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By viv, 26 January, 2012 8:00 am

In September 2011, GeoVation challenge winner’s liftshare began development of ‘myPTP- A Travel Plan Just for Me’; an innovative web-based tool, designed to provide personalised travel plans to individuals at a fraction of the current time and cost.

liftshare’s myPTP Project Manager, Katie Lumley, gives us a most up-to-date progress report on how the tool has been shaping up over the last 5 months:

Since September 2011, the liftshare project team have been working hard to develop and refine one of our most exciting projects – myPTP – funded through GeoVation and the Ideas in Transit project.  myPTP will uniquely combine public transport, walking, cycling, and car-share options for individual journeys, and have the potential to help any organisation or community effectively deliver personalised travel plans (PTPs) at a fraction of the current time and cost associated with traditional approaches.

myPTP encourages and enables users to make informed choices about the way they travel.

Development began with design, before working to build, test, and refine the new and innovative web-based tool. During November, our biggest hurdle; accessing data for all modes of transport (walk, cycle, car-share, bus and train) across the UK, was overcome, and work to integrate data for all transport options then began in December.

Users will input individual’s journey information and in return will receive clear information on all transport options available to them, including maps, local provision options such as community transport, and any incentives the organisation has put in place to change their travel behaviour e.g. a week’s free bus pass. Ongoing communication is then possible to monitor modal shift and follow up changes in provision etc. Below is a sneak-preview of the online myPTP results:

Over 38 organisations have already expressed interest in using myPTP to deliver PTPs to individuals, and of those three organisations have been chosen to pilot the tool this February. These initial tests will be carried out in collaboration with researchers from the University of West of England, through the Ideas in Transit project, and will help us to evaluate the usefulness and usability of myPTP from an end-user point of view (that’s me and you!), as well as assess its impact ongoing on travel behaviours. We are looking forward to hearing feedback from the test pilots so we can keep innovating and refining myPTP to ensure it is useful and effective for all.

We are very excited with the progress of myPTP so far; both internal development of the tool itself, as well as its seeming ability to appeal and meet individuals, organisations, and transport operator needs. If you would like to:

• Help individuals make informed smarter choices about their mode of travel, as well as improve accessibility.
• Better understand transport patterns of your organisation, to increase efficiency and save time and cost.
• Help Local Authorities determine shortfalls in provision and help local transport operators determine what services will best satisfy demand.
• Have on-going communication with individuals about their travel options to achieve real modal shift, and to relay any possible changes in provision.

myPTP could be your solution. For more information please feel free to contact me, Katie Lumley, on: (01953) 451166 or katie@liftshare.com.

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By viv, 19 January, 2012 8:00 am

If you’re wondering how our GeoVation Challenge winner, AccessAdvsr is getting on with development, then find out more below in an update from Neil Taylor:

Since our last blog we have been working closely with our software developers, Realistic Digital, to create and refine the AccessAdvisr website on the basis of the specification we drew up in the autumn.  As total newbies to the field of web-app development this has been a great experience for our team, and we have been learning a massive amount about the process (and pitfalls!) of working to create an innovative web-based project.

The great news is that we now know our webservices from our browser optimisation, and are almost ready to start proof-of-concept testing with real live people here in Nottingham.  This is also excellent news for our colleagues at ITP, who will soon be able to speak to us about the weather, sports, current affairs and other projects without fearing they may get drawn into a debate about ‘Where the search bar should go’, or ‘Should the favourites button be bigger’ (I still say it should…).

We are also looking forward to collaborating with colleagues at Loughborough University’s Design School through the Ideas in Transit project.  They have been helping us to draw up an evaluation plan that is rooted in various innovation and end-user behaviour theories to give us the lowdown on what people actually think about the concept, the site itself, and the way they use it.  This iterative process will be the first acid test for the site, and will no doubt pose us as many questions as answers.  Nonetheless we are really looking forward to hearing people’s thoughts and views.

