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274 Big Data Analytics for Connected Vehicles and Smart Cities Summary 275
within a smart city. A major component of the approach described in this book
revolves around treating transportation as a single system. To this end, Chapter
2 provides four additional questions as a means of assessing the progress we
have made toward making transportation behaviors a single system. These re-
late to clarity of purpose, connectivity, status determination, and adaptability.
It is left to the reader to evaluate his or her specific city domain against this
four-question checklist.
12.6 Review of Chapter 3
Much use is made of the term big data, and often a clear and agreed-upon
definition is missing from the conversation. Chapter 3 addresses the need for
such a clear and agreed on definition and provides one that forms the basis for
much of the remainder of the book. To begin, Chapter 3 explains how data is
measured. While this may be perceived as trivial among some of the readership
groups, it could be important to bring everyone to the same page and act as an
important element in the bridge that we are building between data science and
transportation. A multidimensional explanation of big data is then provided,
explaining that big data is certainly about volume, but has other facets as well.
These include the variety of the data, variability of the data, data complexity,
and veracity of the data. Chapter 3 also explains the difference between real-
time analytics and analytics based on archived or static data.
An important element in Chapter 3 is its discussion of how big data and
analytics can be perceived as a steppingstone to future automation. There seems
to be an incredible focus on smart vehicles and not so much interest in the ac-
companying smart back office. Accordingly, Chapter 3 explores data manage-
ment and how the simple ability to have an enterprise-wide view of all the data
collected could go a long way toward more efficient and more effective use of
the data. To bring the big data discussion to life from a smart city transportation
perspective, Chapter 3 concludes by explaining big data within a transportation
context, providing specific examples with potentially big data sources within
transportation.
12.7 Review of Chapter 4
As discussed earlier, transportation is likely to have an inordinately important
role in the smart city. It is also likely that connected and autonomous vehicles
will have a disproportionately important role in transportation within a smart
city. Chapter 4 explores the definition of the connected vehicle and some of
the challenges associated with the introduction of the connected vehicle. In
addition, Chapter 4 examines two variations on the connected vehicle theme,