[sustran] Re: ITS Deployment in developing countries - what are theinhibiting factors?

[Brendan Finn]

Dear Sunny, 

Just to clarify, ITS is - or at least should be - just a tool, albeit a very valuable one. It is not policy, and does not set policy. 

It is as good or as bad as its master, and the use to which (s)he puts it. If the master has a will to promote cars and give them dominance over all other life forms in a city, then the ITS will reflect the master's nature. It the master has a will to promote public transport, restrain cars, and increase the safe environment for NMV, then the ITS will reflect that desire instead.

Over the last few years I have made many presentations in which I ask people to focus on the first letter of 'ITS'. The 'I' stands for 'Intelligent', and we don't see too much of that. What we have is systems that are very good at capturing, gathering, centralising and processing information, analysing it to make complex technical decisions, and turning it into instructions for traffic and other systems. It does it very fast, and beyond the speed and capacity of humans, hence we think it is intelligent. Mostly it's not. It is electronic and good at what it does. We have 'e-transport'. 

What we need is ITS to support sustainable mobility, working in harmony with non-ITS and soft measures. Intelligent policy, intelligent strategies, sentient systems, self-learning tools, knowledge-based systems, AI, more use of heuristics, and ITS which can learn and adapt to do the job that really needs doing. 

The challenge is to evolve from 'e-transport' to 'i-transport'.

With best wishes, 


Brendan.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
>From Brendan Finn, ETTS Ltd.   e-mail : etts at indigo.ie   tel : +353.87.2530286
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Sunny 
  To: Global 'South' Sustainable Transport 
  Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 6:02 PM
  Subject: [sustran] Re: ITS Deployment in developing countries - what are theinhibiting factors?


  Yes I agree to some extent that ITS serves a good purpose in supporting transit but some applications like reversible lanes, parking indicators actually support the car users. If ITS "debugs" these sort of traffic solutions it would be great. On the point of introducing it in developing countries, I feel that first there is an urgent need for pulling people out of their cars which are becoming more and more hi-tech and lead them towards public transit and then implementing ITS to make it easy for them would be a wise idea. I would love to be involved in any research of this kind. 

  I have personally observed in Bangkok some of the bus stations are equipped with the ITS devices like the next bus information and taxi call service and if anyone has recently visited Pantip Plaza, famous tourist destination for computer stuff and pirated CDs, they would know that the bus stop right in front of this plaza is a ITS bus stop but is closed down and is now a shelter for motorbike taxis and sugar cane juice sellers. Similarly, another ITS bus stop in the Siam square which I thought was serving the purpose was actually showing some TV programs and occasionally displaying some bus numbers and to my surprise it was not the number of the coming bus. 

  As I said earlier I agree with ITS' advantages but wht I try to say is tht providing proper base in terms of increasing PT ridership and the convenient facilities for these riders is the starting step. Finn was saying that basic IT in traffic authorities is lacking and I agree to tht, here in Bangkok i think the traffic police are literally confused and they operated these traffic signals manually ITS could help this. 

  Ah while still in the topic I would like to know the others opinion on the countdown timers that they put on the traffic signals.

  Sunny

  Brendan Finn wrote: 
    Dear Joshua,

    Good point, and one I've noticed for quite a few years.  

    I'm sure someone must have researched this and have categorised the factors. Off the top of my head, I would make a short-list of the following factors inhibiting deployment of ITS in developing countries (in random order as they occur to me) : 

    1) Transport infrastructure is seen as the more interesting investment (in some cases for non-transportation reasons!)
    2) Unwillingness to spend money on the 'soft infrastructure'
    3) Lack of interest in actively managing and optimising the traffic resources
    4) Lack of understanding of how ITS can greatly improve throughput and efficiency
    5) Lack of money not only for the equipment, but also for planning, data set-up, calibration, training, operations, maintenance
    6) Lack of basic IT in traffic authorities, bus companies etc. - i.e. PCs, databases, networks, communications
    7) Lack of frameworks for integrated ITS - system architectures, comprehensive citywide data gathering, publicly available digital maps, historic data
    8) Cost factor balance compared to developed countries - equipment is expensive, labour is cheap - harder to make the business case
    9) Lack of ITS vision within the country, lack of champions, lack of funding programs
    10) Donor agencies, lenders, international agencies don't give sufficient priority to ITS within transport investment programs
    11) Lack of research institutive, universities, entrepreneurial companies who can bring the know-how and best practice to the transport sector
    12) Inability to retain technical experts in public sector - anyone in the traffic or transport sector that develops the needed capability will rapidly transfer to the private sector dollar economy where they have the possibility to earn 10 to 100 times more than their (uncertain) public sector pittance.
    13) In some countries, the day job is about survival - the impoverished doing the impossible with the unworkable. ITS is on a different planet. Or as they say in Louisiana - when you're up to your ass in alligators, you tend to forget you were sent in to drain the swamp.  
    14) Lack of national deployment funding, support programs, pilot and demonstration projects, measures to overcome legal and institutional blockages

    Needless to say, not all factors apply in all developing countries, and of course also it depends on what is considered a developing country. Some countries are making interesting efforts in specific sectors (e.g. fare collection systems on public transport). However, that is far short of systematic deployment across the transport sector. 

    I would say the most significant factors relate to lack of vision and understanding that investment in infrastructure without investment in ITS is like buying a PC with only the operating system.

    With best wishes, 


    Brendan Finn. 
    _____________________________________________________________________________________
    >From Brendan Finn, ETTS Ltd.   e-mail : etts at indigo.ie   tel : +353.87.2530286


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