MIDAS - Travel Behaviour Analysis Platform

MIDAS is a multi-channel, integrated, real-time, travel data assembly and processing system which enables organisations to conduct Household Travel Surveys in an efficient, cost effective and accurate way.

Traditional household travel surveys (HTS) typically collect travel information from a sample of residents in a region over a period of one to seven days. The picture of regional travel is thus typically based upon a sample of households’ travel activities over a limited number of days, within a very specific period. Such surveys are conventionally paper-based, requiring substantial man hours to conduct, are error prone, expensive and exclude several important data parameters of travel.

In addition, these manual methods used to collect travel data in traditional HTSs are not suitable to address the demand for longer data collection periods, accurate GPS data and ever more detailed survey data and meta data for modelling purposes.

The MIDAS platform provides a quantum leap in travel behaviour analysis through a standardized, integrated and multi-channel software platform that:

  1. - uses smartphone-based applications to automatically collect travel related information from citizens, replacing traditional paper-based HTS methods. This approach:
    • substantially reduces the costs of HTSs and manual tasks required by the organization executing the survey
    • enables the collection of a substantially larger set of data, from a larger sample of respondents, in real-time over elongated periods of time
    • reduces respondent burden
    • reduces error levels
    • collects additional layers of subjective respondent data, such as the rating of the ‘quality’ and ‘satisfaction level’ of the trip
  2. - integrates with additional, real-time and or historical data feeds such as those available from traffic management systems, cameras, social media and telecommunications providers, adding an unprecedented ‘big data’ layer to the view presented by an HTS.
  3. - provides automated software tools for the aggregation and processing of all incoming data, together with software-assisted data interpretation tools

The platform is planned to be extended to include predictive models which, through the use of AI and other software techniques that would be able to forecast usage of transportation networks also taking into account externalities such as weather, events and so forth.

This innovative approach promises to enable transportation organisations to be able to influence travel behavior of citizens, serving as a game changing tool to optimize the use of such transportation networks with substantial economic, social and environmental advantages.

Are you a public entity responsible for travel surveys in your region? Consider joining us as a test bed for the MIDAS platform prior to commercial release in 2020! Our call is open to public or private organisations responsible for transportation management and/or for conducting household travel surveys.

Interested? Send us your contact details and a brief overview of your organisation.

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