Boxed In In Bangalore: Analyzing Sentiment On Indian Traffic Congestion

Click to enlarge. With a population of more than 1.2 billion, India is projected to be the world’s most populous country by 2025. By 2050, it is estimated that India’s urban population will constitute nearly half of that country’s total population, straining an already stressed infrastructure. The good news: Urbanization is an indicator of positive economic development. With improved urban planning, India can tackle urbanization challenges and increasing population to create a country that is poised for sustainable growth.

We heard a number of discussions about the potential for social listening intelligence last week at the Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Orlando.

This is an area I’ve been involved in within the IBM team for several years now, starting with some early explorations for how social data could be informative for our marketing efforts stretching all the way back to 2008.

It’s been exciting to watch this space evolve and mature, and with the advent of the IBM Social Sentiment index, we’re starting to see very practical uses of social data for better understanding if not the wisdom, then certainly the perspectives, of the crowd.

Yesterday, IBM held a Smarter Cities Forum in New Delhi, India, where we unveiled a new social sentiment capability to assist our customers in their Smarter Cities engagements.

We also unveiled findings from the latest IBM Social Sentiment Index on traffic, which looked at public sentiment across India’s largest cities — Bangalore, New Delhi and Mumbai.

Boxed In In Bangalore

If you’ve never experienced traffic in India, you can get a taste of the Sunday traffic in this video I shot during my first visit in June 2010.

But the recent analysis of publically available social media showed that the worst congestion in India is primarily caused by accidents and bad weather (three out of four times) when looking at the three cities together.

It also indicated some interesting variations between the three. For example, social conversation in Mumbai about stress around traffic is about half as high as Bangalore and New Delhi; references to the impact of rush hour on congestion in New Delhi are between five and seven times more negative than in Bangalore and Mumbai.

With a wealth of online content and public commentary on social channels such as Twitter and Facebook, city officials need new ways to measure positive, neutral and negative opinions shared by citizens regarding important city issues.

IBM’s advanced analytics and natural language processing technologies used to analyze large volumes of public social media data in order to assess and understand citizen opinions are now available to city governments around the world via new capabilities delivered with the IBM Intelligent Operations Center (IOC) for Smarter Cities.

Making Cities Smarter: The IBM Intelligent Operations Center

The IOC — which combines IBM software and services to integrate city operations through a single dashboard view to help cities improve efficiency — is now augmented with social media analytics capabilities that will help city officials make more informed decisions by looking at unfiltered citizen attitudes and actions, distinguishing between sincerity and sarcasm and even predicting trends as they surface online.

Combining the knowledge that population will rapidly increase in Bangalore, New Delhi and Mumbai in the coming years, with sentiment on commuters’ preferred mode of transportation, could help these cities more accurately plan for needed investments in transportation infrastructure and its potential impact.

City officials could also gauge where public awareness campaigns need to be administered to shift commuters to different modes of transport in order to alleviate growing traffic congestion.

The IBM Social Sentiment Index on transportation in India’s three largest cities surfaced several insights including:

• The top three factors impacting traffic congestion that citizens in each city talked about most online were diverse. Delhites chattered about public transportation, weather and the stress of commuting, while Bangaloreans show more concern for their overall driving experience, construction and parking issues, and Mumbaikars are talking about private transportation, accidents and pollution more often.
• Conversation in Bangalore around parking is viewed three times more negatively than in the other cities. Despite recent infrastructure improvements, less pollution and a solid public transit system, Delhites are experiencing a far higher amount of stress (50 percent) than those in Mumbai (29 percent) or Bangalore (34 percent). Most likely, this can be explained by an uptick in rallies and weather events this year, as well as the recent power outage.
• Surprisingly, sentiment on the topic of construction was relatively positive in Bangalore and New Delhi, and positive and negative sentiment on infrastructure in each was relatively even. Together, these may suggest that the transportation infrastructure improvements being made over the last two years in each city are beginning to positively impact citizens.
• Analysis shows that the relative negative sentiment for rush hour (35 percent) is one of the key drivers impacting traffic in New Delhi, which may explain why citizens talk about stress significantly more than commuters in Mumbai or Bangalore.

By applying analytics capabilities to the area of social media sentiment, organizations are able to better understand public opinions, and city officials can gain additional insights in order to draw logical conclusions about where they should focus their attentions and resources.

