(Published in Business Mirror under the Mirror Image column, June 3, 2009)
Traffic congestion is choking the air and economies of cities everywhere. Worldwide, cities are wrestling with the environmental, economic and social impact of increasing urban congestion, resulting from too many vehicles on roads built during the last century and demand simply exceeding capacity.
According to the US Department of Transportation, traffic congestion costs the United States $200 billion annually. Not only is this a huge waste of money, the Texas Transportation Institute reported that it also contributes to a loss of 7 billion hours stalled in traffic and $2.3 billion gallons of wasted fuel per year.
In the Philippines there are 3,000 passenger buses making a total 32,000 trips that go along Edsa daily, according to the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA). An average bus can accommodate 60 people. Occupancy rate of these buses is only 66 percent per vehicle. This means that on the average, public buses along Edsa have 640,000 empty slots available per day. A daily income ranging from P7,680,000 to 19,200,000 for these buses are lost due to poor transportation-management systems.
The problem is only getting worse as mass urbanization is increasing dramatically. By next year, 59 cities worldwide are forecast to have populations of 5 million or more, up nearly 50 percent since 2001.
Doing nothing is no longer an option. Building more roads isn’t the answer, either. We need to make better use of existing infrastructure—such as roads and rail tracks—while also building new, smarter transportation systems.
Cities that embrace new models and technologies across all transportation modes will be best positioned to address the impact of mass urbanization and thrive in an increasingly competitive global market.
New transportation solutions, such as congestion charging and real-time traffic prediction and management, are playing a significant role in helping cities to reduce congestion, improve their environments and, ultimately, enhance the quality of life of their citizens.
By creating smarter transportation systems, we’ll be able to predict the need for passenger transportation based on population trends, changes in where people live and work, as well as local events and the congestion at a given street intersection.
We’ll be able to recognize patterns and be able to rapidly adjust schedules, traffic routing, vehicle spacing, and speeds to changing conditions and for safety.
But these systems won’t be completely effective until they are instrumented, interconnected and intelligent, and this is starting to happen.
We’re already instrumenting vehicles in all modes of transportation, the infrastructure they move on, streets and traffic lights, aging bridges, high-speed railroad tracks and trains, airline baggage and aircraft parts, subway tunnels, ticket systems, and even the mobile devices carried by travelers so we can understand where they are going, when, how often and perhaps why.
Instrumentation is all about sensing what is happening right now, whether it is the temperature of a train wheel bearing, the location of a misplaced suitcase, metal fatigue in a bridge, or the number of cars on a highway at 6 a.m.
Within a single mode of transportation, collecting and sharing information across the operating ecosystem can yield dramatic capabilities. Extending this concept across modes of transportation exponentially increases the potential benefits.
For example, a high-speed passenger train is running at 350 kph from Beijing to Shanghai. Digital video surveillance and on-train sensors recognize that the train has slowed unexpectedly. Without human intervention, the system instantly relays this information to the train following four minutes behind, automatically slows the second locomotive at a safe rate of deceleration, and notifies the operator.
Intelligent transportation systems can play a key role in improving the quality of everyday life for urban citizens, reducing traffic congestion, improving air quality, and improving road access for public transportation and emergency vehicles.
In Stockholm, Sweden, a seven-month congestion-charging pilot saw traffic entering the city decrease by 25 percent, a 40-percent drop in greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and an increase of 6 percent in the number of travelers using public transport.
What we need is a smart transportation system equal to the needs of the 21st century—a system that reduces travel times and increases mobility, a system that reduces congestion and boosts productivity, a system that reduces destructive emissions and creates jobs.
The movement of people across town or across the globe is a critical factor affecting our economic vitality, the quality of our lives, access to work, energy consumption, carbon emissions and the climate. In the end, the people of the world depend on transportation for survival.
Cities, regions and nations need to use integrated approaches to provide smarter transportation systems that serve the needs of a growing world, which balance the merits of different modes of transportation while enhancing capacity, safety and efficiency.
Smarter transportation can drive economic growth and improve quality of life. We can’t allow poorly conceived transportation to destroy the neighborhoods we live in, or the planet we share.
****
“Mirror Image” is a rotating column featuring writers from the DLSU Professional Schools Inc.
Reynaldo C. Lugtu Jr. teaches management and marketing courses in the MBA Program of the Graduate School of Business, De La Salle University. He is country manager, communications sector of IBM Philippines. He may be e-mailed at rlugtu2002@yahoo.com or visit his blog at http://rlugtu.blogspot.com.
