Next Generation Traveler Information System: A Five Year Outlook
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Traveler information is in a state of significant growth and evolution. User expectations, technologies, and the roles of the major participants in the transportation ecosystem are all in motion. Against this backdrop, this report seeks to provide a current snapshot of status in key areas such as traveler needs, technology trends, and business models, and to offer guidance on best practices which may be used by public agencies to navigate this landscape as they develop next generation traveler information systems (NGTIS).
MAJOR TRENDS
Traveler information data has moved from being a siloed set of data collected for transportation uses to being part of the overall "big data" stream that flows to and from consumers. This stream now includes information about drivers, vehicles, and the network that they both move in, from driving behavior patterns to real-time traffic status on freeways and arterials.
Both smartphones and connected infotainment- and telematics-equipped vehicles have become a rich source of these valuable data for private companies, who have uncovered models for monetizing it. As a result, the private sector is moving aggressively to capture, process, and sell traveler information and the resulting services on a global scale. Major data mega-managers, like Google, have included these data in their offerings and continue to integrate it with an ever-expanding collection of new data and functionality.
Further progress in this direction should be expected, as continuing rapid adoption of smartphones and other smart devices provides a widely available platform for both collecting and sharing data and functionality with consumers. Longer term, further adoption of connected infotainment and connected safety solutions will also add to these capabilities.
RECOMMENDATIONS
As a result of these dynamic trends, the traditional role of public sector agencies in providing traveler information must be reconsidered. The outcomes of this assessment will vary from agency to agency, but it is important both to perform such assessments now, as well as to establish processes that ensure regular reviews are executed to help navigate anticipated change in the traveler information landscape over the next 5-10 years.
At the most fundamental level, there is a need for agencies to link business and technology processes more tightly together to ensure that increasingly fast evolution in the consumer and private-sector marketplaces can be quickly understood, and that public sector NGTIS business models and technology suites can effectively respond to these changes.
Additional recommendations based on current trends include:
- Re-visit core goals. Determine the most important objectives to accomplish as an overall Transportation Network Management provider. Document how the collection and sharing of specific transportation data supports those goals, including which data are mission-critical and which can accept varying levels of availability risk.
- Build and monitor a roadmap. The environment in which NGTIS functions is changing rapidly, but the actual changes to a given agency's NGTIS must be made at the right time, in the right way. Building a roadmap allows the agency to set expectations for change. Monitoring key metrics allows validation or refinement of actual changes. In particular, the cross-over points where it makes sense to enter or exit key roles, deploy specific technologies and insource or outsource parts of the overall system should be carefully considered.
- Standardize wherever possible. Standardization facilitates data analysis, sharing and outsourcing as appropriate. The importance of this cannot be overemphasized. Barriers to achieving economies of scale, opportunities for advanced functionality, and effective outsourcing (when appropriate) are all significantly reduced by standardizing data so that it can be easily integrated across systems.
- Measure, measure, measure. The only way to make data-driven decisions is to have the data in the first place. Determine the costs of collecting transportation data and delivering it to consumers. Determine how travelers are actually using the data, and measure how their behavior then impacts the transportation network.
