The quantity, diversity and availability of transport data is increasing rapidly, requiring new skills in the management and interrogation of data and databases. Recent years have seen a new wave of 'big data', 'Data Science', and 'smart cities' changing the world, with the Harvard Business Review describing Data Science as the sexiest job of the 21st century . Transportation professionals and researchers need to be able to use data and databases in order to establish quantitative, empirical facts, and to validate and challenge their mathematical models, whose axioms have traditionally often been assumed rather than rigorously tested against data. This book takes a highly practical approach to learning about Data Science tools and their application to investigating transport issues. The focus is principally on practical, professional work with real data and tools, including business and ethical issues.
Transport modeling practice was developed in a data poor world, and many of our current techniques and skills are building on that sparsity. In a new data rich world, the required tools are different and the ethical questions around data and privacy are definitely different. I am not sure whether current professionals have these skills; and I am certainly not convinced that our current transport modeling tools will survive in a data rich environment. This is an exciting time to be a data scientist in the transport field. We are trying to get to grips with the opportunities that big data sources offer; but at the same time such data skills need to be fused with an understanding of transport, and of transport modeling. Those with these combined skills can be instrumental at providing better, faster, cheaper data for transport decision- making; and ultimately contribute to innovative, efficient, data driven modeling techniques of thelÓï
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