For example:

• Take Bangalore, the technology hub of India. Understanding that most commuters prefer private transportation despite negative sentiment around parking and construction may indicate that city officials should consider if it makes sense to advocate for more commuters to use mass transit and invest in infrastructure that will keep up with demand as more companies locate there.
• Since Dehlite’s indicate that public transportation is the preferred mode of transportation, city officials could use this insight to study which areas have high ridership and less road traffic and then implement similar actions in highly congested areas.
• In Mumbai, negative sentiment around traffic and weather at the peak of monsoon season (August) generated 5.5 times more chatter than in November. If the city could measure the fluctuation of public sentiment on these potential causes over time combined with specific weather data like rainfall or temperature, it might be able to better prepare to divert traffic during monsoon season or determine areas where a public safety campaign is needed.

“Like all rapidly growing cities across the world, there are infrastructure growing pains in many Indian cities,” said Guru Banavar, vice president and chief technology officer, Smarter Cities, IBM. “However, when city officials can factor public sentiment — positive, negative or otherwise — around city services like transportation, they can more quickly pinpoint and prioritize areas that are top of mind for their citizens. This could mean more targeted investment, improving a particular city service, more effective communication about a service that is offered, and even surfacing best practices and successful efforts that could be applied to other zones of a city.”

Methodology: IBM Cognos Consumer Insights And 168,000+ Discussions

Public social media content was analyzed by IBM Cognos Consumer Insight, which assessed 168,330 online discussions from September 2011 to September 2012 across social platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Forums and News Sources and derived 54,234 High Value Snippets through a series of advanced filtration techniques for insight analysis.

The IBM Social Sentiment Index helps companies tap into consumer desires and make more informed decisions by looking at unfiltered consumer attitudes and actions, distinguishing between sincerity and sarcasm, and even predicting trends.

About the IBM Social Sentiment Index

The IBM Social Sentiment Index uses advanced analytics and natural language processing technologies to analyze large volumes of social media data in order to assess public opinions. The Index can identify and measure positive, negative and neutral sentiments shared in public forums such as Twitter, blogs, message boards and other social media, and provide quick insights into consumer conversations about issues, products and services.

Representing a new form of market research, social sentiment analyses offer organizations new insights that can help them better understand and respond to consumer trends. For more information about IBM Business Analytics go here.

You can also follow the conversation at #IBMIndex on Twitter.

For more information about IBM Smarter Cities go here, and follow the conversation at #smartercities on Twitter.

Don’t Even THINK About Parking Here: The First Ever IBM Global Parking Survey

Considering that traffic congestion has been an ongoing theme during my week in Bangalore, it only stands to reason that parking follows.

IBM just released its first ever parking survey, and Bangalore made the top, or near the top, on a couple of key metrics. It was first in terms of most parking tickets issued, and second (only to New Delhi) in terms of cities where drivers argued most over parking spaces.

They have parking spaces in Bangalore??

I jest, but not being able to find a parking space is no laughing matter: Which is why these results are so disturbing these results: The study found that drivers in 20 international cities face a daily struggle in finding a parking space, and in the past year, nearly six out of 10 drivers have abandoned their search for a space at least once, and more than a quarter have gotten into an argument with a fellow motorist over a parking space!

Calgon, take me away!

In addition to the typical traffic congestion caused by daily commutes and gridlock from construction and accidents, reports have estimated that over 30 percent of traffic in a city is caused by drivers searching for a parking spot.

So not only do inefficient parking systems result in congestion and increased carbon emissions, they also waste commuters’ time, lead to lost productivity and economic opportunities and can lead to inefficient city services.

IBM Global Parking Index

IBM compiled the results of the survey into its first-ever Parking Index that ranks the emotional and economic toll of parking in a cross-section of 20 international cities with the highest number being the most onerous.

The Index reveals a wide range in the parking pain experienced from city to city. Chicago had the least pain when it comes to parking in the cities studied, followed by Los Angeles and Toronto.

Here’s how the cities stack up: New Delhi: 140; Bangalore 138; Beijing 124; Moscow 122; Shenzhen 122; Paris 122; Milan 117; Nairobi 111; Madrid: 104; Singapore 97; Mexico City: 97; Stockholm: 90; Johannesburg: 87; London: 86; New York City: 85; Montreal: 85; Buenos Aires: 80; Toronto: 77; Los Angeles: 61; and Chicago: 51.

Click to enlarge image. IBM's first ever global parking survey found that drivers in 20 international cities face a daily struggle in finding a parking space. In the past year, nearly six out of 10 drivers have abandoned their search for a space at least once, and more than a quarter have gotten into an argument with a fellow motorist over a parking space.

