{"589123":{"#nid":"589123","#data":{"type":"news","title":"DBL Hacks MARTA Ridership in Smart City Initiative","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech Digital Building Laboratory (DBL) students and faculty burned the midnight oil during a MARTA Hackathon organized by the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.atlantaga.gov\/\u0022\u003ECity of Atlanta\u003C\/a\u003E and \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.itsmarta.com\/\u0022\u003EMARTA\u003C\/a\u003E. The 24-hour event held in February challenged 36 teams from the Atlanta tech community with increasing MARTA ridership using new data assets and web application program interfaces (API).\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;The MARTA Hackathon series is a yearlong initiative between MARTA, \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.sandboxatl.com\/\u0022\u003ESandbox ATL\u003C\/a\u003E, \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.codeforatlanta.org\/\u0022\u003ECode for Atlanta\u003C\/a\u003E, and \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/hackgt.com\/\u0022\u003EHackGT\u003C\/a\u003E with the goal of connecting MARTA with the Atlanta tech community to help new ways of thinking and problem solving to emerge,\u0026rdquo; said Scott Henderson, co-founder and CEO of Sandbox Communities.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;MARTA and the City of Atlanta realize they can find better solutions and breakthroughs by working with a community of experts who happen to be MARTA riders and City of Atlanta citizens,\u0026rdquo; he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe DBL fielded a team of four master\u0026rsquo;s, Ph.D., and \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/pe.gatech.edu\/courses\/georgia-tech-coding-boot-camp\u0022\u003ECoding Boot Camp\u003C\/a\u003E students, and a faculty member as part of its \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/arch.gatech.edu\/smart-cities\u0022\u003ESmart City\u003C\/a\u003E research initiatives. Over the past six months, the DBL has been working closely with the City of Atlanta and the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/ipat.gatech.edu\/smart-cities-and-inclusive-innovation\u0022\u003EInstitute for People and Technology\u003C\/a\u003E (IPaT) to develop synergy and programs that connect Georgia Tech with the city, Smart City ambitions, and available data services.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe team focused on tying 3D visualization environments to real-time streaming data from MARTA\u0026rsquo;s online web APIs. They developed a virtual environment where users could track bus locations in real time and created a digital 3D heat map that allows users to visualize the intensity of people entering and exiting MARTA transportation.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ETeam member Jieun Rim is a student at the Georgia Tech Coding Boot Camp currently on her way to becoming a full-stack developer. She explained, \u0026ldquo;As a regular MARTA rider, I use mobile apps like MARTA and marta.io all the time to get the information I need to use MARTA comfortably. Developing new ways (or improving old ones) to connect users to their requested information (like train schedules or knowing if there is an accident) can help us live our daily lives in a smart and predictable environment.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Hackathon\u0026rsquo;s 24-hour sprint meant the DBL team had to come prepared, work efficiently, and communicate with each other.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;The timing was very challenging. We had to complete the project that included understanding MARTA\u0026#39;s data structure for over 9,000 buses in the Atlanta area, and applying the right algorithms to it to capture live bus schedule updates and traffic conditions impacting their schedules,\u0026rdquo; said Esterling Accime, a full-stack web development student at the Coding Boot Camp. \u0026ldquo;This type of work could take as long as a month for a similar team to do what we did in a day.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe DBL team completed a prototype of their system during the Hackathon and they plan to continue improving its performance.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;Teams got really far with their ideas, identifying some major pain points for the people using the MARTA system and around the City of Atlanta, and proposed novel solutions for it,\u0026rdquo; said Diego Osorio, who is seeking a Master\u0026rsquo;s in Human-Computer Interaction, focused on tangible interactions.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EHighlights for the team included learning new skills and networking with Atlanta innovators.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u0026ldquo;It surprised me that so many volunteer programmers were willing to share their ideas, codes and experience with other people. The Hackathon is a successful platform for enthusiastic programmers to co-work,\u0026rdquo; said team member Tzu-Chieh Kurt Hong, a Ph.D. candidate in architecture focusing on design computation.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EFive judges representing the MARTA board and executive team, Cisco, and Atlanta met with participants in a science fair-style showcase to determine the top teams.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EKari Watkins, a judge and an assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering at Georgia Tech, said she \u0026quot;was amazed at the quality of the top applications. In only 24 hours, teams created working prototypes to add rideshare into MARTA, build easy to implement kiosks, and do direct advertising on MARTA.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EDebra Lam, managing director for \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/ipat.gatech.edu\/smart-cities-and-inclusive-innovation\u0022\u003ESmart Cities and Inclusive Innovation\u003C\/a\u003E at Georgia Tech, said, \u0026ldquo;When it comes to Hackathons, open data empowers people. MARTA is thinking about the future of transportation, and how the City of Atlanta and Georgia Tech can influence it.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Hackathon was one of the first visible public initiatives exposing this partnership to the broader Atlanta community.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EDeputy CIO for the city, Kirk Talbott, said the city \u0026quot;offers a \u0026lsquo;real-world\u0026rsquo; laboratory where research can be applied and scaled to solve urban challenges at a level not easily replicable in a university setting.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EDennis Shelden, a Hackathon team member and director of the DBL, said, \u0026ldquo;This is a great example of how the City of Atlanta and Georgia Tech work together to create new ways of tackling emerging opportunities using data to improve the lives of the community.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EDBL students and faculty participated in a MARTA Hackathon in which 36 teams from the Atlanta tech community were challenged with increasing MARTA ridership.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"DBL students and faculty participated in a MARTA Hackathon in which 36 teams from the Atlanta tech community were challenged with increasing MARTA ridership. "}],"uid":"34462","created_gmt":"2017-03-22 18:05:44","changed_gmt":"2017-03-23 17:52:53","author":"afortson6","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2017-03-22T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2017-03-22T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"589126":{"id":"589126","type":"image","title":"Digital Building Laboratory team at MARTA Hackathon","body":null,"created":"1490207541","gmt_created":"2017-03-22 18:32:21","changed":"1490207708","gmt_changed":"2017-03-22 18:35:08","alt":"Jieun Rim, Tzu-Chieh Kurt Hong,\u00a0Diego Osorio,\u00a0Esterling Accime, and Dennis Shelden","file":{"fid":"224481","name":"team-web.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/team-web.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/team-web.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":652182,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/team-web.jpg?itok=3fQbYUep"}},"589127":{"id":"589127","type":"image","title":"Digital Building Laboratory Heat Map","body":null,"created":"1490207643","gmt_created":"2017-03-22 18:34:03","changed":"1490207727","gmt_changed":"2017-03-22 18:35:27","alt":"Digital 3D heat map created by the Digital Building Lab team","file":{"fid":"224480","name":"city-1---web.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/city-1---web.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/city-1---web.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":905669,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/city-1---web.jpg?itok=F3MOltVn"}}},"media_ids":["589126","589127"],"groups":[{"id":"60379","name":"DBL - Digital Building Lab"},{"id":"60380","name":"CSPAV - Center for Spatial Planning Analytics and Visualization"},{"id":"1221","name":"College of Design"},{"id":"1260","name":"CQGRD - Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development"},{"id":"1224","name":"School of City \u0026 Regional Planning"},{"id":"1225","name":"School of Industrial Design"}],"categories":[{"id":"42901","name":"Community"},{"id":"137","name":"Architecture"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAmy Fortson\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\namy.fortson@design.gatech.edu\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}