How An App and some Coupons Can Tame urban Congestion

Metropia helps cities cut back automobile site visitors through giving people incentives to tweak their driving habits.

August 21, 2015

There are two competing tactics—both very pricey—to fixing site visitors problems: construct more roads, or construct more public transit. Yi-Chang Chiu, a professor of transportation engineering on the college of Arizona, has some other thought: Hand out gift playing cards.

it’s that you can imagine to scale back car congestion, Chiu’s research displays, if drivers take totally different routes and force at fairly different times—from about 15 to forty five minutes earlier or later. “[Currently] we activate our navigation methods when we get in the car,” says Chiu. “through that point it is already too late.” Getting as little as 10% of individuals to change their schedules would lead to a “measurable development,” he says.

Chiu’s startup, Metropia, uses a place-tracking smartphone app (tied to visitors knowledge and a routing algorithm) that encourages individuals to take the small steps of adjusting routes or leaving at different occasions—and even take buses—with modest incentives comparable to reward certificates.

In Austin, Texas and Tucson, Arizona, where Metropia has simply begun operations, merely saving time has been incentive sufficient for thousands of users.

In about two weeks, Metropia will embark on its latest problem as a launch accomplice in DriveSmart, NY city’s information-pushed plan to inspire people to drive more safely and efficiently within the nation’s greatest metropolis.

Metropia won’t specify what number of users it has in Austin and Tucson, but there have to be at the least 4,000, for the reason that firm equipped us knowledge on what that many people have performed up to now few months. these drivers have accomplished 60,936 of Metropia’s recommended routes (protecting about half of one million miles), which the corporate reckons has saved 2,505 hours of shuttle time and 65,697 kilos of CO2. now not bad for a application that simply started in March in Tucson and in could in Austin.

The startup’s field exams in Austin and la discovered that as much as 30% of drivers have flexible schedules that may allow them to regulate the times they force by way of as a minimum 15 minutes. (Metropia targets to increase to L.A. in 2016.)

“i’m not going to check out to get everybody to ride on buses day after today,” says Chiu. “i’m handiest asking them to leave a bit past or later or to observe a recommended route with the aid of Metropia.” however he says that the bus will occasionally develop into the best choice, not just in dense mass transit-centered cities like new york, but in addition places like Austin and Tucson.

is this simply some other Waze?

Metropia is hardly the primary smartphone visitors app for drivers. Waze, founded in 2008 and bought via Google for a rumored $1 billion in 2013, has attracted more than 50 million customers. users of those apps provide data each passively, with their telephones appearing as GPS “probes” for pace and placement data, and actively, by way of reporting conditions like accidents or police pace traps.

the fundamental finish-user mechanism for each and every app is similar: individuals enter the destination they aim to get to, and the app uses GPS information to determine how the driver obtained there and how long it took. That information gets crunched to variation site visitors patterns and counsel best possible routes for customers.

the biggest difference between Metropia and Waze is that Metropia begins on the native stage. “sooner than we launch in a city, we [talk] to chambers of commerce and downtown business associations,” says Chiu, “to peer if there may be any means we are able to help them.”

Metropia coordinates tightly with native governments. even supposing the Austin program formally launched in may just, Metropia began working with the crucial Texas Regional Mobility Authority on a six-month beta test in September 2014.

in contrast to Waze, Metropia doesn’t take handbook reports from customers, but as an alternative partners with municipal transit agencies to mix its probe knowledge with native government sources equivalent to sensors, site visitors cameras, street-development schedules, and police accident reviews. A latest upgrade feeds information about flooding conditions from the record rainfall in Texas into the Austin routing. The partnership isn’t just to help with day-to-day traffic, however to provide long-term insights for transportation planners.

Waze has also began identical govt partnerships. In October 2014, it launched the Waze connected voters software, which now has partnerships with about 40 government companies all over the world, together with the cities of Boston, Rio de Janeiro, and Tel Aviv, as well as the new York Police division.

both Waze and Metropia utilize that tech buzzword: gamification. Waze individuals achieve points and move up in consumer rankings for providing excellent information. Metropia awards factors that can be exchanged for candies. the typical shuttle earns about 35 factors, with $5 present playing cards beginning around 1,000 factors. Metropia brings native companies into the act, getting them to supply deals similar to reductions at eating places and even on taxi fares. native companies take part now not just for publicity, says Chiu, but because they have got an pastime in cutting native congestion so consumers can if truth be told reach them.

Metropia offers present cards for national firms like Amazon, Starbucks, and goal, too. It additionally allows people to donate points to charity, equivalent to sponsoring tree planting through the national wooded area foundation.

If they may be able to Make It There

the corporate is planning to enlarge to different cities, comparable to El Paso, in early 2016. And Chiu still hopes to restart discussions with L.A., which started out below Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and are restarting with the administration of the current mayor, Eric Garcetti.

The rapid problem, although, is NY city’s DriveSmart application—an effort to cut back congestion and pollution and improve safety in the 5 boroughs. DriveSmart’s common technique is lots like Metropia’s: collect data from drivers to map and analyze their conduct, while offering incentives for them to alter conduct.

Metropia is one of four firms in the pilot section of DriveSmart, that will begin with four hundred drivers in NY city. any other associate, sprint, will accumulate knowledge on driving conduct, like braking and acceleration, from the cars’ information ports. insurance coverage firm Allstate is offering participants reductions on auto insurance coverage if the info presentations they are riding safely. The fourth participant, trip Greener, is any other rewards program. If the pilot goes well, the city will open DriveSmart as much as extra New Yorkers.

With Metropia, Chiu is having a bet that a little bit common experience on the a part of drivers will make make it possible to tame urban visitors. while that can sound relatively sanguine, it’s ultimately more real looking than expecting billions of bucks in new infrastructure funding to appear in each and every city.

[photograph: Flickr consumer Chris Brown]

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