regional Transportation District, Denver, Colorado
Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Readiness for Rural and Metro Areas: Nancenado-web
This presentation was delivered at NADO's 2018 Annual Training Conference, held in Charlotte, NC on October 13-16. For more information, visit: https://www.nado.org/events/2018-annual-training-conference/
RV 2014: Performance Measurements People can Actually Understand by Kevin BaconRail~Volution
Performance Measurements People can Actually Understand
How can we measure and make the case for streetcar, light rail and bus rapid transit in an understandable way? How can we use the results to inform the elected officials who are held accountable for transportation decisions? The New Starts Criteria, often used to evaluate projects, can be complicated and confusing to the public. Learn techniques to describe project benefits in line with the values of citizens and elected officials. Hear how California is replacing traditional level-of-service analysis with metrics aligned with environmental goals. Will it lead to more sustainable transportation options and healthier communities, instead of roadway solutions? Come along and find out!
Moderator: Zakhary Mallett, Director, District 7, San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, Oakland, California
Kevin Bacon, Urban Designer, Perkins+Will, Atlanta, Georgia
Amanda Eaken, Deputy Director, Sustainable Communities, Energy & Transportation Program, Natural Resources Defense Council, San Francisco, California
Hal R. Johnson, AICP, Manager of Project Development, Utah Transit Authority, Salt Lake City, Utah
Chris Quinn, Project Manager, Regional Transportation District, Denver, Colorado
OSGi Community Event 2015
OSGi is a widely used modularity framework for Java, with rapid growth in the enterprise space. Since Java EE6, Contexts and Dependency Injection (CDI) also becomes very popular. One of the significant changes in Java EE7 is that CDI is now enabled by default. Uniting two powerful programming modes, CDI and dynamic services in OSGi, will make OSGi technology even more powerful. OSGi Alliance is working towards standardizing the specification of CDI Integration into OSGi. This session will explain how CDI Integration in OSGi works.
Cellular network evolved gradually .Generations of computer network like 1st generation (1g) ,second generation (2g) evolved .Then came 3g ,4g, each time with increased speed and security
Discover the Top 5 Tech Gadgets of 2015. These innovative technologies improve office efficiency and advance the possibilities in your office environment on a day-to-day basis.
OSGi Community Event 2015
OSGi is a widely used modularity framework for Java, with rapid growth in the enterprise space. Since Java EE6, Contexts and Dependency Injection (CDI) also becomes very popular. One of the significant changes in Java EE7 is that CDI is now enabled by default. Uniting two powerful programming modes, CDI and dynamic services in OSGi, will make OSGi technology even more powerful. OSGi Alliance is working towards standardizing the specification of CDI Integration into OSGi. This session will explain how CDI Integration in OSGi works.
Cellular network evolved gradually .Generations of computer network like 1st generation (1g) ,second generation (2g) evolved .Then came 3g ,4g, each time with increased speed and security
Discover the Top 5 Tech Gadgets of 2015. These innovative technologies improve office efficiency and advance the possibilities in your office environment on a day-to-day basis.
This ppt define the basic concepts of mobile computing. It is the first part of mobile computing.
It defines the following terms
Introduction to mobile computing
Generations of mobile computing
Cellular concepts
Signalling, modulation and Demodulation
Spread Spectrum
Frequency Reuse
Multiple access schemes
GSM
GPRS
CDMA
Updates from our new clients since last time, Fulton Hogan New Zeeland, Finnoc at Papua New Guinea. And updated of Swedish Projects and the road inventory app, Enjoy!
As smart data gradually become mainline data for transportation planning, some obvious flaws in infrastructure decision making become apparent when comparing traditional static data and the dynamic nature of human travel. The static survey, a common source of transportation, encouraged to assign a greater portion of longer trips and predicting more road widening and highways. In reality, shorter trips are dominant in cities. Shared mobility options could provide options for shorter trips. These short trips should be properly corrected and assign in our infrastructure projections when travel demand modeling is developed. Smart data is paving the way to open the door of a new possibility towards shared multimodal cities.
ECT was established in 1997, it is a subsidiary of Salcon Bhd.
Core businesses are Bus Operations for City, Transfer, Shuttle and Tour.
Among the first to transport mono‐gas NGV taxis and busses, surpassing the Standards for safe emissions.
We have an acceptance permit from the Land Public Transport Authority to operate Premier Taxi, Limousine, City Busses & Tour vans or busses.
