Ohio Turns to Private Sector Data Analytics for Smarter, Safer Transportation

The data will come from GPS systems in cars and trucks as well as from mobile phones, and it will be anonymous and aggregated, according to StreetLight CEO Laura Schewel. Since it will be available to multiple people with different goals, the idea is to provide lots of data and an engine able to help users query many different kinds of questions.

Schewel said that will be particularly helpful to government agencies looking to plan new infrastructure and evaluate the effectiveness of past projects. Users should be able to track, for example, commute times from one location to another, or average speed of vehicles along a certain stretch of road.The centralization of the contract is important, Schewel said, because it allows many government users to access the data and analytics they need without each going through the procurement process on their own.