Overview
Crowdsourcing involves leveraging the combined intelligence, knowledge, or experience of a group of people to answer a question, solve a problem, or manage a process. Opportunities for crowdsourcing have greatly increased with the broad adoption of internet-connected devices, especially smartphones. Leveraging this network of connected people and devices for transportation system management is an important opportunity.
The term crowdsourcing is applied in common usage to several dissimilar processes. To establish a clear scope for this report, we have organized crowdsourced transportation data applications into four categories:
- Third-party Aggregated Crowdsourced Data
- Social Media for Public Engagement
- The Internet as a Sensor
- Dedicated Platforms for Transportation System Management
THIRD-PARTY AGGREGATED CROWDSOURCED DATA
Many transportation agencies already obtain aggregated crowdsourced data through contracted third-party commercial providers, most often for traffic speed and vehicle-count information. Commercial providers offer clearly defined products and services, customer support, and professional expertise. Such arrangements allow agencies access to proprietary data that would be otherwise difficult to obtain. Agencies may also use third-party data to avoid tedious data cleaning and management tasks. Purchasing additional types of third-party data is a future possibility.
SOCIAL MEDIA FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
Many agencies have experimented with leveraging internet-based social networks to obtain public feedback regarding the condition of the transportation system and performance of the agency. Americans spend more online time using social networks than any other online activity. The number of people a transportation agency could potentially reach through existing social media platforms is substantial. Agencies can simultaneously disseminate information, gather additional information from system users, and take advantage of instantaneous unmediated information sharing on the platform.
THE INTERNET AS A SENSOR
Broadly defined, a sensor is any device that takes a measurement and converts it into readable data. Recent research in transportation demand modeling has investigated the concept of using of the internet itself as a virtual sensor capable of providing valuable, actionable data. Research has suggested that open traffic data can be used to obtain network traffic speed estimations that are equal to or better than traditional sensors. Additionally, internet-as-asensor methods may be able to predict the impact of special events, such as festivals and sporting events, on the transportation system.
DEDICATED PLATFORMS FOR TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM MANAGEMENT
Crowdsourced data collection using purpose-built dedicated applications is rapidly gaining momentum within multiple industries. Transportation agencies and others have already deployed a wide range of custom-built applications to collect transportation system information. The potential applications of crowdsourcing will continue to diversify in the future as applications, wireless networks, and other technologies continue to evolve.
INTEGRATING CROWDSOURCED DATA INTO EXISTING AGENCY PRACTICES
Crowdsourced data comes in a large number of formats, which presents a challenge for integrating such data with legacy systems. Agencies wishing to leverage crowdsourced data must establish data-intake processes that interpret and distribute the data appropriately. An efficient data-intake process will allow agencies to use crowdsourced data in real-time for operations and maintenance, as well as to store data for future uses such as research and planning activities. Agencies will select and employ specific approaches for data integration based on the format of the raw data that an agency obtains, and the goals that the agency has in using data. Clearly stated goals are critical when designing a data-integration strategy.