Connections

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Connections is a weekly series of knowledge notes from the World Bank Group’s Transport & Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Global Practice. It covers projects, experiences, and front-line developments.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 22
  • Publication
    Better Crash Data Can Improve Road Safety
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-09) Krambeck, Holly; Job, Soames; Sultan, Sara
    Low- and middle- income countries typically lack adequate systems for collecting road crash data. This limits their capacity to monitor, effectively advocate for, manage, and efficiently improve road safety. While many cities, states, and countries have adopted or developed proprietary systems for recording crash data, they are often developed in isolation, limiting the ability to share data among users. These systems may also be expensive - and unable to support road safety delivery and advocacy. They usually lack a seamless, global, real time, and georeferenced crash repository: a basis for monitoring the scale of the challenge. Data for road incident visualization evaluation and reporting (DRIVER) -a data collection system developed and now operating in the Philippines, answers this challenge, and offers an effective road safety support solution. DRIVER offers important opportunities for improved road safety data in many national and subnational jurisdictions, and its code is available free on the World Bank GitHub open source code repository. DRIVER is likely to become more widespread as the World Bank and the global road safety facility (GRSF) support its use in other countries and cities.
  • Publication
    Time for a Tailored Approach to South African BRTs :
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-06) Munoz-Raskin, Ramon; Scorcia, Harvey
    Johannesburg and other cities in South Africa are rolling out integrated rapid public transport networks as part of an overall effort to address significant urban mobility challenges and to increase the use of public transport.The initial phases of these networks used a traditional Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) trunk and feeder approach, patterned after the successful Latin American systems developed in the 2000s. The Rea Vaya BRT in Johannesburg is South Africa’s first such system, with 43.5 km of trunk bus corridors in operation by 2016. But the results in ridership and operating cost recovery from fares were approximately one-third of initial estimates. Urban form and travel demand patterns for transport in South African cities differ greatly from those in Latin America. South Africa’s national government, with World Bank support, has been examining these differences to reassess how South African metropolises could interpret and rethink their rapid transit operations, services, and finances.
  • Publication
    Low-Cost Technology to Improve Aviation Safety and Efficiency: Investment Program Brings Modernized Aviation Information Technology to Pacific Islands
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-02) De Serio, Christopher; Giovannitti, Aldo
    The World Bank’s Pacific Aviation Investment Program (PAIP) is bringing state-of-the-art air traffic management and satellite-based ground communications to airports and small aircraft operators in seven Pacific island countries and territories. These advances, coming online in 2017, will vastly improve the safety and efficiency of South Pacific aviation and further its global integration. The air traffic surveillance equipment, known as ADS-B, surpasses the abilities of radar to locate aircraft en route and does so at one-tenth the cost. ADS-B increases the safety of flying and improves search and rescue operations; it also enables more efficient flight routing, which saves fuel and reduces greenhouse gases. The installation of the surveillance equipment at ground stations in five Pacific island countries, Kiribati, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu, and in smaller aircraft will significantly broaden the coverage of aviation activity across the region. A new satellite-based ground-to-ground communications network will link those five countries plus Cook Islands and Niue. The network will be resistant to natural disasters, thus improving emergency preparedness and response. More broadly, strengthening aviation-related communications in the Pacific will help integrate the Asia-Pacific region with global developments in air traffic information systems.
  • Publication
    Flying to the Cloud: Governments Seek Gains from Cloud Computing
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-12) Melhem, Samia; Kim, Seunghyun
    The transition to cloud computing broadly means shifting programs and data from personal or office hardware to shared hardware that many individuals and organizations access over the Internet. That migration is happening fast. By 2019, according to the information technology company Cisco, 83 percent of all global data center traffic will come from cloud services. And the profitability of the cloud services unit of Amazon, the leader in the worldwide cloud computing market, has been growing strongly. Relative to conventional computing, the cloud can offer more efficiency, scalability, and flexible real-time service to employees, customers, and citizens. Cloud computing, a fast-growing business, appeals to governments that want to provide more accessible, secure, and cost-effective public services. However, putting government data in the cloud—that is, on remote, Internet-connected devices owned by another, typically private, organization—poses the question of readiness to handle issues that are inherent in the technology, including security, dependability, and the scope of control that might be exercised by the owner of the cloud hardware and the Internet service provider. The World Bank’s Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) unit in collaboration with Accenture Consulting, recently developed a toolkit that can assess government readiness for cloud migration. It is conducting pilot studies to improve and refine the ability of the toolkit to provide recommendations to interested national policy makers and digital leaders.
  • Publication
    Making Rural Broadband Affordable: Synchronizing Installation with Other Public Works
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-04) Foch, Arthur
    The high cost of extending Internet service beyond urban areas and the relatively low number of potential subscribers has combined to stall the expansion of this enabling technology in much of the developing world (and even in some advanced economies). Installing cables over land by exploiting existing infrastructure to carry the line eliminates most of the construction costs of domestic Internet networks—but that colocation option is much less available for remote or thinly populated areas. A way forward is to synchronize the installation with work on other suitable infrastructure projects (transport, energy, water, gas). The developmental value of high-speed Internet and the strategy of colocating cable with transport and power corridors are well understood. The missing piece is a legal and regulatory push to ensure that cable is accommodated when private or public infrastructure is built or renovated in rural areas. With technical assistance informed by precedents in advanced economies, the international community and developing countries themselves can accelerate adoption of such policies.