ECT has an Inbound Tour permit from the Ministry of Tourism.
To date, Eco‐Coach has a fleet of 47 vans, 143 coaches, 7 MPV, 10 limo services vehicles.
Transport: Overview of challenges in road freight and why RTMSTristan Wiggill
A presentation done by Dr Paul Nordengen (Manager: Network Asset Management Systems: CSIR) at the Transport Forum SIG 14 July 2016 hosted by Standard Bank in Cape Town, South Africa.
The theme for the event was: "RTMS - Industry Best Practice and Standards". The topic of the presentation was: "Overview of challenges in Road Freight and why RTMS"
Can valuable ITS data be delivered using camera technologies?Allied Vision
Traditionally Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) data has been collected using a variety of sensors, approaches and techniques. Some of these use simple technologies, offering a narrow view of reasonably robust data; some claim to deliver more data, through complicated technology, linked to equally as intricate processes, but delivering less robust data.
If we accept that data, once processed becomes information, which once categorized becomes intelligence, we must also accept that weaknesses or omissions in any part of this chain can substantially affect the quality of the data, information and subsequent intelligence we receive.
This presentation looks into different forms of data collection, such as electro-magnetic loops and side-swipe radar, and specifically how camera technologies could be used to collect an unparalleled quality of traffic data.
Presentation by Lauren Sager-Weinstein, Head of Analytics, Customer Experience at Transport for London delivered as part of the joint BCS DMSG/DAMA joint event on 18/6/15.
Video version on YouTube at http://youtu.be/ZXMFumjWv2I
Transport for London’s data by its very nature is big— with 45 million bus journeys and 25 million Tube journeys each week being measured along with a variety of transport system data. TfL uses big data tools to combine these data sets to provide insight to our operations and for a better customer experience.
CIR’s Events upcoming are always listed at http://www.hvm-uk.com Go there to plan your excellent networking and tech learning schedule!
CIR is proud to present the takeaways from the Smart Systems Summit 2014 at the prestigious Institute of Directors in Pall Mall, West London 1-2 October. This year's programme was truly excellent, with over 30 speakers.
smart, energy, grids, power, homes. transport, living, sensors, IOT, M2M, Industrial internet, technology, industry, markets, value, innovation, marketing, products, services, monetisation, growth, better
鄭世昐/未來城市的任意門 (Mobility on Demand for Future Cities)台灣資料科學年會
Shih-Fen Cheng is Associate Professor of Information Systems and Deputy Director of the Fujitsu-SMU Urban Computing and Engineering Corp Lab at the Singapore Management University. He received his Ph.D. degree in industrial and operations engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and B.S.E. degree in mechanical engineering from the National Taiwan University.
His research focuses on the modeling and optimization of complex systems in engineering and business domains. He is particularly interested in the application areas of transportation, computational markets, and human decision-making. He is a member of INFORMS, AAAI, and IEEE, and serves as Area Editor for Electronic Commerce Research and Applications.
Similar to 2012 Freight Summit by Luigi Cappel (20)
Software Delivery At the Speed of AI: Inflectra Invests In AI-Powered QualityInflectra
In this insightful webinar, Inflectra explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming software development and testing. Discover how AI-powered tools are revolutionizing every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), from design and prototyping to testing, deployment, and monitoring.
Learn about:
• The Future of Testing: How AI is shifting testing towards verification, analysis, and higher-level skills, while reducing repetitive tasks.
• Test Automation: How AI-powered test case generation, optimization, and self-healing tests are making testing more efficient and effective.
• Visual Testing: Explore the emerging capabilities of AI in visual testing and how it's set to revolutionize UI verification.
• Inflectra's AI Solutions: See demonstrations of Inflectra's cutting-edge AI tools like the ChatGPT plugin and Azure Open AI platform, designed to streamline your testing process.
Whether you're a developer, tester, or QA professional, this webinar will give you valuable insights into how AI is shaping the future of software delivery.
Accelerate your Kubernetes clusters with Varnish CachingThijs Feryn
A presentation about the usage and availability of Varnish on Kubernetes. This talk explores the capabilities of Varnish caching and shows how to use the Varnish Helm chart to deploy it to Kubernetes.
This presentation was delivered at K8SUG Singapore. See https://feryn.eu/presentations/accelerate-your-kubernetes-clusters-with-varnish-caching-k8sug-singapore-28-2024 for more details.