The IBM Parking Index is comprised of the following key issues: 1) longest amount of time looking for a parking place; 2) inability to find a parking place; 3) disagreement over parking spots; 4) received a parking ticket for illegal parking and 5) number of parking tickets received.

In a related announcement, IBM is working in partnership with Streetline, a privately held company headquartered in San Francisco with smart-parking deployments in California, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Washington D.C.

Streetline was recently named one of Fast Company’s “10 Most Innovative Companies in Transportation,” as well as, to help cities of all sizes reduce congestion, better manage parking availability and resources and put information at people’s fingertips to find parking faster.

Streetline was selected from more than 600 SmartCamp entries worldwide based on its outstanding technology, innovative business plan, and alignment with IBM’s Smarter Planet strategy.

Combining information management and advanced analytics from IBM with data gathered from parking sensors and applications from Streetline will allow cities to make smarter and more timely decisions related to parking and their transportation systems.

Officials will be able to use this smarter parking solution to better understand parking patterns so they can improve citizen services, optimize revenue and more effectively allocate city resources.

In the future, insight from the historical and real-time data being gathered can help cities become more proactive in anticipating how parking and their transportation network interacts with other city services and plan accordingly from how it might affect economic development and merchant services to how to appropriately schedule mass transit to how best to plan around infrastructure projects or special events.

Who Moved My Parking Space? Parking Reinvented

As the majority of the world’s population moves to metropolitan areas, key city systems, including city streets and transportation systems, are being strained to the breaking point.

Additionally, vehicle emissions resulting from drivers looking for parking are so closely linked that a year-long study found that drivers in a 15 block district in Los Angeles drove in excess of 950,000 miles, produced 730 tons of carbon dioxide and used 47,000 gallons of gas searching for parking.

The Smarter Parking Starter Kit is a pre-integrated solution that includes instrumentation, connectivity and intelligence. This solution is designed to help cities “get out of park” and improve parking services, optimize operations and help reduce congestion. By leveraging advanced technologies from IBM and Streetline cities will be able to:

• Provide real-time information to allow citizens and visitors to find parking more easily
• Gather, analyze and act on information about parking resources and services to optimize revenue
• Analyze real-time information to better model and anticipate problems to reduce congestion, more appropriately price parking based on demand and provide enhanced services to citizens
• Integrate real-time information from on-street and off-street parking to enable collaborative decision making for rapid response to events, changes in parking availability and demand.

Streetline’s patented smart parking platform detects the presence of a car through a network of ultra-low power wireless sensors located in individual parking spaces.

This information is then made available in real time both to the city, as well as to consumers via Parker, a free smartphone app via the iTunes Store or Android marketplace.

Using this real-time parking data combined with advanced parking analytics built on IBM Cognos, cities can then tap into this information to understand important factors including hourly occupancy, occupancy by block, parking duration, and trends by area.

Streetline was named the winner of the IBM SmartCamp World Finals and IBM Global Entrepreneur of the Year in November 2010.

About IBM and Smarter Transportation

IBM works with cities, governments and others around the world to make their transportation systems smarter. Smarter transportation systems can help traffic and public transit systems flow more smoothly, anticipate and improve congestion in advance, reduce emissions and increase the capacity of infrastructure.

To join in the conversation on Smarter Transportation, join us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Visit here for more on IBM and Smarter Transportation.

Stop Your Honking! The IBM 2011 Global Commuter Study

The IBM Commuter Study for 2011 is now available.

In last year’s results, I mentioned that I’ve been an IBM home office worker for the better part of the last eight years.

I’m not sure how much gas I’ve saved.  And I’m not sure how many more hours IBM has gotten out of me, never mind the fact that I pay the utilities here at the home office.

But whatever the price, it’s saved me the hassle of getting out into the Austin traffic.

And once you hear some of the results from this year’s study, you may be wanting to climb your way out of your own commute:

Of the 8,042 commuters in 20 cities across six contintents, here’s the headlines:

• Drivers report more stress and frustration related to commuting worldwide

• Forty one percent of commuters globally said improved public transportation would help reduce stress

• Perception of traffic in emerging economies vs. more developed economies is improving

In a cross-section of some of the most economically important international cities there appears a startling dichotomy: while the commute has become a lot more bearable over the past year, drivers complaints are going through the roof.

The annual global Commuter Pain Survey revealed that in a number of cities more people are taking public transportation rather than driving, when compared with last year’s survey.

In many cities, there were big jumps in the percentage of respondents who said that roadway traffic has improved either “somewhat” or “substantially” in the past three years.

