IBM has hitched its smarter cities bandwagon to the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), teaming up to handle the implementation challenges of deploying intelligent transport infrastructure.
IBM and QUT have launched the "Smart Transport Research Centre", which will offer consulting services to infrastructure project teams and research ways to make traffic and transportation systems more convenient.
IBM will supply the new Queensland-based research centre with software and background knowledge to help solve Brisbane's transport troubles. The centre has already organised a team of 10 transport management researchers to tackle the challenge together.
The research team will act on survey data collected from Australian commuters to determine which transport problems need tackling first. The centre will then develop a strategy to tackle Brisbane's most problematic transportation issues.
Once implemented, the results of the Brisbane smart transport projects will be scaled out around Australia to reduce congestion in other commuter cities, too.
"The projects include research into predictive routes to allow people to plan the easiest way to their destination using real-time information, congestion reduction to minimise traffic queues, strategies for equitable road-use and smarter technology to dynamically manage special purpose lanes to optimise public transport," IBM said in a statement today.
Catherina Caruana-McManus, IBM Australia's smarter cities executive, said that the key to solving city transport problems is to use existing infrastructure more effectively.
"IBM's recent Commuter Pain Index highlighted a growing problem in Australia. Clearly our transport infrastructure is not keeping pace with commuter needs, nor is it supporting our economic growth effectively," she said.
"Around the world we have learned that the answer is not to build more infrastructure, but to utilise existing infrastructure smartly," Caruana-McManus added.
IBM has a history of working with Queensland transportation systems having previously collaborated with Queensland Motorways over its new free-flow tolling systems.
The tolling system uses video and laser tagging technology to identify vehicles and charge them accordingly.
Chairman of Queensland Motorways, David Gray, told a roundtable last year that he hopes to incorporate a "system of systems" into Queensland's road network — a task that the new research centre has been charged with.
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