
African Bus Routes Redrawn Using Cell-Phone Data - tarunmitra
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/514211/african-bus-routes-redrawn-using-cell-phone-data/
======
trailfox
Why not "Ivory Coast Bus Routes Redrawn using Cell-Phone Data" ?

As someone living in an African country I find this headline beyond
ridiculous. If this was in Lebanon would we be reading "Asian Bus Routes
Redrawn using Cell-Phone Data"?

~~~
criley
Because the headline is written according to the expected understanding of the
American reader.

"Ivory Coast" is about as descriptive to an American audience as "Africa". I
would be shocked if more than a tiny minority of Americans could tell you
where the Ivory Coast was outside of "Africa", and I bet many wouldn't even
know to place it in Africa, thinking maybe it's in India or SE Asia or
something.

It's written like that because Americans don't know and don't really care
about African geography.

> _If this was in Lebanon would we be reading "Asian Bus Routes Redrawn using
> Cell-Phone Data"?_

We'd probably see "Middle-East", the understood name for that region. We might
even see "Lebanon" since its close to Israel and Americans like to feel
involved in that scene.

~~~
trailfox
_> Because the headline is written according to the expected understanding of
the American reader._

Not exactly a high bar it seems...

~~~
freehunter
Can you tell me where every country in the world is?

~~~
stephenhuey
Can you use Google? :) Not meaning to offend! As someone who grew up in an
African nation, I will easily concede to some of the parents in this thread
that it's often just easier to get people's attention if you use something
recognizable in a news headline. That being said, it is odd to me that it's
the MIT Technology Review doing it in an age when anyone can double-click a
string of text in the browser, e.g. Ivory Coast, and use the right-click menu
to search with Google. Or copy and paste into their favorite search engine and
instantly find out where the place is located with a string of search results
and a map embedded into the page...

~~~
freehunter
Here's the real kicker: if I don't know where the country is, why would I care
enough to google it? "Africa" in this situation gives me more info than the
name of the country would.

~~~
stephenhuey
You never look up things you don't recognize? I care to look things up every
day, and before the web I used physical dictionaries and encyclopedias on a
frequent basis. Some people may never feel that inquisitive, but quite a lot
of us are, and I'd imagine most people on HN are like that.

~~~
freehunter
There's a lot of articles posted to HN every day that I don't understand. If I
researched them all, I'd have no time to actually do something productive. I
skip them and move on unless something else about it catches my eye.

------
daredevildave
I wonder if this was done in, say Poland, would it be titled "European Bus
Routes Redrawn Using Cell-Phone Data"?

Why is it no-one narrows down descriptions of Africa to below continent-level?

~~~
new299
Or possibly "Government monitoring citizens movements by cell phone tracking"
if done elsewhere.

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stedaniels
Is anyone else slightly annoyed that there is no imagery to show this data on
a map? That's all I was actually looking for when I clicked the link. Had a
quick look for it and can't see anything. Can anyone else help with a link for
the lazy?

~~~
someJunkName
Yes, the article is essentially disappointing without an image of a map
showing the current bus routes versus traffic/cell data versus proposed. Are
they trying to promote interest in this project by creating a little buzz?

Wake me when there is one.

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ippisl
They talk about 10% time reduction(probably average). Does anybody know more
fine grained statistics ?

~~~
rahulnair23
Hi, I'm from the IBM Research team who worked on this.

The reduction is in _total_ system-wide journey times in passenger-minutes
(travel time + expected waiting time). The model makes underlying assumptions
on how people arrive at stops to do their trips, and how they choose paths
through the network. The wait times are therefore related to frequency of
services.

The statistic is also broken down by each route what happens when the changes
(new routes or extensions) are implemented. For some routes, you see increase
in ridership (on account of better connectivity), and on some you see
decreased ridership (since the new routes offer more competitive paths through
the network).

~~~
ippisl
Thanks. Really interesting work.

Are you allowed to share some of the data ? If so:

Does the time includes time to walk to bus station or an estimate?

Is there some histogram of time saved per passenger ? or even something like
X% of passengers save a big amount of time ?

Do you have a way to estimate time save by adding routes or alternative
transport(like jitneys) before making the change?

Those are interesting, but i also think if some of this data was
available(like for example big time saving for some part of the population),
this would have better media coverage.

~~~
rahulnair23
Yes travel time includes time to walk from the Cell tower (considered the
"source" and "sink") to the stops.

We could generate passenger level stats for the sample we observed, but have
presented it at the route level for now, since its targeted towards operators.

Yes, the improvements reported are from adding of new routes (the article
title suggests that we "redrew" current routes). The new routes are generated
from "frequent" patterns we see in the data. Haven't looked specifically at
alternative modes, although there are several reasons to discourage jitneys.

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brixon
Interesting as long as you don't ignore a whole demographic (e.g. very poor
people without phones).

~~~
16s
I read yesterday that more people in India have access to a cell phone than to
a toilet or running water. I assume they are very poor since they have to poop
outside on the street, but they do have cell phones.

~~~
delinka
"Access to" and "owning it oneself" are not necessarily equivalent. If a
household of seven has a single cell phone, seven people have "access to" a
cell phone.

~~~
Zigurd
Mobile phones and internet access via mobile phones is a pretty high priority,
even if the other items on the list are a toilet, a scooter, or a stove. The
rationale is that the phone and internet enables you to earn more and get the
other items.

