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City Pulse Captured for Real-Time Tripping

Tracy Staedter, Discovery News

Crowd information can also be gleaned from mobile phone use. Biderman and his colleagues from the SENSEable City Lab already initiated a separate project in Italy, called WikiCity Rome that produces an interactive map showing the location of people in real time based on anonymous and aggregated data collected from cell phones and GPS devices.

Processing the wide variety of sensed information involves customized algorithms that are able to strip the digital data down to its essential message (such as, "Is it the location of a bus?" or, "What is the amount of pollution on the north side of town?").

Once that information is discovered, it is plugged into computer models that can make predictions about traffic and crowd flow.

That way, when a user makes a query such as "what's the fastest route from A to B," the program can analyze the overall system to make the best prediction.

On one day, the fastest route might involve taking a bus because track maintenance is slowing down the subways. On another day, the fastest trip might be by foot, because a parade has closed down a main street used by the bus.

How the user gets the information has to do with the third and final layer: information dissemination.

"It will start on the Web, but ideally it could be on in-car navigation systems, mobile devices or interactive urban furniture," said Assaf

But before they get to that point, they'll have to overcome a couple of hurdles.

"I would find two big challenges. One is putting all of the data providers in agreement. The other big challenge is to make people interested in the system," said Carlos Lisboa Bento, professor of information engineering at the University of Coimbra in Portugal.

The team is working on moving toward agreements particularly with telecommunication and transportation partners. Getting the public interested will involve proving that there is a real advantage to the system.

"One important aspect is that she or he perceives that the system is safe in terms of privacy and security," said Bento.

At the end of three years, Biderman and his team hope to have those problems resolved.

Related Links:

Tracy Staedter's blog: What the Tech?

SENSEable City Laboratory

MIT-Portugal Program

Discovery Channel: Subways in America