IBM Commuter Pain Index

To better understand consumer attitudes around traffic congestion as the issue continues to grow around the world, IBM conducted the 2011 Commuter Pain survey. The IBM Commuter Pain Index, illustrated in this speedometer graphic, ranks the emotional and economic toll of commuting in 20 international cities. From right to left, cities are plotted from least painful starting with Montreal and gradually increase to the most painful city, Mexico City.

But that’s only part of the story. In many cities, the survey recorded significant increases, when compared with last year, in the number of respondents who said that roadway traffic has increased their levels of personal stress and anger and negatively affected their performance at work or school.

“Commuting doesn’t occur in a vacuum,” said Naveen Lamba, IBM’s global intelligent transportation expert. “A person’s emotional response to the daily commute is colored by many factors pertaining both to traffic congestion as well as to other, unrelated, issues. This year’s Global Commuter Pain survey indicates that drivers in cities around the world are much more unsettled and anxious compared with 2010.”

Infrastructure Investments in Emerging Markets

The survey results suggest that aggressive infrastructure investment in some of the most rapidly growing economies seems to be paying off. Compared with other cities surveyed, more commuters in Bangalore, New Delhi, Beijing and Shenzhen reported improvement in traffic conditions over the last three years.

For example, last year Beijing was expected to invest approximately 80 billion yuan to improve its transportation infrastructure, and Mexico City is making a significant investment of $2.5 billion US over the next few years to better support the growing demands of its transportation network in one of the most populated urban areas in the world.

With more than one billion cars on the road worldwide, cities are continuing to address traffic congestion and looking for new ways to handle the growing demand.

Even though commuters in many emerging market cities report that traffic is down, there is much room for improvement. The respondents in many of these same cities also report, with a greater frequency than the global average, that traffic negatively impacts their stress levels, physical health and productivity.

For example, 86 percent of the respondents in Beijing, 87 percent in Shenzhen, 70 percent in New Delhi and 61 percent in Nairobi report traffic as a key inhibitor to work or school performance. Sixty seven percent of drivers in Mexico City, 63 percent in Shenzhen and New Delhi and 61 percent in Beijing said they had decided not to make a driving trip in the last month due to anticipated traffic — the most of all cities surveyed.

Commuting pain is also reflected globally as 69 percent of those surveyed indicated that traffic has negatively affected their health in some way. Some 42 percent of respondents globally reported increased stress and 35 percent reported increased anger. Respiratory problems due to traffic congestion were most prevalent in China and India.

A Move To Public Transportation

The survey results reflect an increased willingness to use public transportation and technology to improve the commute. Overall, 41 percent believe improved public transit would help reduce traffic congestion. Consider that even though globally only 35 percent of people changed the way that they get to work or school in the last year, 45 percent of those who have are opting for public transit.

An astonishing 70 percent of Nairobi residents report taking public transit more often in the last year on their daily commute. The biggest movement to public transit is in emerging cities including Nairobi, Mexico City, Shenzhen, Buenos Aires and Beijing. If this continues, it could help mitigate increasing traffic due to population growth and urbanization. Interestingly, the desire for more accurate and timely information about road conditions as a way to reduce stress was shared across a number of cities from Los Angeles and Chicago to Moscow and Bangalore.

If you've never experienced traffic in Bangalore, here's a snapshot I took from my visit there in June 2010. This was very light traffic conditions in Bangalore, if slow!

IBM Commuter Pain Survey

IBM compiled the results of the survey into its Commuter Pain Index that ranks the emotional and economic toll of commuting in each city, with the highest number being the most onerous. The Index reveals a tremendous disparity in the pain of the daily commute from city to city. Montreal had the least painful commute of the cities studied, followed by London and Chicago. Here’s how the cities stack up:

The index is comprised of 10 issues:

1. commuting time
2. time stuck in traffic, agreement that:
3. price of gas is already too high
4. traffic has gotten worse
5. start-stop traffic is a problem
6. driving causes stress
7. driving causes anger
8. traffic affects work
9. traffic so bad driving stopped
10. decided not to make trip due to traffic.

The cities scored as follows: Mexico City: 108; Shenzhen 95; Beijing 95; Nairobi 88; Johannesburg 83; Bangalore 75; New Delhi 72; Moscow 65; Milan 53; Singapore 44; Buenos Aires 42; Los Angeles 34; Paris 31; Madrid 28; New York City 28; Toronto 27; Stockholm 26; Chicago 25; London 23; and Montreal 21.

