School of Information Sciences

04/24/2015

iSchool Telecommunications Research Featured in Online Media Outlets, Conference

Some exciting work coming out of the iSchool at Pitt could change the way city-dwellers plan their urban travels. Dr. Konstantinos Pelechrinis, Assistant Professor at the iSchool at Pitt, along with his colleagues Dr. Esther Galbrun and Dr. Evimaria Terzi from Boston University, have developed a set of algorithms that use Big Data (publically-available crime statistics and locations) to identify potentially risky points on a map, and navigate their users around them.

These “SafePath” algorithms seek to balance distance with risk, making for a useful new way of thinking about how we get from point A to point B. Safe navigation in urban environments is a critical component in improving quality of life in the city.

Dr. Pelechrinis and his fellow researchers first presented their work at the ACM SIGKDD 2014 workshop for Urban Computing. A demo of the system will be presented at the Mobile Data Management 2015 conference this June in Pittsburgh, PA, and an online demo can be viewed on the iSchool’s YouTube channel. Additionally, you can read some of the media coverage about this research at nextcity.org and at datanami.com.

Citation: E. Galbrun, K. Pelechrinis and E. Terzi, "Safe Navigation in Urban Environments", in ACM SIGKDD UrbComp '14, New York, NY, August, 2014.

SIS News

SIS Faculty and students are leaders in the Information Professions. Their research, teaching, and projects are often newsworthy.