As many of you know it by now, INRO has moved to new offices on August 1st. of this year. This represents, for us, another step forward in the development of the company, and it is an appropriate point in time to take stock of the increase in the EMME/2 related activities and inform you of the new directions in software development, user support, training and consulting endeavours.
Four years ago, say about the end of 1986, the number of EMME/2 installations amounted to 23. At that time, we knew most of the users personally and we were able to follow, in some detail, the applications that were carried out, even though the installations were spread almost equally between North America and Europe. INRO was still in its infancy, with the EMME/2 Support Center just established and the first issue of EMME/2 News not published yet. Looking back, those were exciting times when we were hard at work to get EMME/2 accepted by transportation planners who had heard of it but were not sure what the "new kid on the block" could do. Much has changed since then.
The current number of EMME/2 installations has increased by more than ten times. This is evidence of the quality and continuous enhancement of the package as well as the strong marketing effort carried out by EMME/2 distributors and agents. As is indicated in the figures given below, there are now more than 270 installations spread over 26 countries. While this is very gratifying, the success that we experienced changed our modus operandi. It is rather difficult to know all the users first hand and the Users' Group meetings provide us with the best opportunities to meet many users in person.
The evolution of the number of installations may be seen by looking at their distribution by which release of EMME/2 was first received. It is worthwhile to note that the number of installations which received Release 3.0 first is more than the total of those that received Release 1 and Release 2 first; also, the number of installations which received Release 4.0 first is more than those that received Release 3.0 first.
Figure 1: EMME/2 Installations by Release No.
It is also very interesting to look at the distribution of EMME/2 installations by type of operating system used. It comes as no surprise that the MS-DOS installations represent 83% of the total number of installations. Recently, we have noted an increase in the number of installations running under UNIX on SUN SPARC workstations even though the total number of computing platforms that use multiuser operating systems, indicated in the exploded part of the pie chart, has not yet reached 20% of the total.
Figure 2: EMME/2 Installations by Operating System
Finally, it is most revealing to look at the geographical distribution of the EMME/2 installations. While North America and Europe represent over 81% of the installed user base, it is interesting to note that the countries in the category "Other" include New Zealand (6), Australia (2), Korea (5), the People's Republic of China (4) and Israel (3). All these countries are relatively far from our support centers, yet they represent important new inroads for EMME/2.
Figure 3: Geographical Distribution of EMME/2 Installations
While the development, support and distribution of the EMME/2 package are still the main activities at INRO, we have initiated several new areas of activity which include training seminars, consulting activities and the development, support and distribution of the STAN software package.
In addition to the EMME/2 training sessions given in Madrid, Montreal and Sidney this year we intend to offer such seminars on a regular basis. INRO is also committed to specialized consulting services, that include technical assistance to consulting firms that carry out studies with EMME/2 and the offering of the POLYZONE service. We are also eager to respond to users who need assistance with novel applications of EMME/2. Last, but not least, INRO has engaged in the further development, distribution and support of the STAN (Strategic Transportation ANalysis) package which is an interactive graphic method for strategic planning of freight transportation at the national and regional level. STAN is already in use in England, the U.S.A., Sweden, Finland, Brazil and Canada.
In summary, the last four years were crucial to the successful development of INRO. We look forward to the next few years of work, which we hope will be a period of further growth and consolidation of the achievements to date.