Presentation on
GSM based traffic
Information services
ITLS Seminar
University of Sydney
13th September 2005
Overview on traffic
Intelligence
•
Traffic Intelligence was formed to address three specific telematics market
niches:
–
Provision of Road traffic information for commercial services.
•
–
Exclusive holder of the license to implement IT IS Holdings Traffic information technologies in
Australia and New Zealand.
Provision of exception based telematics applications.
•
–
Distributor for Drivecam.
Provision of low cost fleet and consumer telematics applications.
Distributor for:
•
AAPL – high level SVT
•
Navtrak – High end Stolen vehicle Tracking
•
Kingsmith – public transport telematics integration systems
•
Webtech wireless – fleet tracking and mobility applications
ITIS Holdings plc
Founded in UK in 1997 and admitted to AIM in October 2000
Current market capitalisation >UKP50m (A$125m).
UK’s leading road traffic information and data specialist, with customers
in 4 areas:
•Automotive
•Government
•Logistics
•Mobile Telco
Operating worlds largest commercial FVD® and CFVD® systems.
•FVD system, UK only, currently ~50,000 vehicles on the system, equivalent to
>450,000 average cars.
•Process over 0.5 million vehicle records per hr
•Historic database contains over 1.2 billion data records
•CFVD systems in place in 4 countries.
Proven experience - consumers will pay for quality traffic information
ITIS customers
HOW TO CREATE TRAFFIC
INFORMATION
Value chain to deliver
Probe based traffic information services
Data sources
Analysis platform Raw output
Distribution
IVR
2.5/3G
Mobile
CFVD
platform
Map
GPS
Journalistic
WAP &
SMS
TAG™
FVD
platform
TAG
viewer
Median travel times
On vectors
5 min frequency
RDS-TMC
WEB
PORTALS
HISTORIC
DATA
Data collection technologies
advantages/disadvantages
Technology
Advantage
Disadvantage
Network A-GPS/LBS
platforms
Reasonably accurate positioning.
Existing infrastructure
“Active” polling = greater cost.
Requires network ownership
Roadside fixed
cameras/e-tag readers etc
Some Existing infrastructure
Vehicle flow constantly monitored
High level of analysis required
No national network.
High cost of rollout if no existing
infrastructure.
SCATS
Existing infrastructure
Vehicle flow constantly monitored
Data owned by government bureaucracy.
Assumptive analysis
No national network.
GPS (FVD)
Accurate positioning
Individual Vehicles constantly
monitored.
Highly accurate traffic data
Low current vehicle population
Existing volumes split between many
fleets
Costs of 2-way comms with vehicle
Cellular (CFVD)
Relatively low cost of
implementation.
High volumes of data
Raw data owned by network
Raw data has low position accuracy.
High level of analysis required
Overview on
Floating
Vehicle Data (FVD)
technology
What is FVD®?
FVD units
ITIS developed the concept of the Floating Vehicle Data Unit based on vehicle mileage travelled and driving
patterns, whereby:
–average driver = 1 FVD® unit,
–a business driver = 3 FVD® units
–truck/coach = 30 FVD® units.
Through selective mixing and statistical modeling it can be shown
that the ITIS FVD system requires a smaller sample to provide
high quality data.
Ie. focusing on data collection on the busiest roads at the busiest
times.
The combined fleet within the ITIS FVD® system is approximately
50,000 vehicles. To achieve this level ITIS targeted a number of
high profile FVD® probe fleets, including:
Annual
mileage
FVD®
Units
AA patrol
> 100 million
31,500
National Express
> 80 million
16,000
Eddie Stobart
> 100 million
22,500
In addition to the above fleets ITIS signed data supply contracts with large telematics companies that track vehicles for
logistics and fleet management purposes. ITIS also targets probe vehicles that may be required to increase data quality
in a more localised urban or inter-urban area, such as a local haulage or taxi operators.
How did ITIS build an FVD
network?
52
50
Fleet
company #3
48
46
44
42
1.1bn records
4m per day
Fleet
company #2
40
38
36
AA Patrol
32
30
28
26
24
Working with others
has built scale and
made a high quality
network economically
feasible
Fleet
company #1
22
20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
Dec 03
Nov 03
Oct 03
Sep 03
Aug 03
Jul 03
Jun 03
May 03
Apr 03
Mar 03
Date
Feb 03
Jan 03
Dec 02
Nov 02
Oct 02
Sep 02
Aug 02
Jul 02
Jun 02
May 02
Apr 02
Mar 02
0
Feb 02
Number of Probes (Thousands)
34
Details on
Cellular Floating
Vehicle Data (CFVD)
technology
Cellular Floating Vehicle Data:
created by Estimotion inc.
