Big data- friend and foe

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Big data is at the forefront of innovation.  We are collecting more information today than in any time in history, and this is not just limited to social media interactions.  More and more formerly 'silent' items are being equipped to transmit information- smart fridges, wearable fitness trackers, phone GPS data, smart speakers, or pet collars to name just a handful.  This user behavior 'big data', available in massive amounts, requires special storage and analytical capabilities not required by more targeted data gathering of the past.  The information big data conveys is poised to shape our future in both unpredictable and visionary ways. 

One of the most exciting avenues of revolutionary change is the collection and analysis of vehicular travel patterns, both in the short term to help with real-time commute information, and in the long term to help guide driverless technologies as they make their way into the transportation networks.  As a devoted Waze app user with my own profile and log-in, I share GPS information with other app users while I drive, detailing location, direction, and speed as well as the capability to report dangerous road conditions or police presence to anyone using the app.  This has made cross-country road trips much easier, more predictable, and has helped me avoid road debris and understand where speed traps might be.  Waze, however, isn't really 'big data' in the sense we are discussing here.  Waze collects information from users while the app is in use, and that information is used for specific tasks. 

In transportation, big data would consist of using a phone's GPS information to track the travel habits continually of as many individuals as possible and combining and comparing it to other users to determine larger patterns of collective behavior.  It's the potential of this mass of data that can be harnessed to help understand traffic habits, how traffic problems start, how to better guide traffic to ease congestion, and to allow traffic app creators to utilize this data to help app users navigate their way home.  It will also help public safety engineers better plan for traffic flow as they design cities and freeways.  Big data can help traffic congestion now, at the level of technology we currently posses, to shorten commutes, avoid dangerous situations, and improve lives.

Image: U.S. Department of Transportation

What I personally am most excited about is the potential for big data to help shape the coming future of driverless cars.  Driverless cars are on the cusp of becoming a reality and few innovations in the near future stand to have as large a societal impact as automated transportation.  While it will have enormous employment impacts on commercial transportation as well as car production and ownership, which is important to keep in mind, it will also revolutionize the ways people commute, shop, take trips, and rideshare.  This change will not be possible without utilizing large masses of both historical data, to help understand demand, timing, scheduling, and supply, as well as contemporary real-time data to be able to determine user need and network capacity in the moment.  Both historical and contemporary big data will be able to help make automated transportation more efficient, more coordinated, less of a burden on roadways, and- with fewer cars on the roads due to efficiency measures- have less of an impact on the environment. 

While transportation big data has a lot to offer, it does have some drawbacks.  Taken anonymously, big data traffic information can help inform choices that will improve lives.  Used inappropriately,  this same information can be used to target users with ads, by insurance companies to set rates based on individually-observed driving habits, or by police to track users without a warrant.  America is largely lacking in policy and regulation surrounding big data applications- who can use it, how it can be utilized, how it is stored, what protections must be taken to protect privacy.  Without much-needed consumer protection regulation, big data could be poised to shape our future in unpleasant, unanticipated ways.