Transcript: Selling digital books in 2024: Insights from industry leaders - T...BookNet Canada
The publishing industry has been selling digital audiobooks and ebooks for over a decade and has found its groove. What’s changed? What has stayed the same? Where do we go from here? Join a group of leading sales peers from across the industry for a conversation about the lessons learned since the popularization of digital books, best practices, digital book supply chain management, and more.
Link to video recording: https://bnctechforum.ca/sessions/selling-digital-books-in-2024-insights-from-industry-leaders/
Presented by BookNet Canada on May 28, 2024, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
Neuro-symbolic is not enough, we need neuro-*semantic*Frank van Harmelen
Neuro-symbolic (NeSy) AI is on the rise. However, simply machine learning on just any symbolic structure is not sufficient to really harvest the gains of NeSy. These will only be gained when the symbolic structures have an actual semantics. I give an operational definition of semantics as “predictable inference”.
All of this illustrated with link prediction over knowledge graphs, but the argument is general.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 4DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 4. In this session, we will cover Test Manager overview along with SAP heatmap.
The UiPath Test Manager overview with SAP heatmap webinar offers a concise yet comprehensive exploration of the role of a Test Manager within SAP environments, coupled with the utilization of heatmaps for effective testing strategies.
Participants will gain insights into the responsibilities, challenges, and best practices associated with test management in SAP projects. Additionally, the webinar delves into the significance of heatmaps as a visual aid for identifying testing priorities, areas of risk, and resource allocation within SAP landscapes. Through this session, attendees can expect to enhance their understanding of test management principles while learning practical approaches to optimize testing processes in SAP environments using heatmap visualization techniques
What will you get from this session?
1. Insights into SAP testing best practices
2. Heatmap utilization for testing
3. Optimization of testing processes
4. Demo
Topics covered:
Execution from the test manager
Orchestrator execution result
Defect reporting
SAP heatmap example with demo
Speaker:
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey 2024 by 91mobiles.pdf91mobiles
91mobiles recently conducted a Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey in which we asked over 3,000 respondents about the TV they own, aspects they look at on a new TV, and their TV buying preferences.
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
Dev Dives: Train smarter, not harder – active learning and UiPath LLMs for do...UiPathCommunity
💥 Speed, accuracy, and scaling – discover the superpowers of GenAI in action with UiPath Document Understanding and Communications Mining™:
See how to accelerate model training and optimize model performance with active learning
Learn about the latest enhancements to out-of-the-box document processing – with little to no training required
Get an exclusive demo of the new family of UiPath LLMs – GenAI models specialized for processing different types of documents and messages
This is a hands-on session specifically designed for automation developers and AI enthusiasts seeking to enhance their knowledge in leveraging the latest intelligent document processing capabilities offered by UiPath.
Speakers:
👨🏫 Andras Palfi, Senior Product Manager, UiPath
👩🏫 Lenka Dulovicova, Product Program Manager, UiPath
DevOps and Testing slides at DASA ConnectKari Kakkonen
My and Rik Marselis slides at 30.5.2024 DASA Connect conference. We discuss about what is testing, then what is agile testing and finally what is Testing in DevOps. Finally we had lovely workshop with the participants trying to find out different ways to think about quality and testing in different parts of the DevOps infinity loop.
Essentials of Automations: Optimizing FME Workflows with ParametersSafe Software
Are you looking to streamline your workflows and boost your projects’ efficiency? Do you find yourself searching for ways to add flexibility and control over your FME workflows? If so, you’re in the right place.
Join us for an insightful dive into the world of FME parameters, a critical element in optimizing workflow efficiency. This webinar marks the beginning of our three-part “Essentials of Automation” series. This first webinar is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills to utilize parameters effectively: enhancing the flexibility, maintainability, and user control of your FME projects.
Here’s what you’ll gain:
- Essentials of FME Parameters: Understand the pivotal role of parameters, including Reader/Writer, Transformer, User, and FME Flow categories. Discover how they are the key to unlocking automation and optimization within your workflows.
- Practical Applications in FME Form: Delve into key user parameter types including choice, connections, and file URLs. Allow users to control how a workflow runs, making your workflows more reusable. Learn to import values and deliver the best user experience for your workflows while enhancing accuracy.
- Optimization Strategies in FME Flow: Explore the creation and strategic deployment of parameters in FME Flow, including the use of deployment and geometry parameters, to maximize workflow efficiency.
