IBM Helps Sao Paulo Unify Traffic Data and Services for Nearly 4,000 Miles of Highways

ARMONK, N.Y., Sept. 8, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) and The Agencia de Transporte do Estado de Sao Paulo (ARTESP), the regulatory agency that oversees public transportation for the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, are announcing the opening of the Information Control Center designed to help ensure the quality of service provided by local operators of the state's highways. The center will unify traffic data, incident management and service delivery through the use of advanced analytics to help ensure safer and more efficient travel for a population of 20 million across 271 cities.

The new system, built on IBM Intelligent Transportation technology as well as consulting expertise from IBM and IBM Business Partner Magna Sistemas will be based in the state transportation agency's headquarters in Sao Paulo. The new center will capture, link and unify data from Operational Control Centers of each of the 19 highway administrators that operate nearly 30 state roads. IBM technologies will help the agency improve supervision of nearly 4,000 miles of state highways, something previously done only through physical inspections.

"The Information Control Center for the state will be able to oversee Sao Paulo's highways in near real time. With IBM technology in place we will now have the right tools to check quality of services provided by each administrator and also the corresponding contract fulfillment," said ARTESP general director, Karla Bertocco Trindade. "This kind of insightful data will add to the comfort and safety for our citizens and extend the quality of the highways in our state."

Prior to the launch of the new statewide Information Control Center, each contractor could make varying or inconsistent assessments of road conditions or incidents. The new solution built on IBM Intelligent Operations Center enables the state to verify and confirm incidents as they occur, allowing more efficient handling and routing of traffic across the entire state. In addition to data from each administrator's control centers—which receive information through sensors, weather stations, call-boxes, and other connected devices— the state's central information control center will now also be able to centralize new data streams such as traffic reports and revenue data from toll plazas.

By using sophisticated Big Data analytics, IBM's Intelligent Operations software allows transportation agency employees to gather better insights for smarter decision making to help diffuse transportation and traffic issues, while IBM Maximo software will be on hand to provide asset management throughout its highway network in Sao Paulo.

"The push for a truly intelligent transportation system in Sao Paulo is an unprecedented project for Brazil," said Eric-Mark Huitema, Global Smarter Transportation Leader, IBM Smarter Cities. "Transportation departments everywhere are up against a deluge of data. ARTESP is using it to their advantage, engaging powerful analytics to glean insights from the terabytes upon terabytes of traffic data that will ultimately improve transportation for Brazilian citizens."

About IBM
For more information on IBM Smarter Cities, visit www.ibm.com/press/smartercities or IBM Smarter Transportation, visit http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/transportation. To join the conversation, please follow @IBMSmartCities or @IBMTransport on Twitter.

About Magna Sistemas: 
Magna Sistemas has eighteen years of experience delivering IT services, including consulting, solution development, software advice, infrastructure services, and information security. For more information: http://www.magnasistemas.com.br/

Contact:
Alexander Aizenberg
IBM Media Relations
[email protected]
212-671-9616

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140908/143912 
Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090416/IBMLOGO

SOURCE IBM