Traffic congestion is choking the air and economies of cities everywhere. Worldwide, cities are wrestling with the environmental, economic and social impact of increasing urban congestion, resulting from too many vehicles on roads built during the last century and demand simply exceeding capacity.
According to the US Department of Transportation, traffic congestion costs the United States $200 billion annually. Not only is this a huge waste of money, the Texas Transportation Institute reported that it also contributes to a loss of 7 billion hours stalled in traffic and $2.3 billion gallons of wasted fuel per year.
In the Philippines there are 3,000 passenger buses making a total 32,000 trips that go along Edsa daily, according to the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA). An average bus can accommodate 60 people. Occupancy rate of these buses is only 66 percent per vehicle. This means that on the average, public buses along Edsa have 640,000 empty slots available per day. A daily income ranging from P7,680,000 to 19,200,000 for these buses are lost due to poor transportation-management systems.
The problem is only getting worse as mass urbanization is increasing dramatically. By next year, 59 cities worldwide are forecast to have populations of 5 million or more, up nearly 50 percent since 2001.
Doing nothing is no longer an option. Building more roads isn’t the answer, either. We need to make better use of existing infrastructure—such as roads and rail tracks—while also building new, smarter transportation systems.
Cities that embrace new models and technologies across all transportation modes will be best positioned to address the impact of mass urbanization and thrive in an increasingly competitive global market.
New transportation solutions, such as congestion charging and real-time traffic prediction and management, are playing a significant role in helping cities to reduce congestion, improve their environments and, ultimately, enhance the quality of life of their citizens.
By creating smarter transportation systems, we’ll be able to predict the need for passenger transportation based on population trends, changes in where people live and work, as well as local events and the congestion at a given street intersection.
We’ll be able to recognize patterns and be able to rapidly adjust schedules, traffic routing, vehicle spacing, and speeds to changing conditions and for safety.
But these systems won’t be completely effective until they are instrumented, interconnected and intelligent, and this is starting to happen.
We’re already instrumenting vehicles in all modes of transportation, the infrastructure they move on, streets and traffic lights, aging bridges, high-speed railroad tracks and trains, airline baggage and aircraft parts, subway tunnels, ticket systems, and even the mobile devices carried by travelers so we can understand where they are going, when, how often and perhaps why.
Instrumentation is all about sensing what is happening right now, whether it is the temperature of a train wheel bearing, the location of a misplaced suitcase, metal fatigue in a bridge, or the number of cars on a highway at 6 a.m.
Within a single mode of transportation, collecting and sharing information across the operating ecosystem can yield dramatic capabilities. Extending this concept across modes of transportation exponentially increases the potential benefits.
For example, a high-speed passenger train is running at 350 kph from Beijing to Shanghai. Digital video surveillance and on-train sensors recognize that the train has slowed unexpectedly. Without human intervention, the system instantly relays this information to the train following four minutes behind, automatically slows the second locomotive at a safe rate of deceleration, and notifies the operator.
Intelligent transportation systems can play a key role in improving the quality of everyday life for urban citizens, reducing traffic congestion, improving air quality, and improving road access for public transportation and emergency vehicles.
In Stockholm, Sweden, a seven-month congestion-charging pilot saw traffic entering the city decrease by 25 percent, a 40-percent drop in greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and an increase of 6 percent in the number of travelers using public transport.
What we need is a smart transportation system equal to the needs of the 21st century—a system that reduces travel times and increases mobility, a system that reduces congestion and boosts productivity, a system that reduces destructive emissions and creates jobs.
The movement of people across town or across the globe is a critical factor affecting our economic vitality, the quality of our lives, access to work, energy consumption, carbon emissions and the climate. In the end, the people of the world depend on transportation for survival.
Cities, regions and nations need to use integrated approaches to provide smarter transportation systems that serve the needs of a growing world, which balance the merits of different modes of transportation while enhancing capacity, safety and efficiency.
Smarter transportation can drive economic growth and improve quality of life. We can’t allow poorly conceived transportation to destroy the neighborhoods we live in, or the planet we share.
****
“Mirror Image” is a rotating column featuring writers from the DLSU Professional Schools Inc.
Reynaldo C. Lugtu Jr. teaches management and marketing courses in the MBA Program of the Graduate School of Business, De La Salle University. He is country manager, communications sector of IBM Philippines. He may be e-mailed at rlugtu2002@yahoo.com or visit his blog at http://rlugtu.blogspot.com.
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