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Aussie Government Competition To Predict Commute Times
databuff writes "Last week, Sydney's Minister of Roads, David Borger, launched a $10,000 competition to develop an algorithm that predicts commute times on a major Sydney freeway. The winning algorithm will be used to power predictions on the Sydney live traffic website. The hope is that the predictions will help commuters make informed decisions about when to travel and on what routes, lowering the intensity of peak hour traffic. In its first week, the competition attracted entries from more than 50 teams and 19 countries."
won't everyone just follow the same algorithm and end up with traffic peaking at some other time?
I used to do this for VicRoads in Melbourne. At peak times a queue builds up at the exit end of the freeway. Normally the city end during the morning peak. Travel time depends entirely on the length of the queue. Maybe RTA NSW should be paying VicRoads for the software I wrote in the 1990s. It can be a discount on the money VicRoads pays for SCATS.
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The obvious correct answer to this question is an app that leverages sharing the GPS info of participants in order to deliver to the same participants reliable real-time info about traffic conditions. The fact that you're flying down this particular freeway at 100KPH right now is valuable information to people who also know of other routes to where they want to be where people are creeping along or not moving at all. Since this is useful information that can then be sold, it's possible that paying people to participate in the scheme some fraction of the gross - in addition to providing them better traffic guidance - would be economically feasible. Then most people would then get some slightly delayed, ad-sponsored automatic guidance by radio or something. Also, selling the information to traffic guidance for people who didn't want to share their GPS would also be good.
Naturally the Tornoodle Network that provides this service globally would be the bee's knees. I think I would call it "tornoodle.com." That name evokes the image of a bowl of noodles, representing potential routes, and is similar to "tornado" which is both chaotic and orderly, but unpredictable and very active. It's getting harder to find domain names these days. If you want that one, I figure you've got about ten minutes. But it was available at the time of this posting.
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I predict the traffic will be really busy between 7am and 9am, and then again from 4pm to 6pm. Where do I pick up my prize?
the prediction will effect the prediction. they already know the peak hour, just encourage people to use other times for their commuting. like sleeping late!
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Who cares? I've seen lots of traffic sites. Even a GPS with an optional attachment for live traffic reports. You know what they always say? Traffic is pretty much where you expect it to be. Everyone knows where the traffic spots are, and sure enough that's where the traffic always is.
You'd think the usual suspects would be totally against this sort of science. The attitude is "we should annoy the living shit out of drivers at every opportunity, this will certainly make them take the bus instead. Plus, it makes us feel good. We are childless and live in the inner city anyway, and why can't everyone be like us and ride bikes?"
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A while back, some folks in France recommended that vacationers should drive after midnight to avoid the August vacation traffic crunch. The result? Tons of folks drove at 03:00 on toll roads . . . however, only one toll booth was open, as usual, for nights. So there were major traffic jams for hours.
So I ask you, Professor John Nash, what should I do out of a Game Theory analysis? If everyone is told, to drive at a certain time, is it better for me, if drive at that time? Prisoners' Dilemma, on the roads.
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Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
I've been doing that for years already on my iPhone.
Maps - Options - Show Traffic
PM me for my address to send the $10K
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It's the New South Wales Government running the competition, not the Australian (Federal) government. NSW is a state of Australia.
No offense, but if you want a good traffic prediction algorithm, please offer more than my shitty quarterly salary.
... 7. See the fuckers responsible for the M25 computer system shot in their heads.
I predict David Borger will be out of a job sometime fairly early in the new year.
I always wondered why automated twitter like systems are not used to solve this kind of problem.
Here is what I would like: Have a device which measures the traffic at one point installed all across the highways (Simple IR device looking at the number of passing vehicles per second should do). These devices act as social beings, sharing their data to a server to give out to everyone. They should come cheap, especially while buying in bulk (Make them solar powered, if you want to). Let them transmit the data to the nearest cell phone tower or to a server on the internet. The connectivity should be cheap, it is sending bytes of information. Have the GPS in your car (or your $20 cellphone) receive the 'feed'(or SMS) from the server based on the input route.
I dont think you need an algorithm to predict the travel time, you can just calculate it (Can be done server side too).
The costs in implementing this should be lesser.
