(Continued from April 29, 2021)
AS OF NOW, there are already many online and mobile services that are already available for free, and all we have to do is to use them. For example, there is already Google Maps, Google Street View and Waze.
With Google alone, we would already know how and where we could direct the flow of the traffic. With Waze, we would know where the choke points are, and that would help us redirect the traffic too. These are just the obvious solutions, but there are many more data sources that we could tap, among which are the National Center for Transportation Studies (NCTS) at the University of the Philippines in Diliman and the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (NAMRIA) in Taguig City.
At the risk of being off tangent, I would even say that the software used to track the migration patterns of tuna fish via satellite could be modified to also collect data in relation to the traffic flow patterns of motor vehicles. Since tuna fish emit heat from their bodies, powerful sensors on board satellites are able to read these concentrations of heat and therefore it is possible to detect where the schools of tuna fish are at any given time. Since motor vehicles also emit heat from their engines, we could also find out via satellite where the concentrations of vehicles are at any given time.
The entire metropolis is now equipped with thousands of traffic lights, but it seems that the data from these devices are not collected and are not analyzed to produce information that could be used for making management decisions.
Aside from traffic lights, the metropolis is also equipped now with hundreds of closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras. Just like the traffic lights, it seems that the data from these CCTV cameras are not being collected and analyzed. If only the data from these two sources could be collected and combined, we would have more than enough information for making management decisions. Just to be clear, it is not just the real time data that are useful, because we could also use the historical data.
Certainly, we are not lacking in satellite resources because we even have our own microsatellite now, but as it is now, drones that are equipped with cameras and sensors are already available in the market, and are practically affordable too.
Aside from that, there are hundreds of cell sites all over the metropolis that could also be equipped with cameras and sensors, thus completing the web of data collectors all over the place. It may be too simplistic to say that there is a way if there is a will, but that is already saying the obvious because the ways are already available everywhere.
Having said that the problem of traffic flows would require multidisciplinary solutions, I now say that we should also look at the surface quality of our roads and highways, and I do not just mean patching potholes. What I mean is that we should now adopt local standards for the smoothness of our road surfaces, based on acceptable international standards.
On that note, I would also say that we should take a look at how corruption in the construction of roads and highways are affecting the quality of road surfaces. Simply said, better road surfaces would also translate into faster traffic flows./PN
