More than 50 Boston University students and faculty members attended a seminar on data and urban mobility Friday in the BU Photonics Center, featuring MIT professor, Marta González.
González’s lecture was part of BU’s Center for Information and Systems Engineering’s regular seminar series, according to College of Engineering professor, Yannis Paschalidis, the faculty host of the event.
In her lecture, González delineated a new model of data collection and usage, whereby governments worldwide can make use of big data, which are masses of information collected from a multitude of sources to help control travel patterns in their respective municipalities.
Instead of relying solely on older methods of data collection, namely censuses and surveys, governments can incorporate data from newer sources like mobile apps and phone records to make predictions about travel conditions.
This can aid cities in redesigning their infrastructure and making travel more efficient, may it be moving bike lines to different streets or changing the landscape of intersections.
“[González is] developing sort of this mobility model of understanding what people are doing every day,” Paschalidis said during the discussion. “She has been able to get data from many different places worldwide.”
González said using big data will help cities better understand traffic conditions, allowing them to predict which neighborhoods produce the most traffic.
She explained how the new model relies on a mass of individual data points, with each data point representing a person.
“The goal is, within a given resolution in time and space, [to model] individual trajectories,” González said.
In her research using the model, she has discovered that increased income brings increased mobility. This means lower-income groups spend more time in congested conditions.
With big data, González said researchers like herself can pinpoint the sources of the congestion and how it will dissipate, something the government has never been able to do before.
Paschalidis, the director of CISE, said González’s research can help improve congested conditions worldwide.
“[Using] much better models and much better analytics [can] help you make better decisions and improve congestion and quality of life for everybody in the city,” he said.
Paschalidis said the center, consisting of 40 faculty members, brings together speakers from different interdisciplinary areas of study to talk about topics of interest to students and faculty. Topics include smart cities, transportation, and Friday’s focus, mobility, one of the center’s active research areas.
Paschalidis said for each installment in the series, a faculty member can invite a colleague who is well-studied in a particular topic.
He said bringing in speakers from other universities “helps [faculty and students] gain a broader perspective about cutting edge research.”
In addition, the visitor spends the whole day at the center engaging with students and faculty.
“There are discussions about research,” Paschalidis said after the event. “[Visitors] also get to see the great work that we are doing here at BU, and it helps in terms of the visibility of our activities here.”
Several engineering students in attendance said after the presentation that they found González’s research interesting and relevant.
Brett Moretzky, a senior in ENG, said he thinks González’s methods of collecting data are necessary going forward.
“I found it really interesting that [with their data], they use it to plan out cities,” Moretzky said. “If you don’t use the big data that we have access to now…you don’t get the full picture.”
Yi Liu, a senior in ENG, said he learned from González that in cities like Beijing, where he is from, the government is not handling traffic efficiently.
“[González said] some cities restrict a certain number of cars one day a week,” he said. “I was surprised when [González] said that wasn’t very useful to reduce traffic.”
Liu said he hopes González’s research and data can help improve transportation and traffic situations worldwide.
Ayush Jain, a first-year graduate student in ENG, said he though González’s presentation thought-provoking.
“The most interesting thing was that this is a problem that is faced by every metropolitan city in the world,” Jain said. “[Yet], not a lot of people are working on this.”
Jain, who applied for a Ph.D at BU for next fall, said he attends the CISE seminars because they expose him to topics and research that academics in the Boston area are working on.
“It’s cool to see what other people are working on in other universities,” Jain said. “Boston is a place where there are a lot of universities and there’s a lot of research going on.”
Amanda Kaufman contributing to the reporting of this article.
