From Here To There

It’s been a big week for IBM and the field of travel and transportation.

A subject, of course, near and dear to my heart (BTW, I think I’m over my AP jet lag now).

On Monday, at our Impact event in Las Vegas, IBM announced the new Travel and Transportation framework, a combination of IBM software products and IBM industry assets that provide a platform for new transportation solutions.

Interconnected systems allow a single view into business operations, saving time and money by allowing a company to be aware of the location, status and availability of all their equipment and assets.

This new framework uses industry and open standards and identifies key capabilities required by almost every transportation company, including:

• Reservation System Modernization – Helps to facilitate the modernization of airline and passenger rail reservation and ticketing systems by using a new customer-centric model which supports the imperative to offer innovative and unbundled services to better compete.
• Asset Optimization – Allows clients to manage capital assets throughout their revenue-producing lifecycle.  The types of assets managed include aircraft, passenger rail rolling stock, locomotives, tracks, and equipment located along the right-of-way such as signals and facilities. 
• Safety, Security & Surveillance – Supports the use of sensors, RFID, digital video, biometric identification, and wireless devices. These are coupled with analytic tools to monitor operations, identify risks to safety or security such as unexpected events occurring in terminals and along railroad right-of-way. 
• Multi-Channel Sales and Service – Helps to provide a seamless customer experience across pre-travel sales channels and on-trip touch points by providing the client with a single view of the information known about the customer / traveler.
• Operations Control Systems – Helps improve operational effectiveness and reduce environmental impact through better planning of schedules, load plans, facilities, crews and equipment.  For railroads, this includes optimizing timetables, assignment of rolling stock and train and station crews.  For airlines, this includes optimizing flight schedules and flight crews.   

Click here to get more information on the IBM Travel and Transportation Framework or for details on how IBM is helping transportation clients and Business Partners to make smarter, faster travel and transport decisions.

Yesterday, IBM announced it would be working with the Finnish Transport Agency to build a single view of road and traffic information in Finland in order to help improve road management.

Using analytics from IBM, the agency is aggregating its view of road conditions, accidents and other road and traffic information, which helps build a safer and more adaptive road system for the citizens of Finland.

Also yesterday, back here in the great state of Texas, IBM and the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) (the largest university-based transportation research agency in the U.S.) have agreed to collaborate on research and development of intelligent transportation projects in Texas and beyond.

That agreement will bring together research scientists and engineers from IBM and TTI researchers, faculty and students, who will work with state and municipal agencies to explore technologies and innovations that will help solve transportation issues in Texas initially, and eventually worldwide.

IBM has engaged with the world’s leading airlines and railroads on projects for more than 50 years, and has already helped several cities around the world make their transportation systems smarter. 

For example, the city of Stockholm is using IBM’s streaming analytics technology to gather real-time information from GPS devices on nearly 1,500 taxi cabs to provide the city and its residents with real-time information on traffic flow, travel times and the best commuting options. 

The service will soon expand to gather data from delivery trucks, traffic sensors, transit systems, pollutions monitors and weather information sources.  IBM is also assisting the cities of Brisbane, London and Singapore to address traffic management and congestion challenges.

Visit the IBM Smarter Planet Website for more information on these and other IBM Smarter Transportation projects.

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: