CycleStreets: Past, present and future

CycleStreets:CycleStreets:past, present, futurepast, present, future

Cycle journey planning, for cyclists, by cyclists

What does CycleStreets do?

What does CycleStreets do?

Photomap / Cyclescape

Campaigning tool

CycleStreets: who?

Simon NuttallRoutemaster

Martin Lucas-Smith

Webmaster

… and various people helping out in various ways!

Journey planner: features Route choices:

fastest/quietest/balanced UK, and… Takes accounts of hills Turn-by-turn Photos-en-route CO2 saved, Calories Waypoints…

“why?”

simon, http://cycle.st/p3481

Why? “More people cycling, more safely,

more often” Challenges to getting more people

cycling Traffic, confidence, cultural issues

Routes – different to car routes! Poor infrastructure

Why we do it…

“It helped me find a quick route from my house to my new job. Very much appreciated, well done.”

“Needed route planning with very current Cambridge maps and just used the excellent http://cyclestreets.net for the first time (non-cyclist).”

history

martin, http://cycle.st/p33221

CycleStreets: history Cambridge Cycling Campaign journey

planner June 2006 5,000 lines drawn over Gmap sat 47,000 journeys planned 15,000 photos

CycleStreets: history Edinburgh CycleStreets Scottish Government’s Sustainable

Transport section grant via Chris Hill, Changing Pace

CycleStreets: history Lots of requests for same thing

around the UK OpenStreetMap: free, no barriers UK-wide: March 2009 Busy since then

Struggling to keep up! Millions of cycle journeys Tens of millions multimodal journey

API calls

“standing on our own two feet”

kbrumann, http://cycle.st/p10560

Social enterprise

Not a business for sake of being a business

Ltd company, not-for-profit Charity not appropriate structure

Picture: umi3.co.uk

Funding

Generally low-cost operation Big projects and embedded journey

planners Turnover: 8k, 37k, 121k, 21k 1.5 years worth of salary (over 4

years)

Picture: utilityweek.co.uk

“going mobile”

bblake, http://cycle.st/p16715

iPhoneapp

Androidapp

BB10app

HTML5app

WindowsPhone 8app

Third-party

Third-party API

Barclays Bikes

Bike Hub industry satnav

Citymapper London/NY

ViewRanger

etc.

Bike Hub

Citymapper(bike routes)

BarclaysBikes

Local Authorities

timbo, http://cycle.st/p37664

White-label sites – Local Authorities

cyclestreets.net/services

Cycling Scotland Website journey planner

http://cyclejourneyplanner.cyclingscotland.org/

Communitymappingguide

www.cyclestreets.net/getmapping/guide/

PleaseCycle

West Sussex cycle planner

Various others CTC Bike Week LCC Somerset County Council Bike Hub Cambridge Cycling Campaign Beactive (Royal Mail) Spogo … more

Transport Direct CJP

www.transportdirect.info/Web2/JourneyPlanning/FindCycleInput.aspx

£2.4 million (from tax)

92,000 journeys planned(dated Jan 2011, total now = ??)

£26.09 per journey

£1m – budget for 2011

32 areas (professionally surveyed)

CycleStreetswww.cyclestreets.net

£28k

458,000 journeys planned(dated Jan 2011, reached 3.4m as of now)

6p per journey

£130k needed

UK-wide (but depends on OSM completeness)

Back in January 2011...

Was main feature on data.gov.uk for months!

UKGovNow much more positive relationshipRealise value through open dataTheir data going into OSM

Want to make CycleStreetsthe solution of choicefor Local Authorities

England Cycling Data project

Transportconsultancies- SDG

Transport information providers- Traveline Cymru

Bike Hub leisure routing

Prahou na kole(Prague by bike)

Photomap-based sites

Photomap-based sites

POI-based stuff

Flexible platform Work done for ‘skinnable’ interfaces Re-use of components for other systems

“putting it together”

simon, http://cycle.st/p1221

How a routing engine works

• Find route with lowest score, i.e. least ‘friction’

• ‘Shortest path algorithm’ - Standard problem incomputer science, we use A* method

How it works (briefly)

How it works

Adjust for hills Surface quality Cycle lane widths Barriers, obstructions (even

dropped kerbs) Lighting Turn delays now in engine

How it works (briefly)

So each path/street now has a score

User comes to the site System finds lowest total score from

A to B Repeat for quietest/fastest/balanced

(different scores for each)

Network compression Cell optimisation ( ‘Cello’)

Makes routing faster

Park: 4 nodes & 7 edges

After: 3 nodes & 3 edges

89

9

A

BC

D

A

BC

4

10

6

3

BC = 6

AD,BD = 7

AC = 9

OpenStreetMap

CycleStreets data interrogation

Getting involved: open sourcing

Greater involvement Really, really are almost there now! Keeping it running priority Code from 2006-2013 Mobile apps, scripts,

Cyclescape done

github.com/cyclestreets

“challenges”

Warrington’s “Cycle Facility of the Month”, http://cycle.st/p11500

Competition Google OpenStreetMap-based UKGov

Uniqueness More than just a routing engine Needs a product / identity /

ecosystem Detailed knowledge of how cyclists

behave Cycling community embeddedness Flexible platform

Challenges

Modernising the interface Funding Codebase is large and ageing Moving from closed to open

project Competition: cycle planning

less niche Going global!

Cyclescape: campaigner toolkit

kbrumann, http://cycle.st/p14131

Helping campaigners get more people cycling, more often

Cycling offers many solutions to transport problems – efficient, cheap, healthy, no CO2.

UK (2% rate) vs Netherlands (30%)

CycleStreets Photomap

Fixing cycle-unfriendly streets

Needs local pressure through campaigning

Voluntary groups – lack of time, knowledge, etc.

Typical problems of campaigning

Lots of issues, hard to keep track of

E-mail lists broken technology: all/nothing, off-topic

No usable archive of discussions

Hard to match people with locations

Hard to prioritise when lots of issues

Poor categorisation

Typical problems of campaigning

Miss planning applications

Hard to get new people involved

Guidance and official rules hard to find

Data like collisions needed

Easy to miss deadlines

HIGH BARRIERTO INVOLVEMENT

Members watch areas

Subscribed when issues added

Discuss, in geographical context

Propose solutions

Cyclescape aims to tackle these

Members watch areas

Subscribed when issues added

Discuss, in geographical context

Propose solutions

Cyclescape aims to tackle these

www.cyclescape.org

Features designed for groups

Collision data www.cyclestreets.net/collisions

Planning applications

Planning applications

Site live, feature in place

Usability work and finishing-off

Anyone know where wecan get £15k ?

blog.cyclescape.org

Where are we now?

Martin Lucas-Smith,

www.CycleStreets.netTwitter: @cyclestreets

info@cyclestreets.net

David Earl