draft plan

MEMORANDUM

Dear Mr. Rodriguez and Stakeholders at New York City,

The purpose of the memo is to propose a lane robot program for the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) that is significant in addressing the challenge of traffic congestion in New York City, especially during peak hours.

Current Outcomes

NYCDOT currently has experienced multiple challenges associated with solving the traffic congestion problems during peak times in New York City. There have been various interventions in place that they tried to adopt to reduce the congestion. The intervention includes having pedestrian and cyclists only lanes on the roads that facilitate more people considering walking and others cycling, but it has not reduced the traffic or the number of vehicles on the roads. The intervention of expanding the road network encouraged more people to acquire cars, leading to another challenge of filling the roads during peak hours. The other critical intervention is using artificial intelligence and real-time data to ensure that motorists get information about the weather, accidents, and the best alternative roads to avoid preventable traffic. There still needs to be a gap towards reducing the traffic in the city, including the peak hour’s rush that contributes to the limited flow. The success or failure of NYCDOT interventions is measured using the time the vehicles take to reach their destination using GPS tracking and compared to the ideal time (Zheng, 2017). There is also the measure of interviewing the motorists about the traffic flow during peak hours in New York, and their feedback is then analyzed to get the details of the effectiveness of the interventions. The solutions have served a few problems experienced in New York City, including reducing general traffic that is experienced, especially during the day but the peak hours traffic jam is still a challenge. Most of the plan of reduce the traffic congestion was not approve because the expensive cost. Also, because the bureaucracy, it is very slow to approve one policy or program.

Equitable Outcomes

NYCDOT executive including the commissioner has demonstrated significant maturity regarding hiring its staff and the professionalism in having leaders in place. For an extended period, the company has maintained good leadership skills where diversity in the workplace is prioritized. This has led to brilliant intellectuals who are currently determined to employ more data analytics to address the challenges in place. NYCDOT has shown the importance of stakeholder partnership and involvement, which brings about equity in valuing the contribution of all the stakeholders, including the employees, making it possible for the interventions to succeed. But the communication based on the prioritization. NYCDOT listen to the upper manager first and since they have many messages per day, it is easy to have biases. The commissioner of NYCDOT should consider putting more effort towards ensuring that the organization serves the interest of all, especially in the transport sector where pedestrians, motorists, and cyclists are not discriminated against when interventions are adopted.

Current Team

The current NYCDOT team headed by the commissioner has already started adopting the data and tech-driven approaches which would contribute to growth in traffic management in New York. According to IBM research, 66 percent of companies that use big data say it gives them a competitive edge in the marketplace (IBM Corporation, 2014). The transportation sector is experiencing similar issues requiring significant data to address the challenges experienced, including traffic congestion during peak hours. The commissioner should be flexible enough to adopt data analytics and technology to develop innovative solutions to traffic jams during rush hours. It is demonstrated that the NYCDOT in New York City benefit from implementing big data analytics into their daily operations. NYCDOT should rely on data analytics and technology in considering lane robot.

traffic intervention that is already in use in China to bring a significant change in the city (Wu & Wang, 2014). Data analytics is there to prove a point, especially since more effort should be directed toward ensuring that the lane robot technology is a success. But there are some racism biases in NYCDOT. When the employee of color applies the job, the system will automatically deny their advancement opportunities. They need to concern about reduce these biases in order to make a better team.

SWOT Analysis about Lane Robot

Strengths Reduce human services: Reduce the human error and traffic time Safety: Safer than original reversible line because there is a physical separation More flexible than original road	Weaknesses Convince stakeholders to invest in the long-term program need to take effort
Opportunities Make the New York City smarter: NYCDOT increase funding thanks to the revolutionary potential of modernizing urban public transportation	Threats If the lane robot has high complaint frequency from New York City citizen, the reputation of NYCDOT may hurt

Early Adopters

In 1963, this technology has been used on Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, later in Florida and some cities in Mexico. In 2016, the technology has been reported to have been adopted and implemented in Shenzhen, China. The lane robot technology has been reported to have been adopted in China, and a positive reputation is associated with it. The characteristics of its implementation are that traffic police are removed from the road where the robots were effective, and a remote was just used to move the guard rails to allow a given lane or restrict it based on the data received about the traffic flow. In a direction where the traffic is high is when an additional route is allocated from the lane moving in the opposite direction being changed to clear the slow traffic. New York has an opportunity to use and update this technology and build smart road to reduce the congestion in New York City.

Stakeholder Relationship and Big Data in NYCDOT

The commissioner and managers at the NYCDOT must cater to the wants of the people who support the agency the most: its stakeholders. Incorporating big data analytics into NYCDOT operations would help management foster stronger bonds with employees. Workers, directors, subcontractors, and suppliers are all examples of stakeholders. Here, the organization should design NYCDOT apps that would aid enhance its engagement with internal stakeholders in the same way it has with external stakeholders.

NYCDOT Organization

The NYCDOT has the mandate of running the lane robot technology when New York authorities feel that its effectiveness would be of value to the problem present in the city. The NYCDOT commissioner is responsible for training the employees especially the engineer department and the traffic police on controlling the robot technology and the GIS technology that offers the data for effective traffic management. Also, they need the ‘smart’ sensors to compute the vehicles’ speed and trajectory. The data collection needs to avoid the deviation and false information.

Risks, Challenges and Concerns

1. The risks of adopting lane robot traffic are that jobs would be lost for the traffic officers on the roads, resulting in a rise in unemployment in the city.

2. Because the lane robot is remote controlled drives the isolation guardrail to reach the designated position in a short time at one time, it needs stable technology to avoid the road just move half and stop. When the lane robot works, it needs sensitive technology to insure it does not crash the vehicle.

3. Need to compute which road needs lane robot, and since New York City is big and has high population, building lane robot is kind difficult.

4. Acquiring and implementing lane robots would demand more resources from NYCDOT. The implementation would demand the involvement of many stakeholders to make it more accepted and embraced by the public. The stakeholder involvement makes the process long and time-consuming.

Partnership

There is a need for the NYCDOT to partner with MTA to make sure that the infrastructure is in good condition and the robotic change of lanes becomes effective and valuable in reducing traffic during rush hours. Also, it can partnership with the robot company like Boston Dynamics which already has technology of designing specific and effective robots.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this lane robot program could prepare New York City to reduce the traffic congestion. It aligns with the core value and prospect of NYCDOT and use the current technology to build the lane robot.

References

IBM Corporation. (2014). Big data and analytics in travel and transportation. Web.

Wu, Q., & Wang, X. (2014). Design and control of a humanoid robot for traffic guidance. Robot Intelligence Technology and Applications 2, 743–752. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05582-4_65

Zheng, S. (2017, April 21). 'robot' technology employed to ease China's notorious traffic jams. South China Morning Post. Retrieved November 8, 2022, from https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2089478/robot-technology-helping-direct-traffic-southern-china?module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article&campaign=2089478