• Founded July 2000
• Management
– A group of specialists that have conceived and developed highly
sophisticated war-games, command and control and intelligence
systems for the Israel Defence Forces
• Primary application
– Low cost, patented technology for measuring and forecasting traffic
flow
• Acquired by ITIS Holdings December 2003.
How does it work?
Cellular handover data required at
A-link interface:
•Handover request
•Handover required
•Handover request ACK
•Handover command
•Handover complete
•Handover succeeded
•Handover failure
•Assignment request
•Assignment completed
•Assignment failure
•Paging
•Setup indication
Cell
Cell
Cell
Overlaid on
Navigation quality
GIS
Flow pattern
Analysed against
GPS drive data
And adjustments
made to pattern
model
Iterative process
Cellular-GPS Comparison
90.00
80.00
70.00
60.00
Speed (km/h)
Cellular handover data required at
MAP interface:
•MAP prepare handover
•MAP prepare subsequent handover
•MAP send handover report
•MAP allocate handover number
Direction
of travel
50.00
40.00
30.00
20.00
10.00
0.00
15:21
15:28
15:36
15:43
15:50
TIme
15:57
16:04
GPS Dat a
Ce llular Dat a
16:12
Creates sample
observer to
observe flow
patterns
Location Module Testing
Data obtained from Thems testing is compared to data derived from the
handover location module
Handover event
GPS data
Location area derived
from location module
Path Finding Tests
Cellular Phones are tracked in a given vehicle fitted with a GPS unit to
determine overall accuracy of the map-matching algorithms
(a)
(b)
Handset 47
(c)
Handset 49
Handset 52
(d)
GPS Track
The results of
these test drives
has shown that
the path finding
algorithms are
extremely
accurate with an
accuracy of
between 95 to
97% on interstate
roads and at
least 85% on
urban roads.
Static Speed Tests
Velocity from Cellular system
compared to data obtained
from static loop system
Static Speed Tests Example 1
140
Tuesday morning rush hour
120
Fixed sensor data
Km/Hr
100
80
60
Speeds derived from
cellular data
40
20
0
06:00
07:00
08:00
09:00
10:00
11:00
12:00
13:00
Static Speed Tests Example 2
140
Sunday evening rush hour
120
Fixed sensor data
100
Km/hr
80
60
40
Speeds derived from
cellular data
20
0
12:00
13:00
14:00
15:00
16:00
17:00
18:00
19:00
20:00
21:00
Dynamic Drive Tests
A known vehicle completes a journey
covering both urban and inter-urban
roads and the measured journey time is
compared to the predicted journey time
Dynamic Speed Tests
Example 1
Cellular-GPS DATA Comparison
100.00
90.00
80.00
Speed (km/h)
70.00
60.00
50.00
40.00
30.00
20.00
10.00
0.00
11:16
11:19
11:22
11:25
11:28
Time
11:31
11:34
Cellular Data
11:36
11:39
GPS Data
Dynamic Speed Tests Example 2
Cellular-GPS Comparison
90.00
80.00
70.00
Speed (km/h)
60.00
50.00
40.00
30.00
20.00
10.00
0.00
15:21
15:28
15:36
15:43
15:50
TIme
15:57
16:04
GPS Dat a
Ce llular Dat a
16:12
CFVD architecture overview
A-link interface
BTS
BSC
Probe
card
MSC
BTS
BTS
GSM/CDMA cellular network
Staging
Server
Equipment at
Cellular
Operator
Applications
interface
Firewall
Firewall
VPN (Internet)
Dispatcher
Sample
Observer
A-link interface
BSC
BTS
Probe
card
Equipment at
Traffic Intel
Operations Centre
MSC
Firewall
BTS
BTS
GSM/CDMA cellular network
Equipment at
Cellular
Operator
Staging
Server
TSG &
Distributor
Unique technology features
•
Travel time, not velocity.
–
•
Merging of historic and real-time data.
–
•
The technology is not dependent on any single positioning technology and can be adapted to take almost
any form of location information. The algorithms have been developed to cope with inaccurate locations and
very noisy data to achieve the accuracy and comprehensive road coverage required to provide high quality
traffic information.
Data fusion.
–
•
Advanced GIS techniques are used to model the topology of the road network taking account of the different
turning options within a given network. This means the system can provide accurate traffic information in
complex road networks such as dense urban areas.
Data independent.
–
•
The system does not consider traffic information to be static but combines both historic and real-time traffic
information to generate accurate predictions of traffic congestion.
Advanced GIS modelling.