- Pro Tips for Success: Gain insights on parameterizing connections and leveraging new features like Conditional Visibility for clarity and simplicity.
We’ll wrap up with a glimpse into future webinars, followed by a Q&A session to address your specific questions surrounding this topic.
Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your FME expertise and drive your projects to new heights of efficiency.
Builder.ai Founder Sachin Dev Duggal's Strategic Approach to Create an Innova...Ramesh Iyer
In today's fast-changing business world, Companies that adapt and embrace new ideas often need help to keep up with the competition. However, fostering a culture of innovation takes much work. It takes vision, leadership and willingness to take risks in the right proportion. Sachin Dev Duggal, co-founder of Builder.ai, has perfected the art of this balance, creating a company culture where creativity and growth are nurtured at each stage.
2. Agenda
• GeoSmart
• Preparing for The Future
• Next Generation Road Data Capture
• The Cost of Traffic Congestion
• Real Time Traffic Services
• Ecorouting and Sustainability
• Camber and Rollover
• Telematics
• Route Optimisation
• Location Based Business Intelligence
without GIS
• The Future is Here
3. GeoSmart - What we do
CORE SERVICES
• CARTOGRAPHY
• CAR NAVIGATION
• FLEET
MANAGEMENT
SOLUTIONS
• WEB MAPPING
SOLUTIONS
• ROUTE2GO
• AA TRAFFIC
• BIonaMap
FIELD CAPTURE
Field
Capture
GPS Driving
Business POI
Amenity POI
Imagery Aerial
Satellite
Terrestrial
Cadastral Property data
Address NZ Post
LINZ
Councils
Live
content
Real Time
Traffic
Parking
Flight data
Ferry
Bus
Events
Data
Processing
&
Aggregation
4. Preparing For the Future
•Change happens
•NZ is a small market with a small population
•NZ’ers are innovative
•NZ has a difficult geography
•Innovation is expensive, so is lack of innovation
5. Next Gen Collaboration: GeoSmart Data Capture Vehicle - RAPIDcV
The Objectives
• To speed up the data capture process
• To improve accuracy
• To improve currency of data
• To capture more POI data
Some Features of the Car Road Attribute and Points of Interest Data Collection Vehicle
• Maps in real time to an absolute accuracy of +0.15m
• Incorporates 3 gyros so that it can continue mapping in real time if in the event of loosing the
differential GPS signal
• Uses 5 cameras to record
• Turn Restrictions
• Road furniture (Signs, barriers, bridges, bus stops etc)
• Lane counts and position of vehicle within the lane
• Points of Interest
• Captures Streetscape 360 degree photos every 50m along the road
6. The Cost of Traffic Congestion
Roads never keep up with demand
7. Auckland Traffic Congestion
In 1999 Michael Barnett estimated the time-cost to businesses of Auckland’s traffic
congestion at NZ1 billion annually.
Has it improved? What about the rest of the country?
8. Traffic Congestion is not Confined to Auckland
“A 9km trail of traffic is building on State
Highway 1 after a truck crashed near
Warkworth.”
9. Real Time Traffic Services
• Map display of the actual location of each road
event
• Includes accidents, incidents, weather related
events and road works.
• Shows both Current and Forecasted events.
