SMART TRANSPORTATION FOR SMART CITIES- A case study by IBM

Indian Context: Smarter Transportation for Cities

Indian cities contribute to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the range of 60%. By 2030,
this figure is estimated to grow to about 70 %. Urban transport service imparts efficiency led
enhanced productivity to the city by providing mobility to its workforce.

Urban transport can contribute to poverty reduction both through its impact on the city
economy and hence on economic growth and through its direct impact on the daily needs of
the very poor. The economic performance of cities can be improved by better integrating
transport with other aspects of city development strategy.

At present, there is a huge deficit in urban transport services and infrastructure both in quality
and quantity. The use of desirable modes; walking, bicycle and public transport is declining
and the use of undesirable modes i.e. car and 2-wheeler is growing. As a result, congestion is
increasing, mobility is reducing and the use of fossil fuel, pollution and accidents are rising.

The ongoing urbanization will make the situation worse in the business as usual scenario.
The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), a Delhi-based non-governmental organization,
has forecast that Indias commercial energy demand and emissions will increase by more than
seven times if nothing is done to curb the emissions from the existing levels by 2031/32. An
MORTH committee on road safety and traffic management (February 2007) estimated about
50% increase in road accidents over a 10-year period (2005-15). There is, thus, an urgent need
to reverse the present trend.

Two recent study reports, one each by Mckinsey Global Institute and the High powered
expert committee commissioned by Ministry of Urban Development Government of India
have projected that Mass rapid transit services and roads (The main infrastructure for urban
transport) together require nearly 50% of the total projected investment for various urban
services (including housing) in cities. This amounts to nearly INR 1 lakh cr per year for the
next 20 years. The estimate of the working group on urban transport shows that this
investment can be reduced by nearly 30 by pro-actively promoting sustainable practices.

Problems relating to congestion, the environment and safety, as well as opportunities

presented by growing data and smarter consumers, must be addressed to help support job
creation and growth. The intelligent transportation systems (ITS) industry is helping build
transport systems that address these issues. To sustain momentum, governments need to
accelerate the development of common standards for ITS solutions and open data, the
industry needs to collaborate across industry boundaries and cities need to continue building
smarter transport networks.

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The role of transport in driving jobs and growth is more important than ever. Transport
contributes directly to economic activity and employment through bus, rail, road, air and
maritime services. It also has a large indirect impact via all the other sectors and activities in
the economy that depend on and use these various modes of transport to move people and
goods around, nationally and internationally, in an efficient and safe manner. In the current
economic environment, three interrelated factors are placing even greater weight on the role
of transport in driving jobs and growth: The rate of urbanization globally has been rising and,
in 2008, for the first time in human history, the proportion of the worlds population based in
urban areas was greater than 50%.

Cities need to help ensure that their transportation networks can support this high and
increasing level of human and economic activity based in cities.

Transport challenges and opportunities

Challenges Opportunities
Changing Smarter
demand consumers

Congestion Transportation Mountain

Of data

Safety
Talent-
intensive
Environment growth
Figure 1 Current Challenges and Oppurtunities in Transportation

Demographic changes and more vehicles are placing new demands on existing networks.
Many transportation systems are facing rising demand driven by increased urbanization of
population. Many of these cities are less than prepared to deal with this influx of individuals
and, as a result, are struggling to manage these busier transport networks. In tandem, over
the last 20 years, there has been substantial growth across all transport modes and, therefore,
more vehicles and vessels using the transport network. All these additional vehicles and
vessels competing for limited capacity on the transport network create a challenge for
transport providers trying to efficiently manage the network and balance demand and
capacity.

Congestion is a growing problem that incurs significant costs. Congestion pressures faced
by cities are worsening over time and cannot be ignored. It also negatively impacts quality of
life by decreasing personal and business productivity, lowering air quality, creating noise
pollution, adversely impacting health, as well as leading to the waste of massive amounts of
fuel each year. A large portion of congestion is not caused by limited highway capacity 60%
of all freeway congestion is caused by incidents such as wrecks and debris on the road. So,

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reducing these types of incidents could help reduce the incidence of congestion and the
negative costs associated with it.

Accidents in the transport network take thousands of lives and cost billions of Rupees each
year. As per the MORTH data- The total number of road accidents increased by 2.5 % from
4,89,400 in 2014 to 5,01,423 in 2015. About 54.1% of all persons killed in road accidents are in
the 15 -34 years age group during the year 2015. In 2015, fifty million plus Population Cities
accounted for a share of 22.1 % in total road accidents in the country, 11.3 % in total persons
killed in road accidents and 16.4 % in total persons injured in road accidents. Mumbai had
the highest number of road accidents (23,468) while Delhi had the highest number of deaths
(1622) due to road accidents. Accident severity in terms of %age share of 50 Million population
Cities was 14.9 % in 2015 as against 15.0 % in 2014.

