2013 Session: 283

• Open Transit Data: State of the Practice and Experience from Participating Agencies in the United States
  Abstract: The availability of web and mobile applications and dynamic displays for transit traveler information has proliferated in the past few years with many new and emerging uses for transit data. Transit data about routes, stops and schedules in a machine-readable format is “open” when it is published and freely available to the public. The purpose of this study is to provide a state of the practice for open transit data: how web applications use open transit data, what benefits agencies gain by giving software developers access to the data and what the best practices are for agencies considering opening data they already have. This project is limited to static data and does not address privacy and legal issues surrounding real-time GPS location data. The research draws upon a literature review, interviews with industry experts and practitioners and primary experience coordinating a regional open transit data initiative in Atlanta, Georgia. Case study interviews conducted with five transit agencies about their experiences with open data revealed best practices and trends in customer benefits. Several key findings emerged from these agency interviews: (1) transit agencies of any size can pursue open data; (2) legal concerns about brand usage and liability can be overcome; (3) agencies should support the software development community; and (4) open data is an opportunity for positive marketing of an agency. These findings enable public agencies nationwide to embark on an open data initiative to deliver benefits for existing and potential riders at low deployment costs.
  Authors: Wong, James Christopher; Reed, Landon T; Watkins, Kari Edison; Hammond, Regan
  Authors: Wong, James Christopher; Reed, Landon T; Watkins, Kari Edison; Hammond, Regan
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Data and Information Technology
  Session: 283
  Paper Number: 13-0186
• Toward GIS-Compliant Data Structures for Traffic and Transportation Models
  Abstract: In many traffic and transportation models, data structures used for input and output do not adhere to common data formats. Consequently, many different architectures are used concurrently with little or no relation to the geographic information systems that carry and provide these data. As a result, the exchange of data between traffic models is often cumbersome. To improve the usability of geo-information, this paper studies the establishment of a standard for the transport domain that aligns to an existing international standard for geo-information, i.e. CityGML (Geographical Markup Language for city and landscape models). The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) established this standard as a generic standard for 3D modelling of topographic features. In this paper we propose a standard for traffic and transport modelling in the form of a CityGML Application Domain Extension (ADE). First, we analyse the data requirements for traffic and transportation models and present a description of objects that are necessary to build the traffic infrastructure for traffic models. By comparing these data with the CityGML data model concepts, we show a strong semantic match between concepts required in the transport domain and CityGML. Consequently, defining a standard for input data in the transport domain that aligns to CityGML will make it possible to reuse geo-information that was acquired for other purposes. This paper also shows the possibilities to extend CityGML to support properties that are specific to the transport domain. Further research will focus on further detailing the CityGML ADE for Transport and testing it in traffic and transportation models
  Authors: Tamminga, Guus; van den Brink, Linda; Van Lint, Hans; Stoter, Jantien; Hoogendoorn, Serge
  Authors: Tamminga, Guus; van den Brink, Linda; Van Lint, Hans; Stoter, Jantien; Hoogendoorn, Serge
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Data and Information Technology
  Session: 283
  Paper Number: 13-2455
• Cyber-ITS Framework for Massive Traffic Data Analysis Using Cyberinfrastructure
  Abstract: Traffic data is commonly collected from widely-deployed sensors in urban areas. This brings up a new research topic, data-driven intelligent transportation systems (ITS), which means to integrate heterogeneous traffic data from different kinds of sensors and apply it for ITS applications. This research, taking into consideration of significant increase in the amount of traffic data and the complexity of data analysis, focuses mainly on the challenge of solving data-intensive and computation-intensive problems. This paper proposes a Cyber-ITS framework to perform data analysis on Cyber-Infrastructure (CI) in the context of ITS, as a solution to the problems. The Cyber-ITS framework is based on a core component, computational intensity, which allows the traffic data analysis to efficiently allocate and utilize CI. The techniques of the framework include data representation, domain decomposition, resource allocation, and parallel processing. All these techniques are based on data-driven and application-oriented models, and are organized as a component-and-workflow-based model in order to achieve technical interoperability and data reusability for various data-driven ITS applications. A case study of the Cyber-ITS framework is presented later based on a traffic state estimation application that uses the fusion of massive Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS) data and GPS data. The results prove that the Cyber-ITS-based implementation can achieve a high accuracy rate of traffic state estimation, and provide a significant computational speedup for the data fusion by parallel computing.