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If ((Easter || Christmas) && road==F3)
{
delay = 6 hours;
}
endif
(You know the traffic's shit when you can play cricket on the 3 lane each way freeway.)
Predicting commute times and keeping the results secrets vs. predicting commute time and putting them in real time on a public website are two completely different problems. The former ist simply about estimating an output parameter from a set of input parameters so it's basically about approximating a function. The latter contains a nasty feedback loop as the output paramter is in itself an input parameter as it influences the behaviour of the system, so you're basically looking for a fixed point where the publication of the forecast exactly repells as many drivers at it attracts - only these values allow for a stable prognosis. In economics this effect is known as Goodhart's law.
This means that the competition is about a completly different (and much simpler) problem to that which they are eventually trying to solve.
ignatius
They should really just call Microsoft up and get a copy of the pudget sound version of the software for that.
Maybe if the government wants traffic analysis performed for free (well, a small possible prize) they should be a little more permissive with street level GIS data. For those in the US the equivalent of the United States TIGER/Line data that anyone can download for free costs about $10K - 200K in Australia depending on usage last time I checked. It's handled by an unlisted public company called the PSMA that various state and other government departments have stakes in but they're every bit as greedy as a private or publicly listed company.
The OpenStreetMap project is a godsend, but let's face it doesn't have the spatial integrity of proper survey data and can be lacking up-to-date (or any) routing information in many locations.
They should use the SimCity traffic commute system. In my city my current commute time fluctuates from 0.5 to 30.
If the employers already allowed flex time, there would be a more even distribution of commuters over several hours, and the problem would smaller to non-existent.
If the employers don't allow flex time (as apparently they don't, as least in useful numbers), it won't matter what information is available to commuters, they'll still have to be arriving at work during peak commuter density periods, and leaving at the corresponding end-of-work-day.
Really want to fix the problem? Maybe you could have an auction every year for employers to buy their preferred work start hours. For 1000 employees, it might encourage them to save a few bucks by buying "off" hours.
I predict the traffic will be really busy between 7am and 9am, and then again from 4pm to 6pm.
Where do I pick up my prize?
When you can predict how Sydney's failing infrastructure affects the commute. I was late to work the other day (on late shift) because a water main burst on Paramatta Road and they blocked the road citybound for a couple of hours while they sorted out the mess. Sydney's roads and transport (and other infrastructure obviously) are so poorly planned and maintained that any algorithm that was remotely successful would need several good random number generators.
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echo car > /dev/null
Can I have my $10,000 now please?
Their measurements will alter what they are attempting to measure. Announcing 'that route is gridlocked, use this route' merely results in two gridlocked routes.
Int(s0..sf,ds/v(s))
Seriously, though, a traffic prediction algorithm that worked ok actually would be useful for designing changes to the roadway to reduce traffic, but I suspect that Australia is probably similar to the US: you probably know what causes the traffic, but for whatever reason, you're unwilling to do what it takes to cut it down. For instance, designing roads for peak capacity instead of average capacity, putting pressure on businesses to spread out work hours more to flatten the curve a bit, and finishing roadwork projects in a timely manner so that the highway isn't in a state of constant (dis)repair with obstructions and distractions.
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A nitpick, but an important one: the government in question here is a State government, not the 'Australian' (Federal) Government. To be exact, the government of New South Wales (which contains Sydney).
I'm sure most of you will roll your eyes but I can imagine Americans would have a similar reaction if an article called, say, the government of South Carolina or Idaho or Minnesota or something, 'the American government'.
If you write something that predicts the delay, doesn't that change the decisions that people make, thus making the eventual outcome wrong anyhow?
My GPS "live" traffic sucks because of that effect.
Heh, I misread "commuters" as "computers" and immediately thought, "What? Australia's already rolling out computer driven cars?!" :(
Then I read the rest, and I was disappointed.
I got so sick of sitting in traffic for hours that I moved to the city so I can walk to and from work, I've been doing that about 4 years, it's great - however I miss some things from living in the 'burbs - community, large garage, dog....
This is an Australian state government. What's worse it's the NSW state government. The problem is further exacerbated by it being TRANSPORT related. The end result will be that somehow $350 million will be spent before the whole thing will be abandoned as a bad idea.
Randomize both time and route. There are enough simple ways such that your route is only elongated by a small margin, but the peak congestion you see can be extremely reduced.