Pressure is growing nationally and internationally to reduce emissions and the negative
environmental impact of transport. As transportation greenhouse gases (GHG) account for
over 5 % of total global GHG emissions, it is not surprising the transport industry has been
subject to increasing levels of environmental regulations. The increase in regulation is not just
happening at the national level. In recent decades, there has been a proliferation of multilateral
environmental agreements. Global regulation is likely to continue and to extend to new areas.

Data drives Cities and in turn drives transportation From 2008 to 2009, the amount of digital
information increased 62 % to 0.8 zettabytes and in 2010, it was estimated to have increased
to 1.2 zetabytes.23 A recent study put this into perspective by estimating this amount equals
75 billion fully loaded 16GB Apple iPads.

Transportation and economic development In 2009, more than 40 million portable GPS
devices were sold worldwide in transport, the amount data has also been growing. Several
years of fast growth have led to well over 200 million turn-by-turn navigation systems in
use worldwide, 20 % of which are factory installed and aftermarket in-dash navigation
systems. About 10 % of the worlds new cars in 2010 had factory-installed telematics that is
expected to increase to 62 % by 2016. Many cities are also sitting on potential treasure troves
of data from individual tickets, journeys and usage of public transport to data in road charging
or toll schemes. Transportation providers and agencies have a vast amount of information at
their disposal from across their entire transport network. This represents a valuable
opportunity to gain greater insight into the network, make better and more informed
decisions, take appropriate action and help improve the quality of the transport services.

Talent is becoming more and more important in driving economic growth in cities and
regions. And while the number of mobile highly educated individuals is set to rise over the
next 20 years, cities will face intensifying competition to attract and retain this talent.
Transport services could become a significant differentiator, as they have a critical influence
on the attractiveness and liveability of a location. For cities and regions that can attract this
mobile talent, the resulting wealth can be spread out across the economy. More growth means
more jobs not only for higher-skilled but also for lower skilled individuals. To help drive
growth and job creation, transport providers must address the challenges and opportunities
before them. In answering the question of how transport providers can deal with these
pressures and opportunities, we now outline how smarter, more intelligent transport
systems can help. First, it is developing innovative solutions that help transportation
providers effectively deal with the challenges and opportunities they face and build smarter,
more intelligent transportation systems. Second, the industry itself makes a major
contribution to economic activity and jobs through its revenue and employment.

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Intelligent Transportation System- Overview
Smarter transportation can drive urban economic vitality and improve our quality of life. It
can bring in efficiency, provide better service to citizens, protect the environment and help
assure our safety and security.

Driving change with expertise

IBM offers various deployment models to provide cities of all sizes and varying levels of IT
resources with the benefits of these intelligent transportation solutions. Cities with more
robust IT capabilities can deploy the software in a data center. Cities may also choose to work
with other cities to share services using preconfigured systems. For those cities without the
resources or skills for deploying and maintaining solutions on their premises, IBM offers a
Software as a Service (SaaS) option on the IBM SmartCloud. The intelligent transportation
solutions also take advantage of the IBM Intelligent Operations Center to enable real-time
communication and collaboration with other city agencies to coordinate actions and resolve
issues efficiently.

ITS helps drive growth through innovative solutions that enable smarter transport systems.
Smarter transport systems are instrumented, interconnected and intelligent. The right type of
data is collected, managed and integrated across different parts of the transport system, fleet
or a single vehicle in a way that allows modern information technology and advanced
analytics to be used for further insight. ITS can thus help providers effectively deal with many
of the pressures and opportunities they face and generate further spill over benefits for
users of the systems. This, in turn, helps foster efficiency savings and benefits for citizens and
businesses across the economy.

Smarter transport helps drive jobs and growth through ITS solutions, jobs and revenue The
ITS value chain spans 15 major industry groupings and accounts for 13 % of total industry
output, illustrating the breadth of the ITS industry outside of transport. The ITS industry
enhances the potential of transport to drive growth ITS areas of activity include Traffic
management, Traveller information, Public transportation Vehicle safety, Emergency
management, Crosscutting and other areas of ITS Maintenance and construction operations
Commercial vehicle operations, Archive data management.

The IBM Challenge- Delhi city, IBM Joint Brainstorming Team

Delhi city planning department and IBM teams were in deep discussion on creating a joint
strategic roadmap to address the transportation and traffic problem of Delhi city. As a
member of the planning team, you have to share a comprehensive solution for the following:

1. Devise a strategic roadmap with short and medium-term goals to address the
transportation and traffic requirement of Delhi
2. Devise a smart ITS plan for Delhi and IBM for short term benefits to address the
following:
a. Citizen convenience
b. Reduce congestion
c. Reduce pollution
d. Provide a platform to citizens to plan their journey
e. Engage citizens- participation, feedback, grievance redressal

With the existing infrastructure, propose with specific recommendations a plan that is
implementable within 1 year using the framework of a Smart Transportation System for more
efficient traffic management.

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The solution document has to be in word/pdf within 1000 words (excluding exhibits and
excel sheets) in Book Antiqua font 11. The statistics given in the Appendix/references can
be used for the planning figures.

Appendix 1

Case Study of Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro, the iconic metropolis on the Brazilian coast, is home to more than 11.8 million
people. The city itself is the second wealthiest in Brazil, and ranked as the 30th-wealthiest in
the world in 2005. It is an economic and educational center of Brazil, a globally recognized
tourist destination, and a cultural hub that hosted the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016
Summer Olympic Games. With a relatively large population moving around metropolitan
Rio, the topography and environment presents challenges to Rios government. The city sits
on a coastal plain surrounded by hills and mountains, and strong summer rain showers
blowing in from the ocean cause catastrophic flooding and landslides. Apart from managing
the complexities of a Mega City, Rios municipal government must also maintain a strong
capability to predict, and respond to, emergencies such as the regular floods and landslides.
There are approximately 22,000 km of roadways in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro, and
the highest concentration is around the municipal region of Rio de Janeiro. The city itself has
a relatively extensive public transportation system that is composed of buses, two subway
lines, and metro rail lines.

The Problem

Chronic traffic congestion can be the norm in Rio, which could escalate to become chaotic
during emergencies such as the periodic flooding and landslides, all of which made the citys
commuters among the most frustrated in the world, particularly during the weekday
commutes. About one-third of the citys commuters (32 %) use individual modes of
transportation (e.g cars, motorcycles) each day, while 42 % use public transportation, 16 %
combine individual and public modes, and 10 % walk or ride a bicycle. They spend an average
of 2 hours 9 minutes for travel time, including work-related and personal commuting, and
they typically travel 54 km each day at an average speed of only 22 km per hour. During
floods, such as those that happened in April 2010, transportation can grind to a halt. The
government of the City of Rio de Janeiro realized that it needed to improve the harmonization
of its capabilities for emergency management and incident response during the flood
episodes, as well as coordinate city services and operations more broadly across various city
agencies. Traffic management, although not at the center of this vision, is nevertheless an
important consideration because it touches so many of the services and operations. With the
FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympics events looming, Rios government decided to work with
IBM to develop and implement an approach to integrate the management of its many
operations. Because the traffic management needs of Rio are intertwined with the broader
operational needs, government transportation authorities have three distinct expectations for
the integrated management approach:
A decision support system that generates a consolidated view of the roadway
maintenance needs in the city to improve response to maintenance issues, as well
as the capability to move to proactive maintenance in the near future;
A traffic management system that not only assimilates existing management
assets, such as cameras, but also integrates them into the city operational system
to automate traffic management and provide real-time insight into traffic; and

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 Predictive capabilities to enable the city to better plan emergency management
response and incident response during flood episodes generate traffic
management strategies for the World Cup and Olympics events, and to improve
commuter knowledge and traffic flow on a daily basis.

The Solution

A team from the city and IBM began work by implementing IBMs Smarter Cities approach,
built on the IBM Government Industry Framework. This solution captures information from
across city agencies and systems, and combines it with other city data to provide managers a
dashboard view of the current situational status across the entire city. The expanded visibility
gives managers the ability to visualize workflows related to incident management and
improves collaboration across city agencies. Furthermore, the implementation experience and
design principles gained from working with the City of Rio de Janeiro were inspirational in
the development of the Intelligent Operations Center product. The current version of the
system can potentially give the citys traffic agency the ability to visualize traffic across the
city. As users of the system, traffic managers can take advantage of its reporting capabilities
and incident submission tool to have a much clearer understanding of Rios traffic than before.

Figure 2

References
IBM Intelligent Transportation Solution for Active Traffic Management https://www-
01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?htmlfid=GVF03008USEN

IBM: The Case for Smarter Transportation https://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-

bin/ssialias?htmlfid=TTE03001USEN

Frost and Sullivan

https://www-935.ibm.com/services/multimedia/Intelligent_Urban_Transportation.pdf

STATISTICAL ABSTRACT OF DELHI 2014

http://www.delhi.gov.in/wps/wcm/connect/f508bc8046667b0e9cf6bcf5a4ed47e7/Stattisti
cal+Abstract+of+Delhi+2014.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&lmod=66436406&CACHEID=f508bc8046
667b0e9cf6bcf5a4ed47e7