–
•
The technology is based on extracting travel time information and not velocities from the supplied data. This
has the advantage of providing extremely accurate journey time information.
Data can be fused from different information sources including mobile and static sensors and journalistic
data reports.
Knowledge-based algorithms.
–
A series of learning-based algorithms have been developed which constantly update the historic traffic
patterns used within the system.
CFVD customers
• There are currently a number of projects
being implemented using the ITIS CFVD
technology:
–
–
–
–
–
–
Antwerp, Holland – broadcast stage
Baltimore, USA – broadcast stage
Scotland - data presentation stage
London – pattern matching stage
Tel Aviv, Israel – 2 years since implementation
Missouri DOT, USA – contract awarded for statewide data
Tel Aviv CFVD system
The Baltimore CFVD Project
•
Covers 500 square
miles
•
Live data (24/7) on
over 350 miles or
road
•
140 miles of
expressways and
over 200 miles of
arterials
Baltimore I-695 traffic
Patterns
Congestion
Status
saturday
24:00
Congestion
Status
19:00
12:00
Time
06:00
Distance
weekday
12:00
Time
06:00
Distance
Baltimore I-695 Route
Travel Time
Journey
Time
(sec)
July
June
May
18:00
Time
08:00
Day
of
week
Delivery platforms
And applications
for
ITIS
Traffic Information
In the UK
Mobile
telecommunication
companies
Mobile Telco IVR service
2222
401 100
1580
2020
401 100
09003 401100
ITIS handles over 12 million calls requesting traffic information each year
(each call generating an average of A$4)
Consumers will pay for ‘Quality’ Traffic Information
ITIS traffic information delivered
to the Orange Sony Ericsson T610
Incident
Information
Traffic
Strip-map
TELCO WAP/SMS
ITIS currently provide two WAP traffic services, for Vodafone Live! and Orange World.
Vodafone customers are able to browse for the latest traffic information directly from their handsets
as well as being able to request AA recommended routes complete with any relevant traffic delays.
Orange customers are able to receive constantly updated traffic flow information displayed in colour,
and can scroll up and down affected segments of any UK motorway to see a colour-coded scale that
shows current traffic conditions.
A web based application offering a number of travel and
traffic related services.
ITIS currently supplies web based traffic and mobile
based traffic services.
Text TRAFFIC to shortcode
82085
GetMeThere.co.uk will send you a
map, via WAP push, showing
current traffic conditions in the
area you are located for only £1!
Traffic Reports
•
•
•
•
•
Fast desktop application
All major UK routes covered
Extra detail for UK traffic hotspots
Traffic alerts updated every 10 mins
Audio and visual alerts for
traffic incidents
Automotive
Radio Data Signal – Traffic Message Channel
RDS-TMC
•
RDS-TMC sends live, real-time traffic information to the satellite navigation
system - automatically, 24 hours a day.
•
Information is sent via an FM radio signal that can be received even if the car
radio is switched off.
•
This constant supply of traffic information enables the satellite navigation
system to give the driver advanced warning of congestion and traffic
problems ahead.
•
More importantly, because traffic information is integrated directly into the
satellite navigation system, the driver is automatically given the unique
option to take an alternative route to avoid the problem ahead - dynamic
route guidance, at the touch of a button.
•
Available in two formats:
– Free – RDS-TMC
– Conditional Access RDS-TMC
Radio Data Signal – Traffic Message Channel
RDS-TMC
ITIS currently provides “free” RDS-TMC services to over
120000 customers in the UK for over 15 different vehicle
brands including:
•Toyota
•Lexus
•Ford
•BMW
•Mercedes Benz
•Nissan
•Vauxhall (GM)
•Subaru
•Porsche
•ITIS are also launching an GPRS/RDS-TMC service for
personal navigation devices:
.
Government
Government:
Arterial traveller information
(Scottish Executive)
Government:
Arterial traveller information
(Scottish Executive)
Government:
Traffic Speeds and
Journey Times
• Mapped by 50m or
100m section of road
in each direction
• Sections can be
aggregated by entire
link to provide
average link speeds
and/or journey
times.
Network analysis
M6 South Congestion % (All Days)
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
Percentage
of readings
below 55
kmph on
weekdays
50%
1
Corley Services
5
8
10A
12
Stafford Services
16
18
20
22
25
Charnock Richard Services
30
32
34
36
38
40
40%
Location
30%
20%
10%
22:30:00
21:00:00
19:30:00
18:00:00
16:30:00
15:00:00
13:30:00
12:00:00
10:30:00
09:00:00
07:30:00
06:00:00
04:30:00
03:00:00
01:30:00
00:00:00
Time of the Day
42
Journey Time Isochrones
TRANSPORT FOR LONDON
TRAFFIC ALERT GENERATOR
Other Government projects
• Highways Agency
– Contracts to use historic data for modeling and network
monitoring
• Transport for London
– Contract to use historic data for measuring network
performance and develop control room monitoring
applications
• Hampshire County Council
– Contract to use historic data for measuring network
performance and develop control room monitoring
applications
Motoring organisations
Automobile association
•
The AA is the UK's largest motoring organisation with over 12 million members.