• Forecasted events can be events coming up for
each night only or can be for events well into the
future
• Map display of Traffic flow information across NZ
• Can filter information based on areas
Available at www.AAMaps.co.nz and www.AARoadwatch.co.nz
10. Detailed Urban and Rural Traffic information
Example of AA Traffic working
A car accident on Monday 20th Dec in
the Karangahake Gorge – this was
immediately visible in AA Traffic by
LIVE Traffic flow data
Example of the level of granularity in urban areas
11. Journey Times - AARoadwatch
• We can select a
specific route(s) and
report live travel times
for every minute
showing:
– Live travel time
– Normal travel time
(historical average)
– Ideal Travel time
(no congestion)
• Routes can be on any
main roads across NZ
• Roads are highlighted
based on trip time
performance:
– Black <25% ideal speed
– Red is 25-50% of ideal
speed
– Yellow is 50-75% of ideal
speed
– Green is >75% of ideal
speed
12. Trip Times - Forecast
Four months of averaged traffic speed data for the route from the Railway
Station in Central Wellington to the Airport for each hour of the day
5.0
15.0
25.0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Minutes
WELLINGTON - RAILWAY STATION TO
AIRPORT - Monday
5.0
15.0
25.0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Minutes
WELLINGTON - RAILWAY STATION TO
AIRPORT - Tuesday
5.0
15.0
25.0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Minutes
WELLINGTON - RAILWAY STATION TO
AIRPORT - Wednesday
5.0
15.0
25.0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Minutes
WELLINGTON - RAILWAY STATION TO
AIRPORT - Thursday
5.0
15.0
25.0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011121314151617181920212223
Minutes
WELLINGTON - RAILWAY STATION TO
AIRPORT - Friday
5.0
15.0
25.0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011121314151617181920212223
Minutes
WELLINGTON - RAILWAY STATION TO
AIRPORT - Saturday
13. TomTom funded independent research in
2011 has shown that if you are
informed, you can reduce your journey
times by 15%
and
In the future, if 10% of drivers were all
informed, the collective effect would be
an additional 5% reduction in journey
times for all motorists
14. Australasian Real Time Traffic
TomTom HD Traffic
Connected GPS Nav devices with SIM
Cards can access real time traffic
information anywhere there is coverage in
NZ and Australia
15. Real Time Traffic and Fleet Visibility
• Real Time Traffic on GPS Navigation can alert
the driver, hopefully before it is too late.
• Fleet systems can overlay your vehicles and
the real time traffic congestion on the same
map, operators can see the full picture.
• Trips can be rerouted or rescheduled
• Customers or connecting services may be
alerted
19. Route Optimisation
• The domain of large operators
• Road Transport Forum of NZ says:
– 5,095 individual road transport firms
– 4,276 have 0-5 trucks
– Many have mortgaged their homes and are totally
reliant on getting as much work as possible
• Many don’t have technology solutions beyond
Fleet Management for RUC, their mobile
phone or 2-way radio, and PC at the home
office.
22. Then What?
• Just the beginning.
– Time constraints
– Real Time optimisation based on current traffic conditions
– Next best job based on current traffic conditions
– Routes based on historic conditions for time of day or day
of week
This is not an advertorial, but I need to give you an idea of where our perspective comes from. Our core business is collecting the most accurate possible data and providing means for solutions and products to use it. We are a wholly owned subsidiary of the NZ Automobile Association and the principal supplier of location based / map data to a wide variety of industries. Our origin was in aerial photography and rectified LIDAR orthophotography ( jargon for turning a 3D image into an accurate 2D image) for central, regional and local government and when we saw opportunities such as car navigation and fleet management coming, we looked at how we could expand our business.We began with LINZ data for roads and UBD data for Points of Interest and started work with Navman and some car manufacturers including BMW and started trying to navigate with this data. We rapidly found that the data was highly inaccurate, for example the maps were not only spatially inaccurate but something like 20% of the roads on the data physically didn’t exist., I’m sure you’ve heard of paper roads. The shareholders sold 60% of the company to VC’s in order to gain the capital to drive every road in New Zealand. This is work we continue to do with greater and greater accuracy. Around 4 years ago we were purchased 100% by the NZAA, allowing us to do R&D and develop services that would have been very difficult for a smaller private company.
So fundamentally our business is that of forecasting what data our existing and future clients will need and have it ready to coincide with their product development and delivery timelines. Our clients include the leading brands of car navigation, vehicle tracking and fleet management, transport engineers, government and motorists including 1.3 million AA members. Location based products and services are designed to meet problems and there are many, hence the demand for a conference like this.In order to be in sync with future developments we need to be 2 steps ahead and often that means we need to develop technology that doesn’t readily exist to help alleviate problems that currently may not be seen have effective solutions. If you aren’t going forward you are going backwards.
One of the first problems we had was data quality. We initially drove NZ with differential GPS, which was the technology of the day. One of the biggest problems was how to get a highly accurate road centerline, LINZ which is the official font of road data was not designed for or suitable for our needs. We couldn’t find a solution that dealt with issues such as GPS shadow, urban canyons or anything that provided the accuracy that we needed to meet the needs of technologies being developed. We worked together with highly skilled Kiwi engineers and developed our own technologies, resulting in the RAPIDcV. Now we have been able to collect road centerline and a wealth of other data to an accuracy level we haven’t seen anywhere else in the world. At least in the civilian world. In order to provide the sorts of solutions that your enterprises will be using this year and well into the future, you have to start with a high quality baseline. Near enough is not good enough.
