Press Release: From A to B at the reach of your hand

The strong economic and social changes that have occurred in developed and emergent cities in recent decades led to an increase of urbanized areas. Therefore its citizen mobility is seen as a key element for their functionality and constitutes a permanent challenge for transport planners. Now a new software program provides real-time advice on the best way to travel between a given point A and B with a precise prediction of the arrival time. The program, developed at Instituto Superior Técnico (Portugal) in partnership with MIT Portugal Program, takes in consideration several factors such as best route, travel time, actual location of the public transports and current speed for that time and route.

The program, a component of David Alves’ master’s thesis in Civil Engineering, was design based in real data provided by Carris, Lisbon urban public transportation company, to MIT-Portugal Program. According to José Viegas, Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico and director of the focus area Transportation Systems at MIT Portugal: "The model gives a fast and reliable response”. The professor, who supervised David’s master's thesis in conjunction with Dr. Luis Martinez, adds that "A service based on this model could contribute to significantly increase the public confidence in the urban public transports, since it citizens would know beforehand the time required to make a trip and the estimated time of arrival ".

The next step will be to develop an application for smartphones and other mobile communication devices that can provide this service to the public.

David Alves discussed his master's thesis on the 3rd November at Instituto Superior Técnico.