Themes of connectedness are so intrinsic to the immediate and near future in our cities and daily lives that to think of a life without information at our fingertips is almost absurd. When I was a kid, cars stood in the driveway, and it was unthinkable to connect them to a phone. How would the cord reach when my sister always had it stretched down the hallway, and underneath her door? Fast forward, and now it’s unthinkable to buy a car without bluetooth. Soon that requirement will go unnamed, and simply be the connected experience that is our lives. No longer an extra.
Traveling through our lives, we wake up and leave our homes for work or to have meetings if we work at home. We move about our world and check our phones that integrate our information all together in and from calendars, and instagram, and Facebook and multiple emails, and texts. All of our movements are understood by our apps because we usually opt to allow them to. We need maps to get around don’t we? We sometimes use apps to meet our friends. We also use apps to meet new friends.
If we’re city planners, let’s explore what we could do if we were to harness the connected intelligence of our people’s transport across roadways and on sidewalks. In cars, on bikes, or riding trains and buses. Consider the possibilities if all of that information about wave after wave of rush hour and lunchtime people movement was available at our fingertips. It’s about diving into the components of every roadway, connecting with the most granular segmentation in the world through INRIX XD. Sub-segment deep dives on each arterial down to 100 meters. Imagine the kinds of efficiencies, and connected transportation experiences made possible through this microscope into corridors. City streets. We could better our cities, and plan for the future, identify more opportunities more rapidly, and we could save more lives. The amount of people who ride the subway in Shanghai every day is nearly equal to the population of Manhattan. They’re all going somewhere, and their volumes are only increasing. In any city, for any person. Every planner and engineer and decision-maker. All can be connected to where their people are going. And to where they went.
Population movement. Public transportation. And driving. Solo driving is a concept that is becoming an integral connected and shared experience. It’s common to want to talk to our friends, hold meetings in our cars or on the bus, or in an Uber or Lyft, or in a taxi, and then stay on the phone whilst you transition outside to shop or walk to a coffee shop, or enter work or home. We drive or ride or bike or walk. All activities allow us to connect, and stay connected to our lives. It’s not just us and our autonomous selves moving through our world. We can move through together with our people, through our devices. During our drives. Soon, we will ride in an autonomous vehicle in our own private or shared ride experiences that seek us out on a schedule, rather us finding them. When we’re ready, it will arrive to our spot, and we’ll move to our next destination.
Think of that connected world informing you of what you need to know before you need to know it. Consider being informed of critical problems on the road with a history of crashes, or issues with construction that exist now and always have, or with ice, or even if bees sometimes get loosed on the road in this 100 meter section, every month on Friday. Now consider being able to know when the business you frequent is having a congested parking lot, and when there is no way you’re going to get through their drive-thru window in time to get to work. Imagine being rerouted, and being given options that make your day flow on schedule. Now consider that you own a business, and are trying to figure out a new area to grow your next restaurant, or retail shop, or service business office. Then consider that you’ll be informed automatically of what areas in the city would best reflect the nature and type of foot or driving or people traffic in general that meet your business needs. Even know what delivery companies might be able to serve your business best in that area, or another area that will save 50% on delivery overhead due to a subtle change of location away from an habitual bottleneck that prevents anyone from reaching that business every day, between 1 and 5 pm. Now imagine knowing all of that, and more, before you leave your bed in the morning. Consider the ease this provides. By knowing.
That’s the power potential and future of INRIX Analytics. What you need, before you need it. For planning, and building. Data to guide you. Connected through the devices we use, the cars we drive, the businesses we know and appreciate, and the people who impact our lives. INRIX Roadways, Trade Areas, Speeds and Incidents, Traffic, Real Time and Historic data. Data on demand. Information to drive us. INRIX — moving together.