The quest for transportation data

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” is a commonly heard engineer’s truism. Yet many engineers who work in U.S. transportation unfortunately are faced with this dilemma on a regular basis. That is, they’re tasked with planning and managing infrastructure projects without having the detailed transportation data they need to make fully informed decisions. In this podcast, Professor Schofer shares with Tom the results of transportation and travel data studies he’s been involved with as part of a Transportation Research Board committee. The goal is to find ways to collect data on how people travel – whether by car, bus, train, truck, cycle or on foot; where they travel – the routes and localities; when they travel – what days, times of day; how often they travel; and why they travel. The challenge is to collect this information in ways that will be most accurate, but without seeming to intrude on people’s privacy.