The central theme of the effort is to bring together recent advances in information technology and transportation science to increase the efficiency of urban transportation systems while at the same time ensuring a sustainable and livable environment — first in Singapore, and ultimately on a global scale.
At the heart of the project is SimMobility — a simulation platform with
an integrated model of human and commercial activities, land use,
energy use, transportation and environmental impacts — linked with a
range of networked computing and mobility innovations.
The modeling initiative is akin to a new project recently funded by the
MIT Energy Initiative on reducing urban energy consumption. Led urban planning professors Carlo Ratti
and Christopher Zegras, working with Moshe Ben-Akiva of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, that project aims to develop an integrated model of land
use, transportation and energy use that will enable evaluation of a
range of policies and projects for reducing energy consumption in
metropolitan areas.