  Authors: Xia, Yingjie; Hu, Jia; Fontaine, Michael Daniel
  Authors: Xia, Yingjie; Hu, Jia; Fontaine, Michael Daniel
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Data and Information Technology
  Session: 283
  Paper Number: 13-2419
• Conceptual Design for Research-Oriented, Web-Based Traffic Simulation Platform
  Abstract: Researchers rely on microscopic traffic simulation for highly detailed analysis. However, existing software packages either provide very less flexibility in modeling or require very extra proficiency in programming so as to evaluate a new technology or benchmark a novel behavior model. Therefore, a significant part of efforts in utilizing simulation tools is consumed on non-research related work. In this paper, we propose a new simulation software platform with more freedom in injecting customized models, friendlier graphic user interface, and automation in trivial but time-consuming work. To achieve those goals, several state-of-the-art software engineering structural design patterns are adopted. The critical part of the proposed platform is to separate the simulation engine and user interface on the two ends of the web. The core simulation is centralized at the server, and different research tasks, which are undertaken simultaneously, are distributed on the clients with Internet browsers. This paper presents the conceptual design of the software platform with illustration of the software engineering concepts underneath. A demonstration, employing the browser techniques to animate the traffic on an online map, is shown to verify the advantages.
  Authors: Shi, Xuan; Jin, Jing; Cheng, Yang; Parker, Steven; Zhang, Jian; Ran, Bin
  Authors: Shi, Xuan; Jin, Jing; Cheng, Yang; Parker, Steven; Zhang, Jian; Ran, Bin
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Data and Information Technology
  Session: 283
  Paper Number: 13-3055
• Model-Free Networks as Basis for Transport Data Hub
  Abstract: Transport applications usually require a network description to map collecteddata, to simulate traffic, or to analyze routing or traffic demand spreading through anarea. Many applications are developed to support these tasks, and all of them are using adifferent network definition and require different input files. This leads to a lot ofredundancy in data storage, fragmented data availability, and problems in dataacquisition. This paper introduces a model free network standard that is able to cater forthe needs of various applications, and build a solid basis for a transport data hub, whichcould be utilized as a single source of data access for road authorities. The standard hasbeen integrated with a research framework for simulation, a commercial simulationpackage, and a visualization tool to demonstrate its potential.
  Authors: Miska, Marc Philipp; Nantes, Alfredo; Torday, Alexandre; Jin, Han; Chung, Edward
  Authors: Miska, Marc Philipp; Nantes, Alfredo; Torday, Alexandre; Jin, Han; Chung, Edward
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Data and Information Technology
  Session: 283
  Paper Number: 13-3481
• Open Transit Data: State of the Practice and Experience from Participating Agencies in the United States
  Authors: Wong, James
  Authors: Wong, James
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation
  Subject: Data and Information Technology
  Session: 283
  Paper Number: 13-0186
• Cyber-ITS Framework for Massive Traffic Data Analysis Using Cyberinfrastructure
  Authors: Hu, Jia
  Authors: Hu, Jia
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation
  Subject: Data and Information Technology
  Session: 283
  Paper Number: 13-2419
• Toward GIS-Compliant Data Structures for Traffic and Transportation Models
  Authors: Tamminga, Guus
  Authors: Tamminga, Guus
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation
  Subject: Data and Information Technology
  Session: 283
  Paper Number: 13-2455
• Conceptual Design for Research-Oriented, Web-Based Traffic Simulation Platform
  Authors: Shi, Xuan
  Authors: Shi, Xuan
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation
  Subject: Data and Information Technology
  Session: 283
  Paper Number: 13-3055
• Model-Free Networks as Basis for Transport Data Hub
  Authors: Nantes, Alfredo
  Authors: Nantes, Alfredo
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation
  Subject: Data and Information Technology
  Session: 283
  Paper Number: 13-3481