You're living in Pittsburgh and running late for the symphony at Heinz Hall. From experience, you know that you will spend 20 minutes just looking for a parking space. Wouldn't it be nice if you knew which garages didn't have "FULL" signs posted? Now you can, thanks to the ParkPGH smartphone and Web application.
It's raining cats and dogs. You have to catch the bus home. Wouldn't it be nice if you knew when the next bus will arrive at your unsheltered bus stop? Now you can, thanks to the Tiramisu (which means "pick me up" in Italian) smartphone and Web application.
You're leaving a parking garage downtown after a Pittsburgh Steelers football game at Heinz Field. Wouldn't it be nice if the network of traffic lights detected changes in traffic and automatically adjusted patterns to decrease congestion for the 50,000 fans heading home? Well, now they can't, but we're working on that one.
Indeed, "smart technology" is getting deployed in many aspects of Pittsburgh's transportation system with the help of Carnegie Mellon's Traffic21 initiative, which engages more than 40 university faculty and twice as many students in projects designed to increase safety, improve mobility, and reduce congestion in the Pittsburgh region. What's learned will serve as a "learning lab," deploying solutions that can be applied around the globe.
As resources to build more and more physical infrastructure become scarcer, the efficiencies that information technology can bring to transportation systems around the world are in more demand. Information technology can bring intelligence to drivers and riders—enabling them to make smarter choices, avoid congestion, and, in the process, use less energy. Information technology can bring intelligence to managers of transportation systems—enabling them to plan and manage traffic and fleets.
And information technology can bring intelligence to vehicles themselves, preventing crashes that not only hurt and kill (more than 35,000 annually in the United States alone), but are the cause of much of the congestion experienced on our road system. Indeed, imagine a world without crashes. It's within reach if we make our vehicles smarter. Consider: Carnegie Mellon won the Urban Challenge, fielding a Chevy Tahoe that went 60 miles in an urban environment without hitting anything or anybody—and, by the way, did it without a driver!
Considering the technology that feat took, one can readily imagine that our cars, trucks, and buses can get smart enough to stop crashes from happening. Imagine vehicles smart enough to monitor and report the condition of roads and bridges, not just where the potholes are but where they are likely to be, enabling more efficient and effective maintenance. Imagine a vehicle smart enough to reroute you from your usual commuting trip because it knows that there is an accident ahead. Imagine a bus that not only sees pedestrians, but also predicts that they are about to step off the curb. Imagining is what we do at Traffic21. But it's not enough to imagine. We're at work deploying our imaginings in Pittsburgh, demonstrating them to the world.
—Richard Stafford (S'68, HNZ'72)
Richard Stafford, Distinguished Service Professor of Public Policy in the Heinz College, is the director of Traffic21. He was instrumental in launching Pittsburgh's ACCESS system, which serves people with special transportation needs. ACCESS has since served as a model worldwide.
Learn more: www.traffic21.org
