july 2007 archives

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Travel time predictor

In a few weeks time, the Royal Dutch Touring Club (ANWB) will launch a new online route planner. Since the new routeplanner takes into account historical traffic flow data of the major roads network, travel times will be more realistic. The travel time predictor, developed in cooperation with TNO Built Environment and Geosciences and Charta Software, is based on a flexible structure that may incorporate data about the weather, road works, holidays and events in the future. This allows car drivers to get more reliable advice on expected delays and alternative routes, cutting travel times by up to 15%. At first, I assumed that travel times would actually be longer compared to other route planners: the speeds on the road segments should be much lower than the current speed settings. However, taking the alternative route may actually be much faster than being stuck in a traffic jam. The ANWB route planner currently delivers over 75 million routes per year and also provides a traffic information service.

The new travel time predictor is an interactive application that uses the data that is also behind the Accessibility Map discussed previously. Actually, for a long time route planner software, e.g. InfoTech's RouteView RouteXNetServer, has facilitated different speed settings for different hours of the day. Furthermore, the MapMechanics product portfolio has featured the Real Speeds for quite some time. The Real Speeds data set provides speed settings identifying rush-hour, off-peak and night time speeds for private vehicles and commercial trucks. This data was derived from ITIS GPS signals from real vehicles on the move in Great Britain and then matched to the Navteq or AA road network datasets. So the building blocks have been there for some time, but they will only now be combined to create a new service on the ANWB route planner.  permanent link for this entry

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Creating art from GPS tracks

Walking into the Nijhoff & Lee bookstore the other day, I just had to buy the map sheet Verkenningen — een datazelfportret by Klaas van der Veen. Klaas is a graphic designer and typographer and explores the relation between bare numbers and communication using usable, clear maps, diagrams and tables.

Being passionate about maps and data and running, Klaas has been tracking his runs across the dunes near Haarlem using a GPS over the course of the last 2 years. This accurate, objective data has been turned into maps, similar to Jeremy Wood's GPS Drawing Project, but also into network diagrams, bar graphs, and polar plots. Furthermore, he has recorded subjective impressions to create his mental map, relating his sense of being with various locations in this dune area. Through all these representations, there gradually emerges a personal story, a data self-portrait.  permanent link for this entry