“We can’t simply build our way out of congestion no matter which city,” said Vinodh Swaminathan, director of intelligent transportation systems, IBM.  In order to improve traffic flow and congestion, cities need to move beyond knowing and reacting; they have to find ways to anticipate and avoid situations that cause congestion that could turn the world into one giant parking lot.”

Survey Snapshot: Notable Movers & Interesting Trends

• Fourteen of the 15 cities surveyed in both 2010 and 2011 reported year-over-year increases in respondents who said that traffic had improved either “somewhat” or “substantially” over the past three years, with many of the cities posting substantial increases. For example, New York (24% in 2011 vs. 12% in 2010), Toronto (23% in 2011 vs. 8% in 2010), Milan (27% in 2011 vs. 7% in 2010), Stockholm (42% in 2011 vs. 18% in 2010), Moscow (31% in 2011 vs. 16%), and Johannesburg (29% in 2011 vs. 13% in 2010).

• Despite improving traffic conditions, 12 of the 15 cities surveyed in both 2010 and 2011 reported year-over-year increases in respondents who said that roadway traffic has increased their stress levels, with sveral cities posting substantial increases. For example, New York (45% in 2011 vs. 13% in 2010), Los Angeles (44% in 2011 vs. 21% in 2010), Toronto (40% in 2011 vs. 14% in 2010), London (33% in 2011 vs. 19% in 2010), Milan (61% in 2011 vs. 38% in 2010), and Johannesburg (52% in 2011 vs. 30% in 2010).

• Eleven of the 15 cities surveyed in both 2010 and 2011 reporter year-over-year increases in respondents who said that roadway traffic has made them angry, with several cities posting substantial increases. For example, New York (35% in 2011 vs. 14% in 2010), Los Angeles, (29% in 2011 vs. 14% in 2010), and Toronto (29% in 2011 vs. 14% in 2010).

• Eleven of the 15 cities surveyed in both 2010 and 2011 reported year-over-year increases in respondents who said that traffic has negatively affected their performance at work or school, with several cities posting substantial increases. For example, New York (28% in 2011 vs. 8% in 2010), Toronto (29% in 2011 vs. 17% in 2010), Madrid (30% in 2011 vs. 21% in 2010), Paris (35% in 2011 vs. 26% in 2010), Milan (40% in 2011 vs. 21% in 2010), Stockholm (25% in 2011 vs. 14% in 2010), and Moscow (34% in 2011 vs. 25% in 2010).

• When asked about the longest amount of time they have been stuck in traffic over the past three years, the mean time reported by drivers in Mexico City, Moscow, Beijing, Shenzhen and Nairobi were notable, with delays of about two hours. In Moscow, approximately three in ten drivers (29 percent) say they been stuck for over three hours. By comparison, about half of the drivers surveyed in Stockholm, Singapore, Madrid and Buenos Aires reported spending less than 30 minutes or literally no time stuck in traffic.

• The percentage of New York metro area drivers who are driving to work or school alone decreased to 59 percent in 2011 vs. 90 percent last year.

• If traffic didn’t take up so much time, commuters would rather devote it to personal relationships and improving their physical health. More than half of respondents (56 percent) would spend time won back with family/friends; while nearly half (48 percent) would exercise and 40 percent would spend more time on recreation. Nearly three in ten drivers (29 percent) would sleep more.

• Commuters in Nairobi seem to take traffic in stride despite the fact that they average among the longest commutes. Nearly half (48 percent) report that roadway traffic has not impacted their health.

• On average, drivers in Nairobi, Mexico City, Johannesburg, Beijing, Bangalore, and Moscow spend the longest amount of time (36 minutes or more) on the road to get to their workplace or school.

About the IBM Commuter Pain Survey

The Commuter Pain Survey is conducted by IBM to better understand consumer attitudes around traffic congestion as the issue reaches crisis proportions around the world and higher levels of auto emissions stir environmental concerns. These events are impacting communities around the world, where governments, citizens and private sector organizations are looking beyond traditional remedies like additional roads and greater access to public transportation to reverse the negative impacts of increased road congestion.

This is IBM’s fourth annual Commuter Pain survey. IBM began conducting the survey in the United States in 2008 and expanded it to 20 global cities in 2010. Findings from the Commuter Pain survey will be used to assess citizen concerns about traffic and commuter issues; enhance smarter transportation solutions such as traffic prediction intelligent tolling systems, road user charging, advanced traffic management and integrated fare management and serve as a basis for pioneering new approaches to improving transportation.

