Uber has troves of data on how people navigate cities. Urban planners have begged, pleaded, and gone to court for access. Will they ever get it?
Joe Castiglione compares his job to playing SimCity.
As the deputy director for technology, data, and analysis at the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, Castiglione spends his days manipulating models of the Bay Area and its 7 million residents.
From wide-sweeping ridership and traffic data to deep dives into personal travel choices via surveys, his models are able to estimate the number of people who will disembark at a specific train platform at a certain time of day and predict how that might change if a new housing development is built nearby, or if train-frequency is increased.
The models are exceedingly complex, because people are so complex. “Think about the travel choices you’ve made in the last week, or the last year,” Castiglione says. “How do you time your trips? What tradeoffs do you make? What modes of transportation do you use? How do those choices change from day to day?” He has the deep voice of an NPR host and the demeanor of a patient professor. “The models are complex but highly rational,” he says.
The San Francisco County Transportation Authority participates in planning across the nine counties…
