[kictanet] Nairobi traffic congestion -what is the role of technology

[rsohan at gmail.com]

On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 11:02 AM, Titus Ngeno <titus.ngeno at ebix.com> wrote:

> Listers,
>
> Nairobi  is a great regional hub/city but its transport system by the
> twenty-first century is obviously lagging behind the needs of its economy
> and its citizens.
>
> The population of Nairobi is growing daily and little being done on
> sustain ability initiative. Can we use technology for traffic management?
> Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
>
>
We actually did some work on this a year ago.  Idea was to crowdsource
traffic data using a combination of manual (i.e. SMS text) and automatic
(i.e. smartphone [specifically GPS + accelerometer]) means as a basis for
building dynamic real-time maps of traffic flow from the people actually
stuck in the traffic.

Worked out really well -- we also have benchmarks between A*, D* and D*
lite for this scenario and extensions to A* to reduce computation and space
overheads.

As a side-note, earlier this year I created a proof-of-concept for
predicting traffic flow using the data available from the Access Kenya
traffic cameras available online.  It was surprisingly accurate and useful
given the low frame rate and resolution of the image data, working
excellently between directly connected nodes (junctions) and moderately
well between indirectly connected nodes.

So yes, proof-of-concepts seem to indicate there is something to be gained.
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