IBM is working with cities, governments and others around the world to make their transportation systems smarter. Smarter transportation systems can help traffic and public transit systems flow more smoothly, anticipate and improve congestion in advance, reduce emissions and increase the capacity of infrastructure.

Read the IBM report on the 2011 Commuter Pain Survey here.

Join us for a Twitter chat #2011CommuterPain with @kalgyimesi, automotive leader for IBM Institute for Business Value and one of the study authors, on September 12 at 12 PM ET.

To join in the conversation on Smarter Transportation, join us on LinkedIn and Twitter and follow #2011CommuterPain.

Visit here for more on IBM and Smarter Traffic.

Commuters: IBM Feels Your Pain

You really can’t make this stuff up.

Here I am, the next to my last day in Bangalore, which has some of the worst traffic in the world (at least, in terms of what *I* have seen…a guy from Oracle here assured me it was much worse in Bangkok and Sri Lanka), and suddenly the IBM Commuter Pain Study results get released.

The headline: The daily commute in some of the world’s most economically important international cities is longer and more grueling than before imagined, reflecting the failure of transportation infrastructure to keep pace with economic activity.

This is the first time we’ve done such a study on a global basis (earlier versions looked only at U.S. traffic).

IBM surveyed 8,192 motorists in 20 cities on six continents, the majority of whom say that traffic has gotten worse in the past three years.

The congestion in many of today’s developing cities is a relatively recent phenomenon, having paralleled the rapid economic growth of those cities during the past decade or two.

By contrast, the traffic in places like New York, Los Angeles or London developed gradually over many decades, giving officials more time and resources to address the problem. 

For example, the middle class in China is growing rapidly, with the number of new cars registered in Beijing in the first four months of 2010 rising 23.8% to 248,000, according to the Beijing municipal taxation office.

Beijing’s total investments in its subway system are projected to be more than 331.2 billion yuan by 2015 as the city expands the system to more than double its current size, according to Beijing Infrastructure Investment Co., Ltd. 

The city plans to invest 80 billion yuan in 2010 in building its transportation infrastructure. 

The study did offer a number of bright spots.

Forty-eight percent of drivers surveyed in Beijing reported that traffic has improved in the past three years – the high for the survey – reflecting substantial initiatives to improve the transportation network in that city. 

In addition, the commute for drivers in Stockholm, Sweden seems to be, if not pleasant, then largely pain-free. Only 14% of Stockholm drivers surveyed said that roadway traffic negatively affected work or school performance.

Overall, though, the study paints a picture of metropolitan-area commuters in many cities struggling to get to and from work each day.

For example, 57% of all respondents say that roadway traffic has negatively affected their health, but that percentage is 96% in New Delhi and 95% in Beijing.

29% overall say that roadway traffic has negatively affected work or school performance, but that percentage rises to 84% in Beijing, 62% in New Delhi, and 56% in Mexico City.

Moscow was notable for the duration of its traffic jams. Drivers there reported an average delay of two-and-a-half hours when asked to report the length of the worst traffic jam they experienced in the past three years.

A Top 10 List You DON’T Want To Be On

IBM compiled the results of the survey into an Index that ranks the emotional and economic toll of commuting in each city on a scale of one to 100, with 100 being the most onerous.

The Index reveals a tremendous disparity in the pain of the daily commute from city to city. Stockholm had the least painful commute of the cities studied, followed by Melbourne and Houston (which tied) and New York City. Here’s how the cities stack up:

The index is comprised of 10 issues:

1. Commuting time
2. Time stuck in traffic, agreement that:
3. Price of gas is already too high
4. Traffic has gotten worse
5. Start-stop time is a problem
6. Driving causes stress
7. Driving causes anger
8. Traffic affects work
9. Traffic so bad driving stopped
10. Decided not to make trip due to traffic.

Drum roll, please (or, with due deference to Bangalorians, a nice long honk of the horn), here are the Top 20 winners (err, losers):

Calgon, Take Me Away: The IBM Commuter Pain Index lists the world’s most onerous cities for traffic.

1. Beijing: 99
2. Mexico City: 99
3. Johannesburg: 97
4. Moscow: 84
5. New Delhi: 81
6. Sao Palo: 75
7. Milan: 52
8. Buenos Aires: 50
9. Madrid: 48
10. London: 36
11. Paris: 36
12. Toronto: 32
13. Amsterdam: 25
14. Los Angeles: 25
15. Berlin: 24
16. Montreal: 23
17. New York: 19
18. Houston: 17
19. Melbourne: 17
20. Stockholm: 15

"Traditional solutions — building more roads — will not be enough to overcome the growth of traffic in these rapidly developing cities, so multiple solutions need to be deployed simultaneously to avoid a failure of the transportation networks," said Naveen Lamba, IBM’s global industry lead for intelligent transportation.

