Worldwide Consulting
Case Study:
The INRO Way
By Michael Florian
INRO Consultants is a Canadian company which develops, distributes and supports software used for national, regional and urban transportation planning. INRO boasts more than 750 users in 64 different countries, including North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. INRO's two main products are EMME/2 (for the transportation of persons) and STAN (for freight transportation).
Several factors lead to a successful implementation of a transportation-planning model in developed or developing countries. This essay will focus on the two factors that I consider most important: the quality of the product and its delivery in different markets by using local agents and distributors.
The development of models used for transportation planning requires a quantification of the way that travelers choose the starting time, mode and route for their trips to the chosen destination. The models, therefore, must be able to distinguish between the behavior of travelers in different parts of the world and the software package must be sufficiently flexible to adapt to these behavioral differences. The bicycle traffic in Shanghai is very different than the car traffic in Los Angeles. Yet, the same software package may be adapted to represent properly the transportation patterns in these cities. Without this flexibility, it would be practically impossible to accomplish the modeling required in different parts of the world.
INRO markets its software products, EMME/2 and STAN, by establishing working agreements with consulting firms in various world regions. The local companies are aware of the prevailing issues, the business practices and the appropriate level of contact in the organizations that would be potential clients for these software packages. The agents and distributors are entitled to software packages training and to the technical support in the construction of the particular models used for transportation planning. This permits the best utilization of resources from INRO's and from the local company's point of view. In fact, INRO supports the local company and rarely has direct contact with the recipient of the transportation-planning model.
There are, of course, many other important factors in the success of such work. The stability of the local currency as well as of the local governmental organizations is crucial to the conclusion of the financial aspects of the work. The training of local personnel and the continuity in the provision of local skilled partners is just as important. However, the two factors outlined above are the most important: the quality of the product and local collaboration.
Michael Florian is a professor at the Center for Research on Transportation of the University of Montreal where he initially developed EMME/2 with Heinz Spiess. He is also a co-founder of INRO Consultants.
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