www.TransformingTransportation.org

A Big Data Platform for Things That Move

Balaji Prabhakar Professor, Stanford University and Co-founder, Urban Engines Presented at Transforming Transportation 2015

Co-Founder and Chief Scientist: Urban Engines Professor: CS and EE, Stanford

A Big Data Platform for Things That Move

Real world systems are constrained

China India USA

Japan

Korea

Urban Overload

Basic Problem

Demand >> Supply

Our Work

Demand >> Supply

Reduce demand using incentives, not penalties

Increase supply using big data and mobile apps

Incentives: Singapore MRT • The INSINC, now called Travel Smart Rewards, project

− Primary goal: Incentivize offpeak travel

• Launch and current status − Stanford + NUS, Jan—Jun 2012

− Urban Engines, July 2012

− Currently: 250,000+ registered participants + 30 corporate members

− Shift in peak load: ~ 10%

Commuting History

Commuter

Electronic Ticket

Credit History

kms to credits 3x for off-peak

Outram Park Jurong East

The Insinc portal

Rewards

Date Time Credits

15th June 2010 09:00:19 20

16th June 2010 08:10:45 10

16th June 2010 16:20:17 22

18th June 2010 06:15:20 20

Demo

Supply of Transport Capacity

Congestion: When, where, and why does it occur?

“If you cannot measure it, you can not improve it.”

- Lord Kelvin

All the things that move in a city GPS Smartcard Cellular

WiFi GPS

Barcode RFID

Piecemeal: tap-in/tap-out, train loads, … Error-prone and noisy: needs healing and curing Siloed: different orgs, database technologies and formats

What’s needed: A system and algorithms for solving a massive jigsaw puzzle

Lots of data, but it is…