"New techniques are required that empower transportation officials to better understand and proactively manage the flow of traffic."

IBM Global Commuter Pain Survey: Major Findings

Analysis of the survey results indicated a number of key findings related to how traffic impacts commuters:

• 49% of drivers in the 20 cities think that roadway traffic has gotten worse in the last three years, and 18% think it has gotten a lot worse.  Five percent say traffic has improved substantially, with only Beijing (16%) and New Delhi (17%) reaching double digit scores.  There are seven trouble spots based on the bottom two box scores (ranking traffic as "somewhat" or "a lot worse"):  Johannesburg (80%), Moscow (64%), Toronto (64%), Mexico City (62%), Sao Paulo (61%), Milan (59%) and Buenos Aires (57%).
• 87% of the respondents have been stuck in roadway traffic in the last three years.  The average delay is one hour. The "best" cities are Melbourne, Stockholm and Buenos Aires, where 25% or more say they have never been stuck in traffic. On the other end of the spectrum, the average reported delay in Moscow is 2.5 hours, where more than 40% say they have been stuck in traffic for more than three hours.
• 31% of respondents said that during the past three years traffic has been so bad that they turned around and went home. The percentage in Beijing, however, is 69%, the high for the survey; and only 15% in Berlin, representing the low.
• If commuting time could be reduced, 16% of respondents worldwide would choose to work more. In New Delhi, 40% said they would work more, the high for the survey; while 5% in Madrid would work more, representing the low.

The Commuter Pain Survey was conducted by IBM to better understand consumer thinking toward traffic congestion as the issue reaches crisis proportions nationwide and higher levels of auto emissions stir environmental concerns.

These events are impacting communities around the world, where governments, citizens and private sector organizations are looking beyond traditional remedies like additional roads and greater access to public transportation to reverse the negative impacts of increased road congestion.

IBM is actively working in the area of Smarter Transportation using a worldwide team of scientists, industry experts and IT services professionals to research, test and deploy new traffic information management capabilities in cities around the world.

Findings from the Commuter Pain Survey will be used to assess citizen concerns about traffic and commuter issues; expand solutions like automated tolling, real-time traffic prediction, congestion charging, and intelligent route planning; and serve as a basis for pioneering innovative new approaches to traffic mitigation.

As for me, I’m about to head back into the Bangalore traffic fray once more, but this time with some comfort that traffic is a LOT worse in other parts of India and the rest of the world, and with some hope that IBM smarter transportation folks are going to be working on this horrible plight.

More From Bangalore

I’ve had a few days now in Bangalore, and I promised some more first impressions.

My friend Michael commented in the previous post enough about all the work stuff, what about the important stuff like beer and food?

Well, I can assure you, Michael, that India represents well on both fronts.  I’ve had cuisine from both north and south India – both are delicious, though quite different. 

The south Indian cuisine focuses more on rice as a staple (which makes sense…it’s in the south!), and emerges largely from the four states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka (where Bangalore is situated), Kerala, and Tamil Nadu.  I’ve especially enjoyed the dosa.

From the north, you get the more spicy, meat-oriented dishes (your curries, kebabs, etc.). 

I pretty much like it all, and prefer to wash it all down with a nice, big Kingfisher beer, particularly at the end of a long day of training and workshops, which is predominantly what I’m here for.

As to the traffic, I’m getting better at playing Bangalore Frogger. 

The last few days we’ve gone out to lunch just across the street from the IBM Commerce@Mantri location and we’ve had to run a gauntlet of tuk-tuks, taxis, trucks, vans, motorcycles, scooters, and people to get across the street.

Once upon a time, I was a New York City bike messenger, and I think crossing the street in Bangalore may, in fact, be even more dangerous than that.  It comes down to timing the crossing just perfectly.  So far, so good.

As for work, this is my first time meeting our team in Bangalore face-to-face.  Our team here is whip smart and highly motivated.  I’m looking forward to learning more from them over the next 10 days and to also learning more about their country and diverse culture.

In the meantime, enjoy this first person video of traffic in Bangalore (this was light traffic, as it was taken on a Sunday!)

 

Turbo Goes For A Sunday Drive in Bangalore

Spaghetti Western Guns

The rumors of my disappearance are greatly exaggerated.