I was first introduced to the laws of traffic congestion in an issue of New Scientist on a flight home from a conference in London. Road researcher Anthony Downs, who was far from being first, reportedhis law of “peak-hour” congestion in 1962. He said “This Law states that on urban commuter expressways, peak-hour traffic congestion rises to meet maximum capacity.” Economists Gilles Duranton and Matthew Turner of the University of Toronto 2011 came up with the three-pronged “fundamental law of highway congestion” that explains why road construction can never keep pace with road congestion: 1: People drive more when the stock of roads in their city increases; 2. commercial driving and trucking increase with a city’s stock of roads; and 3. people migrate to cities which are relatively well provided with roads. So the answer isn’t necessarily build more or bigger roads. Of course the NZ population continues to grow as we live in such an attractive country and a wonderful place to raise a family.
That was 13 years ago. At that time the Auckland Business Forum was established out of frustration to this problem. Some of the members are probably here today. They include the Auckland Regional Chamber of Commerce, EMA Northern, Ports of Auckland, Auckland International Airport, The NZAA who own GeoSmart, who I am representing and National Road Carriers. David Aitken, Executive Director of National Road Carriers was quoted in the NZ herald on August 11 2009, 10 years later as saying that "Carriers make 500,000 trips in the Auckland region every day but this is going to double by 2025. We need a lot more infrastructure to deal with it." Again, this slide is only about Auckland.
The one on the right is actually on the M1 near Ipswich in Australia and was one of two majors within an hour. Accidents happen. They happen every day, believe me I know, we run the AA Traffic Service in New Zealand and also provide the data for TomTom’s HD Traffic throughout both Australia and NZ.
One of the first things we did when AA purchased us was rebuild the AA Roadwatch service, used by most commercial road users and AA members. We then got together with a number of Fleet Management partners and arranged to collect anonymous data from certain types of commercial road users with location, bearing and speed across all State Highways and arterial roads throughout New Zealand. We have been collecting, processing and storing that data now for almost 2 years. That means that in addition to real time data, we have historical raw data and aggregated data in 15 minute segments throughout New Zealand for the whole country outside of residential streets and minor roads.
This data allows us to provide a variety of alert services including on web sites, to car navigation, mobile SMS and email alerts, and applications. Often we know about accidents or incidents before they have even been reported to us because we have access to the congestion flow information. The best known web sites are AA Roadwatch and AA Maps.
Another web page is AA Journeytimes which can help people make decisions before they head out on the road and for dispatchers and fleet controllers to keep an eye on in real time. These sites are used by a variety of services from couriers through to the Corrections Department.
We can generate reports for any predefined routes by time of day, day of the week and so on. A similar report to this one across SH2 over the Rimutakas showed us slow traffic northbound at around 1AM on certain weekday mornings, suggesting freight trucks trying to avoid the busier traffic during the day. This sort of information could be a valuable resource for freight management planning new routes and for authorities wanting to understand usage without investing in expensive technology or people with clipboards on specific road segments.
The most in demand feature in car navigation around the world today is real time traffic. You may know where you are going, but you don’t necessarily know what is happening on the road ahead. We constantly see images on TV news of lines of stationery vehicles on the road due to accidents, slips, flooding, snow and other obstacles. We are also advised in advance of planned road closures for maintenance, sporting events or other reasons. Now that car navigation has become a connected service, it is possible to send information direct to the vehicle within minutes of notification being received in our call centers. Because of the quality of the AA Traffic service in New Zealand, our country was the first country outside of Western Europe to adopt TomTom’s HD Traffic service. They were so pleased with that, that in spite of there already being a service in Australia from another supplier, they felt ours was better and asked us to consider developing a similar service there. We did that and late last year HD Traffic was launched in Australia, managed by our call centers and technology in New Zealand. Of course that means that we are also collecting and collating historic data throughout Australia.
There are many consequences to not being able to complete a trip on schedule. Deliveries and service levels are not met, this causes a concertina effect on subsequent work. Drivers can’t continue because they run over their hours. Perishable goods may be compromised. Penalties for late delivery. Connections such as shipping or just in time stocking of retailers fail. Additional vehicles and relief drivers may be required. These are just a few. Everybody hurts.Real Time Traffic technology doesn’t solve the problems any more than building extra roads does. It does allow decision makers to be informed so that they can minimize the consequences.
