Data for Mobility and Improved Cities: A Teaser for Data Club #3

At peak rush hours, navigating through town can be such an unpleasant experience due to traffic congestion resulting in time wastage, wasted fuel resources, reduced air quality for urban residents, and worsening mental health.

For one to move around to either go about their errands here in Uganda and most especially the city center, the popular means of transport is public transportation where people use matatus (taxis) and city busses which are considerably low-cost and the other majority own cars and drive themselves while the rest consider Boda Bodas (motorcycle taxies) for their commute.

Although challenges surrounding transportation emanating from traffic congestion continue to be a menace, the rise of big data has paved the way for some solutions. Big data on transportation has been generated from Mobile Apps(connected cars and trucks, smartphones, and wearables), ride-hailing companies (Taxify, Uber, Mondo, SafeBoda), and Government MDAs that directly deal with the transportation sector of any city.

However, even with the quantity and quality of data collected, there has continually been a challenge in extracting value from this data through innovative methods. This data collected is more likely used for monetization than improving mobility around congestion, or even worse, it may lie redundant due to a lack of capacity or will to analyze it to gather meaningful insights that can be used to inform decision-makers to improve transportation

Where does data play a role?

Within data, there undoubtedly lies a whole lot of opportunities that any government, company, or organization can tap into. However, even when enormous amounts of datasets are collected and stored or even made available, the next step of fully putting it to sustainable use doesn’t take off or stalls. The big question is, “How do governments make use of the data collected for better planning and policymaking in the transport sector?”

On top of making all its data on transportation available, Singapore has gone ahead to exploit the big data it generates to build a smarter public transport system for its citizenry. Since Singaporeans mostly use public transportation, the government has used big data to do predictive maintenance which has helped anticipate and mitigate potential breakdowns and disruptions before they occur and prevent traffic congestion by planning more efficient bus routes as well as managing peak-period congestion at bus stops with more frequent services for popular routes.

Similarly, The Netherlands’ Dutch Railways has applied Big Data analysis collected through intelligent train technology (sensors that collect data and feed it to the main server for analysis) for ticketing systems, travel information real-time monitoring, and services for maintenance and control unit staff, TODAYonline revealed.

With the help of Big Data, transport authorities and companies have been enabled to better understand commuters’ behavior, identify policy interventions by making measured decisions, and also provide targeted information. This way, authorities will know better how to solve the issues of traffic congestion, companies such as Uber will know what commuters are looking for and how best to heed to their needs.

Among other things, big data helps a great deal in improving customer experience and service. This is synonymous with ride-hailing companies that collect customer feedback data and through the continuous effective analysis of reports, feedback and complaints, they’ve been able to counter all this and enhance customer experience. This way, thanks to the data they collect, they know where and how to improve.

What is Uganda doing?

In Uganda, scenarios of big data considerations by policymakers and planners before action and Implementation take-off are rare and insufficient. However, it’s true that data is being collected by almost all the Ministries, Agencies, and Departments that deal in the transport sector. Some of this data has been readily made available on the websites but not much has been done to harness its potential.

The Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) whose responsibility is to develop and maintain the national road network of approximately 20,000 kilometers including a large number of ferry links between roads has a keen focus on using data as well to ensure a smooth flow of their work.

For example, UNRA has worked with the Traffic and Data Services Division of Tracsis to collect traffic survey data in Uganda and help them withstand the rugged environment. This has helped them in training field technicians in the installation, maintenance, data collection, and decommissioning of all the various types of equipment they are employing on the surveys. Since its inception, the project has provided data that will enable strategic planning to take place at every stage of the road network development including the road maintenance schedules for the future which will be based upon real data about traffic levels and types.

Early this week, Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) launched a Traffic Control Centre (TCC) which remotely monitors and manages the performance of the traffic network as well as monitoring the radio communication of the field activities for the traffic wardens, ambulance, enforcement staff, and security personnel in Kampala.

The authority has been at the center of all road developments and traffic control in the heart of the city and to achieve this, they’ve had to heavily rely on data collected.

Two years ago, American-based ride-hailing company, Uber set up operations in Uganda and they’ve since been joined by other companies such as Taxify, Mondo ride. SafeBoda which has centered its focus on Boda Bodas has also established its mark. All these companies have one thing in common — they’ve successfully collected and utilized large sums of data and are now offering a solution in the transport sector.

Due to the high costs involved in the collecting and analysis process of travel behavior data, transportation planners and policymakers both in Uganda and across Africa continue to find it difficult to come up with appropriate and efficient solutions to the problems surrounding the transport sector. There is a ripe opportunity to collaborate with the private sector, particularly the tech giants, to harness passive data that is continually produced to improve mobility and life experiences of urban citizens across the continent.

Written by Pius Enywaru, Communications Lead at Pollicy