Here is an ‘in-development’ screenshot for a sneak preview of how the site is shaping up:

If you want to learn more about AccessAdvisr, then please contact me, Neil Taylor at ITP on 0115 9886903, or email: taylor@itpworld.net.  Access Advisr is also now on Facebook, so you can ‘like’ us to keep up with all the latest project developments.

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By viv, 12 January, 2012 8:00 am

Since its launch at the end of August last year FixMyTransport, a site to report public transport issues,  developed by GeoVation Challenge winner, mySociety has grown considerably.  Myf Nixon from mySociety tells us more below:

It’s now  just over four months since FixMyTransport launched. It’s great to see so many people turn to us when problems arise with public transport – and that more and more users are reporting on-the-go. That is, of course, thanks to the mobile version of the site, which is GeoVation-funded.

Since launch, we’ve sent over 1,700 problems to transport operators, and our community of users has grown to over 3,000.
In the site’s early days, just 15% of visitors came via mobile. Since then, we’ve made a number of enhancements for those visiting via handheld devices:

• We’ve introduced geolocation, which means that the site can automatically pinpoint where you are – very useful for those travelling in unfamiliar places, and also a boon for those who don’t want to type too much on tiny mobile keyboards
• The same technology means that we can also invite users to see ‘issues near you’. This helps people engage with transport problems local to their own area. It’s also had an unexpected, but positive, effect: old problems get revived as people rediscover them. There’s now much less chance of a campaign fading away, forgotten.
• Maps are more user-friendly on mobile browsers now, and are scrollable just as they are on the desktop version.

Meanwhile, we have encouraged visits from commuters by putting out most of our social media messages during the rush hour: scrolling through Twitter and Facebook seems to be a very popular way to pass the time on packed trains.

As a result of all this, mobile activity now represents almost a quarter of all visits – 24%.

We’re continuing to work on the site as a whole in several small ways, as well.

Most significantly, there is now a new step in the reporting process. Before submitting a report, users are alerted to other campaigns on the same route or at the same stop. We hope this will cut down on duplicate reports and help consolidate existing campaigns.

For the new year, our most important new challenge is to refresh our data more frequently. Up until now, we’ve been relying on the public NaPTAN and NPTDR datasets to generate the 30,000+ routes and stops on FixMyTransport.

Routes change, and services change hands; some are even cancelled, especially in the climate of council budgetary cuts. Our helpful users are great at contacting us to let us know when our information is out-of-date, but checking and correcting this data takes a significant amount of our time.

The good news is that we now have access to much more frequently-refreshed data, and we’re working right now to integrate it. The result should be a more accurate FixMyTransport, and a happier support team.

Also in the pipeline are operator-specific pages which will allow for the browsing of every problem reported to each transport provider. There are plans for a blog so that we can discuss transport issues with what is becoming a vibrant and very engaged community. Meanwhile, we’re expecting mobile user visits to rise and rise – we’ll be watching that particular metric with interest.

Myf Nixon

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By viv, 14 December, 2011 8:30 am

Cyclescape is a comprehensive online campaigning toolkit to assist cycle campaign groups around the UK which is being created by GeoVation Challenge winner, CycleStreets.

Cyclescape will enable members of the public and campaigners to pinpoint where cycling is difficult, prioritise what to work on, make geographical data such as collision data and accessibility easily available, and automatically notify and involve the cyclists in the area who have an interest in seeing issues fixed.

They are just moving into beta phase now, with testing of a closed early beta started by members of one of their stakeholder groups and their designers working on the overall design and page templates.  You can follow their progress and see design screenshots on their website.

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By chris, 2 November, 2011 8:30 am

Image: Leanne Gamble lgamble@mjrsolutions.co.uk

MJR Solutions who participated in a seminar on OS OpenData and our GeoVation showcase, are pursuing the “How can we improve transport in Britain?” challenge objective. In particular, they are keen to find out about ease of use and ease of access issues for tourists and others using public transport in Wales.

