One of the biggest changes for traffic engineers and transport planners (and many other walks of life) in the last decade has been the enormous increase in the amount, nature and availability of data which includes a wealth of data coming from non-traditional sources.
Just because we are recording many more samples of a transport task, however, this does not automatically guarantee perfect accuracy nor that it is showing a depth of understanding about the reason people are travelling and thus the impact of any changes to the system.
This paper takes up on a quote from T S Eliot (Eliot 1917) who wrote:
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
With respect to the great writer, the paper adds to the above progression with:
Where is the intelligence we have lost in big data?
This approach is a continuation of a process to compile examples and ideas on why we need to maintain traffic and transport engineering research, skills and resources to ensure that we are using accurate data and it is used with wisdom.
Presented by John Reid, Austraffic Managing Director, at the 2019 IPENZ TG 2018 Conference
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