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134 Big Data Analytics for Connected Vehicles and Smart Cities What Are Analytics? 135

of its role in unlocking the value of big data. As big data grows in volume and
variety and is collected at higher velocity, the value of analytics grows as a means
to manage the sheer volume of data and turn it into meaningful information
and insights. Accordingly, the chapter also discusses the progression from data
to information to actionable insights. To show the relevance of analytics to
transportation in a smart city, the smart city services defined in the previous
chapter are assigned specific analytics. This illustrates the analytics that could be
used to characterize the performance of service delivery under the 16 headings.
These analytics could be used as a starting point for the development
of a specific set of transportation data analytics customized to the smart city.
The chapter also discusses the use of analytics for transportation performance
management within the smart city, including a direct comparison of KPIs from
a European project to analytics. This is intended to emphasize the difference
between key performance indicators and analytics. The chapter concludes with
some information on how analytics and data links fit together, illustrating the
symbiotic relationship between the two. The chapter also discusses the evolu-
tion of a data lake for smart city transportation, introducing the concept of
early analytics work with carefully selected use cases, leading to business justifi-
cation and further enhancement of the data lake.
Finally, the chapter introduces the identification of data needs for analyt-
ics, including the concept of early analytics work leading to further revisions
and additional data collection. Analytics have the power to inform smart city
managers and professionals from all aspects of transportation service delivery.
To attain this, it is necessary to construct a bridge between data science and
transportation. The middle ground role that interfaces between these two vital
subject areas, will be both important and lucrative.

References

[1] Oxford English Dictionary, http://www.oed.com/, retrieved October 16, 2016.
[2] Study on Key Performance Indicators for Intelligent Transport Systems, Final Report, Feb-
ruary 2015, AECOM LTD: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/sites/transport/files/themes/its/
studies/doc/its-kpi-final_report_v7_4.pdf, retrieved Sunday, October 16, 2016.