This is an activity close to GeoVation’s heart. In attending an event in Rhayader back in March, we were determined to travel there, through some beautiful countryside, by public transport. However a delayed connection at Newport when travelling from Bristol meant the journey couldn’t be completed by public transport until the next day…..so we really appreciate the issue they are trying to address.

MJR are running a GreenerWales survey with the objective of finding out what will encourage you to explore all that Wales has to offer without the need to use your car. So whether you have visited Wales, would like to visit Wales or live in Wales the survey is targeted at you, your experiences and ideas. It’s an online survey designed to draw out participants’ experiences and views of Wales, public transport and mobile phones and takes less than 10 minutes to complete. And you get the chance of winning an iPad too!

http://www.greenerwales.mobi/survey-english.html

Don’t forget; complete the survey by 11:59 on 13 November for a chance to win an iPad.

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By viv, 20 September, 2011 8:00 am

Since the last update, GeoVation Challenge winners,  mySociety, have launched FixMyTransport a site for public transport users to report problems and they are already having loads of visits and issues reported.  Myf Nixon, from mySociety, explains:

Last time we updated, FixMyTransport had launched, quietly and unobtrusively: we didn’t want to make a song and dance about it until we were certain that it was running smoothly.

On August 30th, we announced our presence to the world: mentions in national and international newspapers, on the radio, in specialist press and across the blogosphere soon meant that word spread: on that day, we had over 10,000 visitors (and were very relieved to see that our server load testing had paid off).

Since then, we’ve been really pleased at how the site has been taken up: over 700 issues have been reported; knowledgeable users are weighing in with good advice for others; and we’re beginning to forge relationships with some of the transport operators who have been quick to see FixMyTransport’s potential for their customer relations departments.

This week we saw the first of our campaigns to gather over 100 supporters. It’s been interesting to watch patterns emerge, too: the issues that seem to most concern our users to date are access (to stations for those with limited mobility or children in tow); fare prices; over-crowding and delays.

But there have been maverick reports too: one person requesting fewer seats on commuter trains (much outnumbered by reports that ask for more seats, it has to be said) and another wondering whether a slide might ease passenger congestion at Canada Water.

From the developer perspective, it’s been an intensive period of bug fixes, functionality enhancements, and user support. We’re logging of all the many suggestions that come to us via the ‘feedback’ button; our users seem particularly clued up on how they’d like the site to work better for them, which is great.

It’s been really gratifying to find that the vast majority of the feedback is warm and welcoming, even when the user has experienced a problem – in fact, FixMyTransport is already starting to feel like a community. There have been quite a few enquiries from people in other countries wondering if they can replicate the site – our answer is of course, yes; as with all mySociety projects, FixMyTransport is built on open source code and we are delighted to see others use it and contribute their own improvements or variations.

GeoVation funding was specifically for the mobile version of FixMyTransport, always a priority for a site that’s about travel. It was clear that for launch, even though an app would not be ready at that stage, we would need modified version of the website to support mobile user, and we put a lot of effort into making the mobile experience as good as possible.

We’re now seeing this as a preferred route to our finished mobile product: this approach removes the extra step for the user of actually downloading anything- it should be quick and easy just to visit the site on a browser. It also allows us to target multiple devices, and means that as features are introduced to the main site, they are also immediately accessible on mobile.

During the last month, we have been working on features specifically to help mobile users: integrating geolocation, and finding faster ways for users to report the most common problems on phones without too many keystrokes.

Although there are still many improvements on our list, FixMyTransport now works well on the phone models our visitors most frequently use, and we’re working on extending support and adding features that will make reporting issues from a mobile quick and easy. We’re getting there!

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By viv, 16 September, 2011 8:00 am

Back in June we told you how GeoVation Challenge winner, AccessAdvisr, were putting the foundations in place to enable delivery of a proof of concept product.  Below, Neil Taylor tells us more about what they’ve been doing since.

