Developing an iPhone app to Help People Avoid Traffic

Ixtli-Nitzin Sanchez, Eugene Fiorini, Ph.D, André Cohen

July 19th 2012

• FACT: Americans now spend more than 100 hours a

year commuting to work.

– Source: U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2010/11/seattle_rush_hour_traffic_rank.php

Purpose

oSuggest Alternative Departure

Times

Now or Later?

oOffer New Solutions to Avoiding

traffic.

Project that unfolded:

“Using New York City’s 2009 Historical

Traffic Data to Develop an iPhone

Routing & Ride Sharing Application.”

To fuse a currently existing

Routing Program with

Historical Traffic Data.

Specific Aim

oBeginning with New York City

• Traffic Data

o2 files & C Program

Key Components of the Project

• Maps

• Routing

New York City Traffic Data

• Provided by:

o New York State Department of Transportation

• DATA files:

1. 2009 Hourly Traffic Data, New

York City

• 47,643 lines of Data !

2. Street ID with Longitude & Latitude

correlation

1. Hourly Traffic Data from 2009, New York City

Directional1 = North3 = East5 = South7 = West

• Data for each street:

24/7 at hourly

intervals.

2. Street ID with Longitude & Latitude correlation

• Facts about DATA:

o NOT All Streets had

Longitude and

Latitude Codes

With the Power of Programming

•In the C language :

1. Reorganized the Data & 2. Converted the Dates -> Days

Maps• Needed a Map Provider WITHOUT:

1. licensing fees

2. contractual restrictions

Google Maps’ Terms of Service, under ‘Map Information’ section:

"Also, you may not use Google Maps in a manner which gives you or any other person access to mass downloads or bulk feeds of numerical latitude and longitude coordinates”

Meaning = no

• Open Source geospatial data for anybody

to use.

• Downloaded the geographical data file of

New York .

SOLUTION: OpenStreetMap

Result

• Using a Open Source Program

Library

o Successfully placed an

OpenstreetMap map on a

iPhone application.

Uses Route-Me map library, (c) 2008-2010 Route-Me Contributors

NEEDED : Preexisting Program to take care of Routing

Routing

Libosmscout

PITFALLS:

Long and Tedious build process.

Resulting in a week and half of debugging.

Advised- to find another routing program

Temporary Routing Solution

•Google Map’s application programming interface (API) routing program

•Serve only as a proof of concept so that we may utilize the traffic data.

Merging the Traffic Data

• Work in Progress…

o Averaging the traffic for the route.

o Return a traffic report to the user.

Future Work

I. Data Visualization

II. iPhone extension–Ride Share

Using GraphStream

Why?

A.Visualizing &

B.Understanding

I. Data Visualization

A. Save user’s search results & their point to point location.

B. Match with another user who has a “similar” travel route.

C. Create a group that will invite a collection of users who take the same route.

II. iPhone extension –Ride Share

Opportunity to carpool with others will:

Conclusion

Create an iPhone application that will provide users with the opportunity to

carpool with others thus saving money and living a stress-free life without traffic.

•For more info you can contact me:– Ish.sanchez12@gmail.com– 323-376-5058 (cell)– CoRE Building Room 434

Acknowledgements

Special Thanks To:

• Dr. Fiorini, Ph.D• André Cohen• Dr. Erenrich, Ph.D• Roselin Rosario