How many of you have KPI’s or commitments to Sustainability? It is no longer just a buzzword. Governments and companies now have a focus on reducing carbon emissions and there is now significant evidence that it is more profitable to have a green policy, whether that be because it actually saves money, whether carbon emissions are taxed, or businesses and government departments either prefer to, or become required to do business with eco friendly transport companies. Earlier I mentioned our RAPIDcV mapping car technology. As well as mapping the roads to sub 1 meter accuracy we are also measuring inclinometer, that is the gradient of hills. By computing vehicle characteristics in conjunction with road conditions it may be found that going the long way around hills instead of over them is actually cheaper in terms of carbon footprint, maintenance and running costs as well as winning support of customers. Road geometry in terms of angles of corners is also important. Tight corners mean more gear changes (even if the vehicle is an automatic) and this increases wear and tare on the vehicle, fuel consumption and is harder work for the driver, increasing risk of accidents.Our data for navigation includes implicit turn restrictions which are turns which may be legal but may be difficult or impossible for large vehicles to maneuver. This data is used in our routing tables to ensure vehicles don’t end up stuck, unable to go forward or backwards without assistance. We have 3 times as many implicit turn restrictions in our data than we have legal turn restrictions such as one-way streets, no right turns etc.
Prize for first person to tell me where the road on the right is. New Zealand is a country of diverse conditions. We take pride in building quality roads with well engineered corners designed to meet the demands of all road users. Mother nature has a different perspective. She provides earthquakes, geothermal activity, floods, slips and other entertaining distractions. The fact that a corner is designed to enable a truck to maneuver through it at 70km per hour and was built to that specification, doesn’t mean it will stay that way. Earth moves, corners move and trucks roll over.The problem is that unless it is discovered subsequent to an accident or by inspection, the condition may be unknown. We are collaborating with Fleet Management companies and transport consultants to explore ways of dealing with this. The RAPIDcV has collected camber data throughout most of the country for this purpose. By combining rollover characteristics of specific trucks, with known chassis details and rollover specifications, it will soon be possible to alert a driver that he is going to fast for the corner he is approaching, even if he has a legal load and is obeying the road warning signage. Load cells on trucks make it possible to identify the weight of the vehicle including the freight it is carrying at that point in time. This has dramatic implications on reduction of heavy vehicle accidents and all the consequences. I don’t know what the annual cost is of roll over incidents on corners, but it is way too high and hurts everyone. Many of these incidents can be avoided with technology currently being developed in New Zealand.
Telematics have been around in Fleet Management for a long time. Systems vary in complexity but even at basic level they record where a vehicle is, where it has been and when. It records things like engine conditions, air bag deployments, driver behavior such as speeding, harsh braking, starting in second gear, idling time, temperature of refrigerated units and much more. It won’t be long before this technology becomes mainstream. Car manufacturers are chasing developers to create in car apps as quickly as they can for everything from in car entertainment through to tourism event and accommodation reservations, car park availability and more. Companies like eRoad and International Telematics have services such as eRUC, allowing the purchase of road user charges from a digital hubometer without having to leave the cab. We are now able to communicate a wealth of information to and from the vehicles, providing alerts and instructions to the drivers, service information to partners such as tyre and service companies, all of which produce business efficiencies and safety improvements.
Route optimisation has traditionally been very expensive and has required equally expensive people to run it. Companies with large vehicle fleets, can easily amortize the cost of dispatch systems, route optimisation and end to end ERP solutions and really can’t do without it. Smaller companies, typically family businesses tend to be good drivers, good at developing personal relationships with their clients, have good skills when it comes to load management, driving and being flexible when their customers needs change. However they run on tight budgets where the slightest change can impact on their profitability. They don’t have spare trucks, spare drivers and until now haven’t had access to smart business decision making technology. This has no changed.
Once we had developed a full turn restriction dataset, we began looking at how we could user our data to solve business problems. A large field service company came to us in 2005, you may recall 91 unleaded petrol prices went from around $1.12 a liter, peaking at $1.50 a liter. Their fuel bill for the last 2 calendar months of the year was going to be close to $100,000 more than they had budgeted for. That’s not their fuel bill, that’s just the differential between the price changes. Now of course its over $2 a liter, double what it was back then. I don’t have time to tell you the full story, but their field staff were not highly remunerated and they were expected to manage and juggle a variety of client visits and ensure that all of them were met each month. They very rarely achieved that. Vehicles zigzagged all over the country to whatever logic the drivers did or didn’t apply. In short, we jointly came up with a solution that combined route optimisation with their Job Management systems, then sent the jobs in optimized order to mobile data terminals in the vehicles, which were connected to in-car navigation. We took away all the guess work, used our data to identify the best sequence of work based on factors such as turn restrictions, road hierarchy, speed zones and more. This was a very expensive solution but payback only took around 18 months for the entire fleet.
