Turning Data into Information for Transport Decision Making

Transport policy makers, planners and operators around the world are faced with declining budgets along with demanding customers expecting smoothly operating multimodal systems supported by real-time travel information. There continues to be an ever growing source of data and information regarding travel times, travel speeds, modal options, weather, incidents and asset conditions to support planning, modeling and operations of systems. However, high-level decision makers responsible for funding and project decisions do not always have the tools and resources they need to make optimal use of all the new data available to them. This paper presents challenges, best case examples and provides ideas for the future of institutional and technical tools and processes for data to optimize transport systems through exploration of the following topics: (1) Common public and new private sector data sources for planning and policy; (2) Role of Data in Performance Management; (3) Impetus for data integration and transformation to support decision making; (4) New paradigms for data acquisition; (5) Technical challenges such as location referencing, ownership/cost of data or ensuring integrated data is relevant and useful; (6) Data governance techniques to ensure data can be shared and integrated; (7) Integration/fusing/visualization tools; (8) Opportunities to enhance data programs through technologies and collaborations. Several examples of successful transport planning and operations data integration practice using a variety of tools and methods from around the United States are included. European transport agencies will benefit from this paper by gaining insight into methods and ideas for integrating, collecting and harmonizing data. Discussion regarding sharing resources and research between Europe and North America to advance the state of the practice in turning data into information is certainly a benefit to all.

• Record URL:
  • https://aetransport.org/past-etc-papers/conference-papers-2012
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Abstract used by permission of Association for European Transport.
• Corporate Authors:

  Association for European Transport (AET)

  1 Vernon Mews, Vernon Street, West Kensington
  London W14 0RL,    
• Authors:
  • Vandervalk, Anita
• Conference:
  • European Transport Conference 2012
  • Location: Glasgow , Scotland
  • Date: 2012-10-8 to 2012-10-10
• Publication Date: 2012

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Bibliography; Figures; Maps;
• Pagination: 20p
• Monograph Title: European Transport Conference 2012

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Data fusion; Decision making; Multimodal transportation; Real time information; Transportation planning; Travel time; Weather
• Geographic Terms: Europe; United States
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01539790
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Oct 1 2014 3:49PM