The Traffic Crystal Ball (0) comments
By Francis Onwumere | Monday, August 24 2009 | Infotech
  
 Imagine for a moment that you could peer into the future what would you look for? Perhaps in your excitement, you'll want to know how things will turn out tomorrow or even five years from now. As your glance moves from family to friends and business relations, the thrill continues with one delightful discovery after the other until all of a sudden and with a screech, you are stuck in traffic. You think to yourself for a moment: "why didn't I look out for the traffic". This is the real world, welcome to Lagos.
Deja vu- is the feeling that you're left with, time and again, when stuck in the thick Lagos traffic. You could have taken that alternative route, if only there was some foresight, but in Lagos, there really isn't any way of telling or is there?
The key to unlock traffic surprises in Lagos is being forged by 'star-gazer' and technology innovator, Simon Smethurst-MacIyntre. Simon holds a masters degree in Astrophysics from the University of Bristol and has studied the application of complex systems theory to organisational issues at MIT.
"I remember my first time in Lagos", he recalls as we enter his office, "we were held up in traffic for over two hours from the airport on the mainland to my residence on the island". Now this is a trip that you could make in 30mins or less, it doesn't matter whether you drive a Ferrari or the like, the difference is only one thing- traffic. Simon isn't one to let a problem to go unsolved: "I knew something had to be done about this". Whilst working for eNowNow, an information portal based in Lagos, Simon and his colleagues made up their minds to do that "something", that will change the lives of road users in Lagos forever.
And so began the journey to unlock surprises by providing foresight through real-time traffic information, at no cost to road users via sms, twitter, facebook and on the eNowNow traffic website.
"It's clear that everyone needs traffic information, not only the car owners but also commuters especially people at the grassroots such as office workers or house-wives. So from the first moment we just wanted to collect real-time traffic information and get it out there as quickly as possible. That's the reason why we chose sms, because of its ubiquity".
The service which can be found at traffic.eNowNow.com is still at the beta stage but it's already gaining traction, with thousands of people logging in and subscribing for scheduled sms updates for their daily traffic routes.
So how does it all come altogether? Real time traffic data is collected by a team of ten motorcyclists that reconnoitre different parts of the city. Armed with a camera phone, they take pictures of current traffic situations and send the image via MMS to the eNowNow's traffic office. The eNowNow traffic servers then analyse the data to match the geographical location and decode the traffic situation which is enumerated to either: "slow", "moving" or "free". This information is fed into the eNowNow traffic conditions database which updates the Live traffic Map on the eNowNow traffic website. SMS are then sent to anyone that has subscribed to traffic updates for the corresponding geo-location. At the same time this information gets posted on twitter and facebook. Traffic update from this service is also broadcast on two radio stations (beat 99.9 FM and Classic 97 FM) in the metropolis.
Simon explains that they are working out better ways to collect the traffic information so that it's more intuitive and up-to-date as possible. On their list of improvements is crowd sourcing, GPS tracking of cars to gather intelligent data on their speeds on certain roads, and also information from the Lagos State's CCTV.
The eNowNow traffic system also stores historical traffic data on which you could easily base future traffic predictions but that's as simple as it gets. Simon sees this historical information as a data mine on which higher levels of traffic analysis and modelling can be based. "In the future this historical data could be used by anyone including the Lagos government to intelligently model traffic scenarios when proposing road construction or some other form of maintenance work that ordinarily disrupts traffic flow. Experts will also be able to predict the ripple effect that an unforeseen truck breakdown will have on traffic in other parts of the city."
As the eNowNow team work towards improving this service I can't help recalling what technologist John Seely Brown points out, "something subtle happens to a technology when it achieves amenity: It disappears". It becomes so much part of your everyday life that you no longer notice it. traffic.eNowNow.com is a service that is in touch with reality and the people, with the magic it provides to our everyday life.
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