We brought in specialist engineers to help develop a web application, effectively a Software as a Service application that could be used by anyone who has a web browser, to bring the same power down to a business as small as a single furniture store with one truck or van. This allows people to geocode or generate the coordinates for each stop, which may include private or public roads. Optimisation often doesn’t end at the roadside. As per the Starship example here, Auckland Hospital has a number of roads within it. Once we have the coordinates including the start and finish location, we can use the Traveling Salesman problem to generate the fastest route, including things like avoiding zigzag, an important feature for rubbish trucks that can only do one side of the road and are too big to do a u-turn.
One size doesn’t fit all. What we know is that a human can’t deal with every combination of every address they have to visit in a run. Even with local knowledge we have found that in almost every case, we are able to reduce travel time and distance for anything more than 5 or 6 stops in a trip. With many resource management applications we find that 75% of the ROI comes from getting the basics right. Then we start fine tuning. New Zealand isn’t unique and we are now offering these services in Australia and looking farther afield. Probably the biggest differences for us is the size and geography of the country vs the size of the population and the fact that most businesses in NZ are small businesses. This means that the pain and consequences are greater when obstacles are placed in the way of road using businesses.
Business Intelligence is high up on the Gartner Hype Cycle right now and Location is on the radar. Just as with the route optimisation tools, we now have tools which allow us to view and interrogate our business information without having to buy GIS software. You can upload information from spreadsheets, your ERP or accounting software. You can view your customers on a map and then run queries displaying the results on a map. This can be used to fine tune territories or runs visualizing anything you have information about. It could be cleaning orphan clients that are in the wrong territory, deliveries that need large vehicles or specialist equipment, runs by day of week, runs by profitability. The great thing with these tools is that all you need is a web browser and the results of the queries are available almost on demand. The nimble small operation can now have access to the same types of tools that large corporates have. Enhancements for these tools currently being developed also include being able to view real time traffic. Of course these applications are also available for large corporates and versions of this are already being used by large multinationals on both sides of the Tasman.
In China, colours are really important. Yellow or Gold is a good luck colour, so no problem selling baby bottles with yellow tops in these areas. However Blue or dark blue is used for sadder occasions such as death and mourning. Now you know why there was a stock problem in these areas where the population is made up of equal to or more than 40% of the population. This sort of technology used to cost tens of thousands of dollars and the GIS specialists to run it are expensive too. OK if you’re a bank, a telco, an insurance company or a large corporate. But imagine if this information was available to decision maker in the company who has a browser. That will be a reality in a matter of weeks. All they need is to be able to access a CSV file which contains coordinates and of course there is a geocode tool available for that too. Now they can look at any of their corporate data and mine it. Sales, financial, assets, prospects, competitor information. If you can provide the user with a CSV file, it will automatically take the headers and allow boolean searching with the results viewable on a table, on the map and output. There is a lot more of course but I’m almost out of time. I’d just like to have you consider, if you had a loyalty program you could know where your customers live, work, shop and play. Information is power.
As a member of the World Future Society I went into our organization web site and had a look at predictions that some of our members made for 2030. I found that GM said they would have commercially available driverless cars well before then, so I thought I’d check on driverless trucks. They are operating already in Australia right now as we speak and as the clip says, they are managed from an operations centre 1500km away. Obviously these are not on public roads, but in some ways that makes the risk greater, even if not to the public because they don’t navigate to the confines of a specified road. It all comes down to communications and quality data. It is the work we are doing today that will allow automated technologies such as freight train networks, super heavy trucks and smart decision making dispatch and fleet management operations possible for operators of all sizes. New Zealand has the ability to be a world leader in industries supporting freight and distribution and Kiwi companies are already having success on the world stage, because proportionally the pain and costs of being a country with a difficult geography and a small population makes it essential. Productivity and sustainability aren’t things we can take in our stride if we want to maintain the lifestyle that keeps us in New Zealand.
If oil availability to the West dropped 30% and the price of what was available doubled next year, what would that mean to your business? What would it mean to New Zealand. Shall we wait and see?