Throwing away good data

Ever watch the movie The Italian Job? The re-make with Mark Whalberg with the Mini Coopers. Remember the scene where the "real Napster" shuts down the state of the art control room of Los Angeles traffic control center? The whole city is paralyzed from the disruption. It is that critical to the functionality of the city.

The never center is the most technologically advanced in the world. One would assume that they would be analyzing all of the data they collect to identify problem areas, track traffic patterns, see where growth is occurring. Wrong. They collect the data and then discard it days later. LAT:

The data beep and shine on screens in a state-of-the-art traffic control center that looks like something out of a science fiction movie. The information -- Wilshire Boulevard jammed in Westwood, Broadway wide-open through downtown -- is used to adjust the timing of traffic lights, easing the flow of vehicles through the city's busy streets. The data are instantly placed on the Internet, available to commuters and traffic reporters.

But although the sensors and computers collect massive amounts of data about traffic patterns and congestion, they do little to help engineers plan for the city's growing transportation needs -- or determine how development is affecting traffic.

That's because the city does not save the information for more than a few days, using it only to direct traffic in real time by adjusting the speed at which lights turn from green to amber to red.

Because the information is discarded, it cannot be used to determine over time where traffic is increasing -- or by how much.

In fact, city officials said they don't have traffic counts for some of the city's busiest intersections -- and can't say how much congestion has increased over the years

The lack of traffic data is becoming more of a vexing issue at City Hall and in L.A. neighborhoods, especially in the midst of a building boom that has increased both residential and office development.

How short sided was it to put all of these fancy systems into place and then not invest the relatively small amount of money into data capture and analysis? Seems like a no-brainer for me. Loss of good data is among the most frustrating things for a political organizer like myself. People bend over backwards to make sure information in voter files from campaign make it back into the main system. To think that Los Angeles would not have kept that invaluable data is mind-blowing. Once lost, there is no way to get it back.

It would cost about $1 million to get a system up and running, but the expert are saying it would not be fully installed until 2011.

The only way to know what projects to tackle first to alleviate the backups is to have good data, especially historical data. The sooner they have it up and running the better decision can be made.