But, for the record, I will be blogging on and off these next several weeks as I combine both some personal and business travel and find myself away from the computer more than normal.

In fact, I was on the road back from a long weekend of camping and firearms practice in West Texas when IBM quarterly earnings were announced.

Thank Heavens for the BlackBerry.

Here were the headlines, just in case you missed the news:

• Diluted earnings per share of $1.97, up 16 percent;
• Revenue of $22.9 billion, up 5 percent, flat adjusting for currency;
• Net income of $2.6 billion, up 13 percent;
• Pre-tax income of $3.5 billion, up 13 percent;
• Pre-tax margin of 15.4 percent, up 1 point;
• Gross profit margin of 43.6 percent, up 0.2 point;
• Free cash flow of $1.4 billion, up approximately $400 million;
• Software revenue up 11 percent;
• Systems and Technology revenue up 5 percent;
• Services revenue up 4 percent;
• Services signings of $12.3 billion, down 2 percent;
• Consulting services signings up 18 percent;
• Strategic Outsourcing signings up 6 percent;
• Services backlog of $134 billion, up $8 billion year to year;
• Full-year 2010 earnings-per-share expectations raised to at least $11.20.

All in all, a very strong quarter in a continued challenging economic climate.

As for my firearms training, fear not, I’m not part of any militia.  Shooting firearms is considered good and proper sport here in Texas, and I was just camping out and having some good times with some very good longtime friends.

We shot everything from a Kalashnikov to an M1 to a Colt AR-15 to a Beretta .40 caliber PX-4 Storm, along with a few various and sundry shotguns as well as my friend George’s new “Spaghetti Western gun,” one of those rifles that Clint Eastwood might have used in movies like “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”

For the record, I’m much better on skeet than I am with the pistol — but I’m getting closer and closer to the center of the target with the pistol, too.

The targets?  Some unfortunate and various and sundry beer cans, plastic Coke bottles filled with agua, and a whole covey of clay pigeons.

As we traveled out to San Angelo and parts beyond in my friend’s Ford pickup for our long weekend, I noticed how light the traffic was on Highway 87 compared to other parts of the world.

I missed another key announcement late last week while on my short road trip, but I didn’t want to let it go unremarked upon in this blog because it’s a matter near and dear to my heart.

Traffic.  I know I’ve mentioned in this blog how much in the past I hate it.

But for the past year, IBM has been working on the problem by helping one of my favorite cities in Europe, Stockholm, to monitor and improve traffic flow during peak hours.

The congestion management system has reduced traffic in the Swedish capital by 20 percent, reduced average travel times by almost 50 percent, decreased the amount of emissions by 10 percent and the proportion of green, tax-exempt vehicles has risen to 9 percent.

As part of its continued commitment to business analytics, IBM on Friday announced a new collaboration with KTH Royal Institute of Technology to give city of Stockholm residents and officials a smarter way to manage and use transportation.

Researchers at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden are using IBM’s streaming analytics technology, to gather real-time information from the Global Positioning System (GPS) devices on nearly 1500 taxi cabs in the city and will soon expand to gather data from delivery trucks, traffic sensors, transit systems, pollution monitors and weather information.

The data is processed using IBM’s breakthrough streaming analytics software, InfoSphere Streams, giving the city and residents real-time information on traffic flow, travel times and the best commuting options.

For example, a resident could send a text message listing their location and desired destination.

The technology would instantly process the real-time traffic, rail and weather information and provide anticipated travel times via car and public transportation, giving people an accurate and instant view of the fastest way to get to their destination.

Real-Time Predictions

Additionally, IBM announced a new version of its streaming analytics software that includes enhanced processing speeds of up to three times faster and real-time predictive analysis for data in motion.

The new version includes predictive analytics capabilities that allow organizations to make real-time predictions and discoveries based on data in motion.

Predictive analytics allows organizations to better understand and predict future behavior and answers questions like, which type of vehicle part is most likely to fail, where will crimes occur at a given time of day, and what is the likelihood a patient has a heart attack during surgery?

Because predictive models can be applied directly to the huge volumes of data in InfoSphere Streams, it generates real-time analysis and determines the likely outcomes in seconds and minutes.

Streaming analytics software is a part of IBM’s more than $10 billion investment in business analytics which includes organic innovation and acquisitions.

In addition, IBM has assembled 4,000 analytics consultants with industry expertise, and opened a network of seven analytics centers of excellence.

You can learn more in this Business Analytics and Optimization press kit. You can also watch this helpful animated video on analytics: