TrafficInfraTech Magazine Linking People Places & Progress
Future Mobility = Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure
The concept of future of mobility has different meaning in different countries for different segments. For Genetec, future mobility implies friction-less transportation of people and goods with as little environmental effect as possible. This means reductions in traffic and improvements in mobility services and safety. Above all, it is about the reliability and sustainability of the transportation infrastructure which requires pro-active reduction in incident and rapid recover from unplanned events. India has unique transportation problems and is going through a monumental transformation to modernize its transportation network. The country also has a lot of work to do to improve the safety of the mobility users both on the roads and on tracks.
Genetec Inc is working on collaborative monitoring, incident detection and incident response tools for smarter cities. The company prone open data, open platform & interoperability of systems, and bridges the communication gap between public safety, traffic, transit and other city agencies by giving them a common operating picture. Genetec’s technology helps citizen by improving safety, security and responsiveness of city agencies to planned and unplanned events.
Anand Thirunagari, Country Manager, Genetec Inc says, “The future mobility for India would focus towards sustainable infrastructure and its commitment towards climate change as nation. The data collected under various smart cities mission must be efficiently analysed and used for a planned and sustainable infrastructure being created.
Moreover, the density of population in major cities will require the country to invest in modern and novel ways to improve mobility before it becomes a roadblock to its economical growth and an environmental disaster.”
So, what should India prioritize while choosing future mobility? According to Thirunagari, India’s transport infrastructure must move hundreds of millions of people through dense cities. It is primordial that the country reduces the number of cars on the roads by investing in mass transit and massively encouraging ride-sharing programs. India also has a high rate of incidents on the roads, so traffic calming measures must be taken to improve safety and flow.
The priority of future mobility would thus have to start with the right planning of the required infrastructure with right data sets and technology tools. Effective planning and deployment of public transportation and the recent boost in the Indian budget for EV vehicles are also a positive move by the government.
According to Genetec, Transportation agencies are facing a deluge of new data coming at them from new types of sensors from IoT or from big data providers. To leverage this data and future data, analysis tools that can adapt to changing data sources and agency needs are becoming the foundation for future monitoring systems.
“There is just too much data to consume for human operators and even basic algorithms can only do so much. True data science driven analysis of the data is needed to use this data to improve mobility services and safety. It is important that governments understand this new data paradigm and employ data science and data analysis experts to continuously improve their use of the data and exploit their monitoring tools at their maximum efficiency.”
Demands of mobility are rapidly and fundamentally changing as a consequence of trends and societal challenges. Among these trends, digitalization is turning systems and processes into digital services for citizens, authorities and policy makers. With the rapid urbanization of the world through the shift of the population towards urban areas, the concept of ‘smart cities’ and the transformation of these urban areas into digital environments bring along an incredible opportunity for improving citizens’ welfare and fostering economic progress.