Working to improve the commuter experience.

September 23, 2009
Steve

Steve

On a good traffic day it takes me only about 40 minutes each way to commute from home to office. On a bad day, well, lets just say I’m happy to have my MP3 player plugged into my car’s stereo system. Responding to increasing concern over global warming and growing demand on parking facilities on campus, the university has begun a number of initiatives to improve commuting to and from campus.

Commuter Map

 

Click on the map to view it larger

Click on the map to view it larger

The Center for GIS, where I work as an application programmer, has collaborated with a number of university departments to assist in the process. Last fall, working with Transportation & Parking Services, we began a drive time analysis study to identify MTA transit stops and Park & Rides where the greatest number of commuters are clustered   This analysis helps TU adjust their shuttle services to provide better access to and from campus to the greatest number of commuters.

Faculty/Staff Commuting Patterns Map

 

Our team conducted another study for the Office of Human Resources to map zip code densities for staff and faculty addresses.  The idea is to see what opportunities exist to tie into various transit systems or provide employee commuters better information for car pooling. The Center for GIS is also responsible for creating the digital, static maps used in the shuttle schedules available on the university’s website

Interactive Campus Map

interactive map

 

Another great commuter tool provided by the university became available this Fall. The new interactive campus map is the outcome of a collaboration between two University departments, the Geospatial Research and Education Laboratory (GRE), a part of the Department of Geography and Environmental Planning, managed by Dr. Jay Morgan, and the TU Design Center. The GRE created a highly interactive map leveraging the Google Maps API. The map not only shows users buildings and facility locations, but allows users to actively navigate through the campus and find information about parking locations, MTA transit stops, University shuttle stops, and other campus information. My favorite function in the map, and one highly useful to commuters, is the ability to identify a given shuttle stop and then launch to the NextBus website.  The NextBus website uses GPS to track the location of the shuttle buses. This information and knowledge of the shuttle schedules allows the site to predict arrivals times to the stops. This feature allows commuters to better plan their personal schedules and waste less time waiting for the buses.

All of these efforts not only improve conditions for the thousands of university members who commute, they also benefit the surrounding community with less congested roads and reductions in CO2 emissions. That’s something I’m happy to be a part of.

1 Comment | Community Outreach, IT, Mapping, Students, TU Faculty & Staff | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Past Bloggers

Green IT and Its Positive Business Impact

September 3, 2009

issvirtulizationOrganic, Recyclable, Environmentally Friendly—These terms are saturating us everywhere we go from the Grocery Store to the Car Lot.  The “Green Movement” is changing the way we live and do business.  My area of focus, Information Technology (IT), is tapping into this green IT movement because it is not only environmental conscious but also highly marketable and ‘wallet friendly’.

Faced with a shrinking budget and a struggling economy, many companies are investing less and less into IT.  As a result, these companies are looking for smarter and more creative ways to make sound IT investments to meet ever-changing business demands.  One technology that is bridging the gap between business needs, financial budget crunches, and ‘green’ objectives is server virtualization.

 

What is Server Virtualization? It allows multiple virtual machines of similar or dissimilar operating systems to share the hardware resources of a common physical server platform.   Today, most physical servers are so robust and powerful that many of these servers do not utilize processor and memory resources to maximum potentials.

This is a centralized view of a virtual data center using VMware’s vCenter. Virtual Machines and VMware Hosts are managed exclusively from this console view.

This is a centralized view of a virtual data center using VMware’s vCenter. Virtual Machines and VMware Hosts are managed exclusively from this console view.

How can Server Virtualization help your business? According to VMware, most physical server operations utilize only 5 – 15% of the available hardware resources.  This means:

  • Hardware resources go unused,
  • Physical server sprawl is out of control,
  • Energy consumption is high,
  • Expensive to maintain the environment

Server virtualization allows companies to utilize the untapped resources of physical servers while minimizing the need for purchasing additional servers, reducing energy costs, and decreasing the overall carbon footprint of the data center operations by retiring outdated servers.  Essentially, organizations can save money and help the environment by investing in a virtual server infrastructure.

The Solution! A variety of IT vendors offer enterprise virtualization products such as VMware with its Virtual Infrastructure and vSphere products and Microsoft with its Hyper-V product.  These vendors have incorporated other value-added product enhancements into virtualization technology that include centralized management, high availability, disaster recovery, business continuity, and security tools.   Virtualization along with its integrated enhancements help support the overall day-to-day business and IT functions of an organization

RESI-ISS at Towson University made the leap into using virtualization and has experienced many of the advantages that virtualization has to offer.  As an application hosting provider, RESI-ISS has the extra benefit of offering additional services to clients by leveraging virtualization technology with a variety of other Information Technology services.  Several clients along with RESI-ISS itself depend almost exclusively on virtualization technology to support the day-to-day IT operations and services!

1 Comment | Business Analysis, IT, Training | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Past Bloggers

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