Since the last AccessAdvisr blog we have been busily rounding up data sources for our proof of concept trial in Nottingham.  Every data holder we have engaged with so far has been overwhelmingly positive and forthcoming in their support for AccessAdvisr, which has been fantastic.  It is clear there is a genuine desire to see this concept work, and for our part we are itching to get our beta version up and running in Nottingham so that we can start the process of establishing and engaging with a local user community.

Having gathered up most of the data sources and web-services we need to populate our accessible map base, the next step was to track down a software developer.  We spoke to a few local firms, but are delighted to welcome Realistic Digital on board.  Based in Leicester they are just down the road from our base in Nottingham, which has already enabled us to hit the ground running.  At the time of writing we are in the midst of finalising the specification for the proof of concept version of AccessAdvisr, having kicked things off with an intensive design workshop at the beginning of September.  The software build and web-design activities are pencilled in for the next month, so if all goes well we should conducting our first round of user testing in late autumn/early winter.

If you can’t wait and want to learn more about AccessAdvisr, then please contact Neil Taylor at ITP on 0115 9886903, or email: taylor@itpworld.net.  AccessAdvisr is also now on Facebook, so you can ‘like’ us in order to follow all of the latest project developments.

Neil Taylor

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By viv, 22 August, 2011 8:00 am

In May, CycleStreets won £27 000 in the ‘How can we improve transport in Britain?’ GeoVation Challenge which was funded by Ideas in Transit and Ordnance Survey.

The funding is to help them build a new toolkit for groups across the country to campaign for better cycling facilities.  Now they’re looking for a name for it!

They want the name to reflect the theme of a central place where UK cycle users can submit problems they encounter on the streets.

Can you help suggest a catchy name? To find out more about what they’re looking for and ideas they’ve had so far visit their blog.

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By viv, 19 August, 2011 8:00 am

Mission:Explore, one of our GeoVation Challenge winners, have been busy planning missions to encourage children and families to use the National Cycle Network and lots of other exciting stuff too.  Below, Daniel from Mission:Explore tells us more about it.

Things are moving along quickly here at Mission:Explore and we are very excited about the coming year. Winning the support of GeoVation, Ideas in Transit and the University of West England means a brand new Mission:Explore website with lots of beautiful and new functionality.

We won GeoVation funding to improve transport in Britain and specifically the National Cycle Network. Working closely with Sustrans and Arla we are creating challenges and activities that we call ‘missions’ along parts of the cycle network. When people discover these missions (online or through stickers in the landscape) they will be able to win points and earn badges. We will be experimenting to see how this kind of ‘gamification’ can create new uses and users of this important piece of infrastructure. We are very pleased to have Charles Musselwhite, a social psychologist from the University of West England, researching our work and helping us to make this project a success.

Unlike the current Mission:Explore, on the new platform users will have accounts, explorer blogs, leader boards and many other enhanced features.
Mission:Explore will be relaunched as www.MissionExplore.Net this September. We are delighted that National Geographic Education are using the platform to encourage another kind of behaviour change. The US based organisation are using MissionExplore.Net as their central campaigning tool for Geography Awareness Week . The site will be launching with 20 missions (take a look here ) which encourage children, teachers and families to explore their local communities and earn online Mapping, Storytelling, Photography and Take Action! badges. Taking place in November Geography Awareness Week aims to draw attention to the importance of ’geo-literacy, ensuring that people make well reasoned decisions about our nation’s economic competitiveness, national security, environmental sustainability, and the livability of our communities in the 21st century’. We are recently back from the National Conference for Geographic Education in Portland (Oregon) where we trained Geography Awareness Week coordinators in making the best use of Mission:Explore.

Moving forward we will be announcing a new pricing plan in which third sector organisations can create and manage their own ‘channel’ and missions on MissionExplore.Net from just £25 for 1 mission. They can also purchase a ‘white label’ version of the platform for their own use. Any charity or public sector organisation that places an order before the launch of MissionExplore.Net in September will enjoy a 15% discount on any selected plan.

For further details contact Daniel at daniel@thegeographycollective.co.uk.