City of Melbourne Works With Center for Information Discovery and Data Analytics On Traffic Management

The City of Melbourne, Australia is working with the new Center for Information Discovery and Data Analytics (CIDDA) at RMIT to make better use of sensor data for pedestrian and traffic management. The pedestrian traffic project – one of the center’s IoT analytics focus areas – uses historical records of pedestrian counts captured with thermal and laser-based sensors installed at multiple locations throughout the city. The researchers state that the model that was produced is “capable of accurately predicting pedestrian numbers up to 16 days in advance.”

The CIDDA team specializes in human-driven data science, focusing on what can be done using data collected from “sensors, smartphones, wireless infrastructures, UAV / drones, IoT, location-based social networks, and moving objects (vehicles, airplanes).”  They expect the work to be applied in areas such as “smart cities, smart buildings, smart parking, intelligent transportation systems, and intelligent assistants.” The team is seeking to expand its collaborations with partners in industry, government, and scientific organizations to help partners solve fundamental research challenges presented by data within their organizations.

“Governments, businesses and not-for-profits all gather electronic data daily, some on a small scale but many of them in large volumes, and this is only set to increase, “ CIDDA director, associate professor J. Shane Culpepper said. “But most of us don’t know what to do with all of the data because data analytics is not their primary purpose. Our primary goal is to partner with these organizations and help transform data into knowledge. It’s through these partnerships that we solve fundamental research challenges and translate that research into impact. We’re an externally focused center and will be looking to develop new partnerships across all our focus areas.”