OReGO leads the way to better transportation planning

April 9, 2018

Do you remember the roads you drove last week? The bridges you crossed? The number of trips you took on them? Yeah, we don’t either. But ODOT needs this information to determine what road improvements should be made, and what priority those projects should be given.

For years, ODOT has relied on regional household surveys to collect travel information essential for our transportation planning and analysis. But the process of collecting thousands of surveys is so time-consuming and expensive, we can only collect data every 10 years. Meanwhile, Oregon’s population is growing and travel patterns are changing so quickly that our data cannot keep pace. Worse, travel surveys depend on people’s recollection of how, when and where they traveled. That means our traffic pattern data is only as accurate as drivers’ memories.

Connected car technology could change all that. The technology provided by Azuga Insight, one of our OReGO account managers, could collect anonymous travel data automatically, in real time. No postage stamps, no travel diary surveys, no memory required. It’s yet another way that OReGO could make Oregon’s roads safer, better and more efficient long into the future.

Azuga and ODOT are teaming up to study how the connected car technology used in the OReGO program could also be used to provide data we need to forecast travel around the state. Real-time research would help ODOT identify and improve roads and highways most in need—faster and more accurately—saving time and money all along the way.

In May 2018, ODOT and Azuga launch a six-month study with up to 300 drivers who will earn up to $50 each for participating. Study participants need to be OReGO volunteers with an Azuga advanced (GPS-enabled) device, but non-volunteers can sign up for the study and OReGO at the same time.

For OReGO volunteers, vehicle data is already anonymized and encrypted, meaning that all personally identifiable information is stripped out and protected by law. For this transportation study, with the vehicle owner’s permission, anonymized data will include trip details and will only be shared with ODOT. The data will be collected for the sole purpose of developing travel forecast models designed for transportation planning and analysis. Learn all the details for participating here: https://azugaresearch.com/azuga/index.html

Ready to earn a fast $50? We hope you will join us in forging this new trail for fast and intelligent transportation planning, with OReGO leading the way yet again.

Sign up now!