  • Publication
    Open Data for Sustainable Development
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-03) Petrov, Oleg; Gurin, Joel; Manley, Laura
    The “open data” principle is becoming an increasingly important part of the data revolution, which is recognized worldwide as a key engine for achieving the post-2015 UN Sustainable Development Goals. Open data—publicly available online information that can be used for any purpose at little or no cost—represent one of the most underutilized key assets of modern government. Open data initiatives are often directed at converting open data into formats that can be reused for private sector development, jobs creation, economic growth, and more effective governance and citizen engagement. A 2013 study estimated that using open data in seven sectors of economic activity could create $3 trillion to $5 trillion annually in economic value worldwide. The direct, annual economic value of public governmental data has been estimated at up to €40 billion for the European Union and £2 billion for the United Kingdom. Numerous examples illustrate how the use of open data can give significant support to achieving the post-2015 UN Sustainable Development Goals.
  • Publication
    Russia’s Ambitious Broadband Goal: Is the Progress Sustainable?
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-03) Gelvanovska, Natalija; Rossotto, Carlo Maria; Gunzburger, Michael Lee
    In 2012, the Russian Federation announced one of the world’s more ambitious broadband Internet development goals: providing 80 percent of Russian households with ultrafast connection speeds - at least 100 megabits per second (Mbps) by 2018.1 That goal exceeds the current targets in Germany and the European Union, and it is about equivalent to those currently being pursued by countries with ambitious strategic broadband connectivity goals, including Denmark, Sweden, and the United States. As part of the effort to reach its 2018 target, the Russian government recently tasked Rostelecom - a largely state-owned enterprise and the dominant firm in Russia’s broadband market - with the responsibility of connecting 4 million people (about 2.8 percent of all households) in small, widely scattered settlements throughout Russia by installing 200,000 kilometers of fiber-optic cable providing speeds of at least 10 Mbps. The assignment is both a great opportunity and a huge challenge for Rostelecom and for the entire Russian broadband sector. What can Russia do to ensure Rostelecom’s successful completion of its specific task as well as the success of the broader 2018 target?
  • Publication
    Will the Digital Revolution Help or Hurt Employment?: Adaptation a Key to Realizing Job Gains
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-02) Raja, Siddhartha; Ampah, Mavis
    What will technological change deliver in the coming decades? And what can we do to determine the outcome? Technological change in any given society is never smooth and always negotiated. Although both perils and opportunities await, the ultimate result depends on our choices today. Governments, businesses, and individuals have shown that adapting to changing circumstances can alter the consequences of apparently ‘inevitable’ changes. And developing countries can be profoundly affected by changes seemingly limited to the advanced economies; they must adapt to what is actually a global technological playing field. The World Bank’s recently issued World Development Report 2016: digital dividends focuses on strengthening the ‘analog complements’ of the digital economy, including adapting skills to get the most out of the digital revolution. Countries whose governments can facilitate innovation, strengthen education and skill building, and build up the social safety net may be the most likely to benefit from the coming changes.
  • Publication
    Harnessing the Internet for Development
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-01) Melhem, Samia
    Universal access to the Internet has become a topdevelopment priority. Getting there requires affordable,reliable access to fast, “always on” broadbandnetworks, one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 9.c). Finland has recognizedaccess to broadband as a fundamental human rightsince 2010. In 2011, a key Uncommission also declared that broadband access is a basic human right, alongwith health care, shelter, and food. Affordable Internetaccess enables progress on some of the toughestdevelopment challenges in the world’s poorest communities. According to one estimate, increasing the proportion of the world’s population that is connected to the Internet to 75 percent(reaching 5.6 billion people)would add 2 trillion dollars per year to world Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and help create 140 million jobs—a lofty goal: today, only about 40 percent of the world’s population (3.2 billion)is connected. But reaping those benefits requires more than adding Internet connections: while digital technologies have been spreading, “digital dividends” have not. Getting traction will require a major reevaluation of Internet development and reform projects. That reevaluation is the focus of the World Bank’s World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends (WDR 16).It highlights the size of the digital divide and shows that a robust program of development in the supporting environment points the way for the development community to make decisive headway on the enormous promise of the Internet.
  • Publication
    ICT at COP21: Enormous Potential to Mitigate Emissions
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-12) Gallegos, Doyle; Narimatsu, Junko
    The transformational potential of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) was on display in Paris at the Twenty-First Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. ICTs, including the Internet, mobile phones, geographic information systems (GIS), satellite imaging, remote sensing, and data analytics, could reduce yearly global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) 20 percent by 2030, thus holding them at their 2015 level. Moreover, ICT emissions are expected to decrease to 1.97 percent of the global total by 2030, from 2.3 percent in 2020, while emission reductions attributable to ICT will be nearly 10 times greater than those of the ICT sector. ICTs are also critical for climate change adaptation, providing vital tools for all phases of the disaster risk management cycle. Although the opportunities for ICTs to support the climate change agenda are enormous, much work remains in order to realize them. Governments of developing countries must be further encouraged to include ICTs in their national climate change policies. And the international development community will have to make significant efforts, particularly in low-income countries, to develop ICT infrastructure as well as the institutional capacities and skills to implement and sustain these solutions.