•
In May 2002 ITIS and Automobile Association Developments Limited, part of the Automobile
Association (the AA) announced a significant strategic relationship.
•
Under the terms of the deal, ITIS became responsible for supplying real time traffic flow
information to AA Roadwatch, the leading provider of traffic and travel news in the UK.
•
This relationship was strengthened in October 2002 when ITIS also became responsible for
operating the AA's short dial IVR traffic information service under the AA Roadwatch brand, as
well as providing real time traffic flow information to the AA's website.
•
At the same time, the AA agreed to provide ITIS with location data from its AA patrol vehicle fleet,
providing a valuable source of data for the ITIS Floating Vehicle Data system (FVD®).
The Road Timetable™
A development which utilises:
• Road network congestion matrix
• Unique routing method
• Advanced route simulation
To provide a powerful timetabling
solution for road transport operators
Altrincham to Oxford (152 miles)
37mins (21%)
‘Binwalking’
18
56
20
41
Depart:
06:30
06:50
C
B
A
07:46
12
19
13
:0
0
02
:0
0
:0
0
03
:0
0
04
:0
0
05
:0
0
06
:0
0
07
:0
0
08
:0
0
09
:0
0
10
:0
0
11
:0
0
12
:0
0
13
:0
0
14
:0
0
15
:0
0
16
:0
0
17
:0
0
18
:0
0
19
:0
0
20
:0
0
21
:0
0
22
:0
0
23
:0
0
01
00
‘Binwalking’
Link traverse
time (mins)
Link B to C Traverse Profile
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
‘Binwalking’
18
56
20
C
B
A
41
13
Depart:
06:30
06:50
07:46
12
40
08:26
The Inputs
The Result
Scheduling & Routing
Pre-Departure
When should I depart by?
How long will it take?
When is the best time to depart?
Which route should I take?
Will I encounter problems?
When will I arrive?
FVD archive
Live delays
Delay smoothing
Process Schedules
Mid Journey
Are there problems ahead?
Can I avoid them?
Will I arrive on time?
Summary
• Road networks are predictable
• increased congestion calls for improved
information
• the Road Timetable is the ‘engine’ to a new
level of predictive routing, origin/destination
analysis and scheduling applications
TRAFFIC INTELLIGENCE
Current Status
Data sources
Analysis platform Raw output
Distribution
IVR
2.5/3G
Mobile
CFVD
platform
Map
GPS
Journalistic
WAP &
SMS
TAG™
FVD
platform
TAG
viewer
Median vehicle
velocity
5 min frequency
RDS-TMC
WEB
PORTALS
HISTORIC
DATA
Data Sources
• GSM
– Advanced negotiations ongoing with two network operators.
• GPS
– Outline access agreements to 2000 commercial vehicles agreed.
• Journalistic
– Agreement in place with VicRoads
– Undergoing negotiations with RTA and Dept Main Roads of Qld.
– Agreement in place with major roadside assistance company.
• Mapping
– Licence in place.
• Expect all initial supply agreements to be in place by Q4 2005.
Analysis platform
and outputs
•
Initial network analysis for CFVD to be undertaken by ITIS in the UK.
•
Ongoing implementation to be undertaken by Traffic Intelligence in Australia.
•
•
Data Centre (1) to be set up in Sydney
Data Centre (2) to be set up in Melbourne
•
Expected to be output ready for
– Melbourne by February 2006
– Sydney by April 2006
– All east Coast metro by July 2006
– Australia wide by December 2006.
•
Dependent upon customer funding
Conclusion
•
Through the use of ITIS technology, by end 2006, Traffic Intelligence will be
the ONLY national Australian provider of quality detailed real time and
historic road traffic information generated through proven technology.
•
This traffic information will provide:
–
–
–
–
–
–
Urban and rural travel times
Congestion indexing
Vehicle flow volumes
Origin/destination information
Network management and performance information
Incident information
• This information will in time be supplemented by videos of incidents (Drivecam)
•
Due to the “imported” nature of the technology, Traffic intelligence is unable
to access any state or federal grants to assist in implementation, so is keen
to work with “foundation” clients.