Los Angeles Metro Bus Data Analysis Using GPS Trajectory and Schedule Data (Demo Paper)

With the widespread installation of location-enabled devices on public transportation, public vehicles are generating massive amounts of trajectory data in real time. However, using these trajectory data for meaningful analysis requires careful considerations in storing, managing, processing, and visualizing the data. Using the location data of the Los Angeles Metro bus system, along with publicly available bus schedule data, we conduct a data processing and analyses study to measure the performance of the public transportation system in Los Angeles utilizing a number of metrics including travel-time reliability, on-time performance, bus bunching, and travel-time estimation. We demonstrate the visualization of the data analysis results through an interactive web-based application. The developed algorithms and system provide powerful tools to detect issues and improve the efficiency of public transportation systems.Comment: SIGSPATIAL'18, demo paper, 4 page

Cyber-Attack Drone Payload Development and Geolocation via Directional Antennae

The increasing capabilities of commercial drones have led to blossoming drone usage in private sector industries ranging from agriculture to mining to cinema. Commercial drones have made amazing improvements in flight time, flight distance, and payload weight. These same features also offer a unique and unprecedented commodity for wireless hackers -- the ability to gain ‘physical’ proximity to a target without personally having to be anywhere near it. This capability is called Remote Physical Proximity (RPP). By their nature, wireless devices are largely susceptible to sniffing and injection attacks, but only if the attacker can interact with the device via physical proximity. A properly outfitted drone can increase the attack surface with RPP (adding a range of over 7 km using off-the-shelf drones), allowing full interactivity with wireless targets while the attacker can remain distant and hidden. Combined with the novel approach of using a directional antenna, these drones could also provide the means to collect targeted geolocation information of wireless devices from long distances passively, which is of significant value from an offensive cyberwarfare standpoint. This research develops skypie, a software and hardware framework designed for performing remote, directional drone-based collections. The prototype is inexpensive, lightweight, and totally independent of drone architecture, meaning it can be strapped to most medium to large commercial drones. The prototype effectively simulates the type of device that could be built by a motivated threat actor, and the development process evaluates strengths and shortcoming posed by these devices. This research also experimentally evaluates the ability of a drone-based attack system to track its targets by passively sniffing Wi-Fi signals from distances of 300 and 600 meters using a directional antenna. Additionally, it identifies collection techniques and processing algorithms for minimizing geolocation errors. Results show geolocation via 802.11 emissions (Wi-Fi) using a portable directional antenna is possible, but difficult to achieve the accuracy that GPS delivers (errors less than 5 m with 95% confidence). This research shows that geolocation predictions of a target cell phone acting as a Wi-Fi access point in a field from 300 m away is accurate within 70.1 m from 300 m away and within 76 meters from 600 m away. Three of the four main tests exceed the hypothesized geolocation error of 15% of the sensor-to-target distance, with tests 300 m away averaging 25.5% and tests 600 m away averaging at 34%. Improvements in bearing prediction are needed to reduce error to more tolerable quantities, and this thesis discusses several recommendations to do so. This research ultimately assists in developing operational drone-borne cyber-attack and reconnaissance capabilities, identifying limitations, and enlightening the public of countermeasures to mitigate the privacy threats posed by the inevitable rise of the cyber-attack drone

The End of Traffic and the Future of Access: A Roadmap to the New Transport Landscape

In most industrialized countries, car travel per person has peaked and the automobile regime is showing considering signs of instability. As cities across the globe venture to find the best ways to allow people to get around amidst technological and other changes, many forces are taking hold — all of which suggest a new transport landscape. Our roadmap describes why this landscape is taking shape and prescribes policies informed by contextual awareness, clear thinking, and flexibility

Intelligent Transportation Related Complex Systems and Sensors

Building around innovative services related to different modes of transport and traffic management, intelligent transport systems (ITS) are being widely adopted worldwide to improve the efficiency and safety of the transportation system. They enable users to be better informed and make safer, more coordinated, and smarter decisions on the use of transport networks. Current ITSs are complex systems, made up of several components/sub-systems characterized by time-dependent interactions among themselves. Some examples of these transportation-related complex systems include: road traffic sensors, autonomous/automated cars, smart cities, smart sensors, virtual sensors, traffic control systems, smart roads, logistics systems, smart mobility systems, and many others that are emerging from niche areas. The efficient operation of these complex systems requires: i) efficient solutions to the issues of sensors/actuators used to capture and control the physical parameters of these systems, as well as the quality of data collected from these systems; ii) tackling complexities using simulations and analytical modelling techniques; and iii) applying optimization techniques to improve the performance of these systems. It includes twenty-four papers, which cover scientific concepts, frameworks, architectures and various other ideas on analytics, trends and applications of transportation-related data

NASA Tech Briefs, June 1990

Topics: New Product Ideas; NASA TU Services; Electronic Components and Circuits; Electronic Systems; Physical Sciences; Materials; Computer Programs; Mechanics; Machinery; Fabrication Technology; Mathematics and Information Sciences; Life Sciences

NASA Tech Briefs, October 1990

Topics: New Product Ideas; NASA TU Services; Electronic Components and Circuits; Electronic Systems; Physical' Sciences; Materials; Computer Programs; Mechanics; Machinery; Fabrication Technology; Mathematics and Information Sciences; Life Sciences