• January 22, 2016

    PacTrans Technology Transfer Success Story 2015 #6: We are Here to Help: Enhancing Public Support for Wireless MAC Address Sensing in Transport Data Collection

     

    BTWiFiBus

     

    Investigators: PI Michael Lowry (UI), Yinhai Wang (UW), Mike Dixon (UI), Ahmed-Abdel Rahim (UI), Mark Hallenbeck (UW)

    Project Type: Multi-Institution Project

    Title of Original Research: Data Collection and Spatial Interpolation of Bicycle and Pedestrian Data

    Research Description: Public transit and nonmotorized travel modes represent convenient, affordable, and sustainable alternatives to personal motor vehicles for many travelers. However, understanding travel patterns and mode choice behavior is crucial to making well-informed planning and operations decisions that will optimize the allocation of limited resources and increase participation in these modes. Thus, PacTrans and the Washington State Department of Transportation jointly funded research focused on leveraging current data collection efforts to obtain more complete travel demand information, and introducing new methods that have the potential to reduce cost and improve the quality and coverage of transportation data.

    Technology Transfer: The methods developed in this work have a great deal of potential for practical application in non-motorized mode and transit data collection. However, the issue of public acceptance and cooperation was identified as a possible barrier to large-scale implementation of wireless MAC address sensing. Therefore PacTrans has allocated additional funding to an outreach project that will develop a short film explaining this unique data collection paradigm to the non-engineering public, with the aim of addressing common complaints regarding privacy and safety. The benefits offered by this method of data collection will be presented, including but not limited to the financial savings to transportation agencies and quality of service improvements associated with more accurate and complete traveler OD and demand information. The film created in this project will be released publicly via popular video streaming services, and emphasis will be placed on clarity, simplicity, and entertainment value.