CSIR Nyendaweb - instrument of the ITS LAB collaboratory, and research and development platform

Abstract

The improved access to transport and traffic data by researchers will greatly benefit general Research & Development (R&D) in the fields of road traffic and safety engineering, and traffic management. Obtaining historic data for transport and traffic related research work is generally found to be cumbersome and frustrating. Commensurate validity and verification concerns as well as incoherencies and uncertainties vested in available transport/ traffic data, inevitably add to the complexity of analyses and the level of innovative contextualisation required to apply said towards inferences intended to guide transport/traffic management policy- and decision-making. Amidst government's imperative of accessible information, in this era where many transport and traffic related transactions are digitised in some way, and arguably where digitised data do indeed exist in large quantities, it remains fait accompli that it is very difficult and time consuming if not impossible to source validated, verified data for not only purposes of R&D but also for the intelligence required for transport policy-making, operation and management. Against this backdrop, CSIR has launched a flagship project, NyendaWeb based on the "sensor network" concept. NyendaWeb's underpinning theme is the promotion of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) in transport. The paper describes the NyendaWeb technical development concept, the role of NyendaWeb within the ITS Lab Collaboratory as an international ITS R&D platform, and how the "demostrator" functionality of NyendaWeb is envisaged to contribute to raising the awareness and interest of the engineering and associated disciplines at school, under-graduate and post-graduate levels in traffic engineering, ITS, traffic management, and other built environment sciences, engineering, technology and management fields