1 Cisco Technology Radar / More information at https://techradar.cisco.com Transport providers arrive early to the challenges of automation 5.. In truth, the use of real-time information
Trang 1Leading in real time
An investigation of the impact of real-time business on strategy and management.
1 Cisco Technology Radar / More information at https://techradar.cisco.com
Transport providers arrive early to the challenges of automation
5 TRANSPORTATION
In 2011 New York’s Department of Transport
deployed wireless sensors across Midtown
Manhattan to measure city-centre traffic speeds, and
thereby congestion Data were fed in real time to a
control centre, where algorithms remotely adjusted
traffic signalling, automatically smoothing jams and
easing flow The pilot was heralded as revolutionary
by the then mayor, Michael Bloomberg “We are now
using the most sophisticated system of its kind,”
he said, “to clear up Midtown jams at the touch of
a button.” The system has since been rolled out
citywide
In truth, the use of real-time information and
automated systems in urban transport has a long
history “We’ve had real-time systems for a long time,”
says Shashi Verma, director of customer experience at
Transport for London (TfL), the local government body responsible for transport in the capital
London’s computerised traffic signalling system SCOOT (Split Cycle Offset Optimisation Technique), which optimises traffic-light signals based on traffic flow, has been operating for decades The first driverless trains came to the city in the late 1960s
It is unsurprising, then, that companies in the transport sector are more advanced users of real-time data than most In a cross-industry survey conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), 40% of executives from the sector say their organisations have
successfully incorporated real-time information into up
to half of their business practices This is nearly twice the cross-industry average of 22%
The transport sector has been an early adopter of real-time information and is wrestling with the challenges of incorporating automation sooner than most
Written by The Economist Intelligence Unit
Trang 20% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%
% of transporation respondents
Justifying the investment required Collecting relevant real-time information Incorporating real-time information into existing business
processes Designing new business processes around real-time
information Having the skills to analyse and interpret real-time information
Incorporating the analysis of real-time information in strategic
decision-making Choosing which decisions based on real-time information
should be automated and which should be taken by employees
Responding rapidly to real-time information
30%
30%
40%
28%
32%
44%
48% 24%
Which of the following are the biggest challenges your organisation faces in
using real-time information?
% of transporation respondents
2 Cisco Technology Radar / More information at https://techradar.cisco.com
According to three-quarters of transport executives
surveyed, real-time data already play a major role in
both operations management (76%), where real-time
information can help optimise the delivery routes,
for example—and customer service (76%) Examples
of using real-time data to improve the customer
experience include providing up-to-the-minute
information about a vehicle’s location, to allow
passengers to plan their journeys or to let delivery
recipients know when a parcel can be expected to
arrive
There is still more room for
improvement, and transport operators
are looking to real-time data analytics
to drive greater efficiency and
resilience in their operations
For example, monitoring the location of trains on a
network in real time and adjusting their speed can
allow operators to shorten the distance between
vehicles—the headway—on their networks “The
average headway can be reduced from around
three minutes to 80 seconds with no risk to safety,”
says Andreas Mehlhorn, head of Siemens Mobility
Consulting “The line can handle 50% more traffic
and cut its energy consumption by up to 30%.”
These achievements require automation: no human operator could react to real-time changes in the position of coaches fast enough to keep them at a safe distance
Here again, transport companies are ahead of the pack: 78% of those surveyed by The EIU say they have automated business processes in order to respond instantly to real-time information, compared with 50% across all industries
However, their advanced use of automation presents them with advanced challenges Choosing which decisions based on real-time information should be automated and which should be taken by employees
is identified as a challenge by 48% of transport executive surveyed, their most commonly cited challenge (see chart)
For TfL, one important factor influencing this decision
is the complexity and significance of the decision in question “If that decision is reasonably simple, then you can leave the computer to get on with it If the decisions get complicated, then human intervention
is always the right thing to do.”
Trang 3This reflects in part the fact that the sheer volume
and variety of the data available to transport
operators is almost unique Anything—from personal
and vehicle location data, to ticketing data and
scheduling, to weather and social media sentiment
data—can be used somehow Data are available
from fixed and mobile sensors, but also from
crowdsourcing Google, for instance, provides live
traffic information based on information gathered
from Android phones All of this could well lead to
analysis paralysis
TfL’s Mr Verma warns against collecting data
for data’s sake: instead, transport organisations
should start with the problem before looking to see
whether real-time data could help “It has to be for a
purpose,” he says
For example, TfL knows that every time it rains
in London, demand on the tube and bus network
goes up by about 4% But what do you do with that
information? “You can’t run more trains and busses
every time it rains.”
That said, Mr Verma sees real-time data playing an
even more crucial role in the future, by allowing TfL
to predict service issues before they arise “The real
holy grail is predictive,” says Verma “What you want
to know from the real-time data is whether you’re
going to confront a problem in five or ten minutes’
time If you can act in advance of that problem
occurring, then maybe the problem won’t occur at
all.”
London’s Victoria Underground Station is one of the city’s most congested, and managing the flow of passengers at peak times is extremely demanding
If two trains arrive at the same time, causing 2,000
to converge onto the Underground line, the station will be overwhelmed, says Mr Verma But closing the station is disruptive
The ability to predict ten minutes in advance whether multiple trains will arrive simultaneously, and how full they will be, would allow operators to start taking advance action further ahead “Being able to stop stations from closing would be a fantastic thing to do.”
“Using data to do things of that kind is an inexpensive way of squeezing more capacity out,”
Mr Verma says “That is the kind of research work that we’re engaged in right now I have no doubt we’ll get there.”
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This article, written by The Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by Cisco, examines global organisations’ use of real-time information and its impact on strategy and management It is based on a global survey of 268 executives, just under one-third of whom hold positions
in the IT department, while 47% are members of the C-suite Respondents were drawn from companies in the healthcare, transport, retail, healthcare, manufacturing and energy sectors, 49% of which have annual revenue over US$500m.
Information overload
The second most common challenge is incorporating the analysis of
real-time information into strategic decision-making, as identified by 44% of survey respondents.