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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, 4 November, 2011 8:30 am

GeoVation Challenge winner, London Cycle Map Campaign, is calling for a single,unified and easy to use cycling map of London -  the cycling equivalent of the London Underground Map.

In this months magazine, Cycle Lifestyle have produced an artist’s impression to help visualise what the streets might look like if Simon Parker’s London Cycle Map is adopted. They suggest signs and road marking to direct cyclists around the network of routes.

This could make cycling from anywhere to anywhere in London as simple as following a few signs and a trail of coloured dots on the road – rather than remembering hundreds of turn-rights and turn-lefts. Download a copy of the Cycle Lifestyle magazine (Issue 6) (PDF) and take a look at pages pages 8 &9 to see for yourself.

If you think, like we do, that this is a great idea and would like to help make it a reality then sign the petition

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By viv, 19 October, 2011 8:00 am

Catch up with Mission:Explore with this update from Daniel Raven-Ellison:

12 days ago we released our new Mission:Explore website, since then we have watched as young and old(er) explorers have accepted, completed and then reported a wide range of missions. People have been photographing where the ‘wild’ is taking over from civilization, designing memorials and earning rewards for doing so. One explorer (Sir Spiffington) has already created his own website which includes a great animation and a funny film, all inspired by the new site.

Making the Mission:Explore website is a continual process. The funding that we won 5 months ago through GeoVation from Ideas in Transit and the Technology Strategy Board has allowed us to implement a number of significant features. These include:

• Partner accounts which let other organisations create their own challenges;
• Scoring and leaderboards, which will soon also include groups;
• An extras box on mission pages which includes QR codes that can be scanned for quick access to the relevant page along with a widget which can sit on other websites;
• Explorer profile pages so that users can keep track of started and completed missions, their points and keep an explorer log;
• A content management system for creating, risk checking, tagging, scoring and publishing missions;
• A split community with those not logged in and aged 12 or under not being able to see user generated content and missions which are rated for older users.

National Geographic Education are already using the site for their work in promoting geography awareness week.  I presented on Mission:Explore for teachers supporting National Geographic in Portland in August and you can see the videos from this here . Love Forest, OPAL, Priory School, the Geographical Association and many others are currently live on Mission:Explore or soon will be.

The core of the GeoVation work is to see how Mission:Explore can be used to increase the number of family leisure users on the National Cycle Network. Crucially, we want them to come back too. We are working with Sustrans not only to create the challenges but also to monitor user numbers in the field. An additional component is a the work we are doing within the project for the dairy company Arla. Arla want to bring a wide range of children Closer to Nature and we are bringing all of this together by using Mission:Explore and the National Cycle Network to draw young people out of sub-urban areas an into ‘nature spaces’. Our first trial will take place in Berkshire next month and we will be using our findings from this work to decide our following steps.

Last week we were lucky enough to be invited by the Technology Strategy Board to have a stand at Innovate ’11, the innovation networking event and exhibition. This is an example of the one of the unexpected benefits of working with GeoVation that has been a great help to our work. Innovate ’11 is was an awesome event and one that I would recommend you attend in the future if you are interested in cutting-edge innovation and creativity. At Innovate much of the interest in Mission:Explore was for rebranding it so that organisations or regions could have their own bespoke versions.

We are now at a stage where we are looking for GeoVators to GeoVate with us. We have a limited number of free accounts on Mission:Explore which can be used by charities and public sector organisations to create games, hunts, trails, learning activities and more. If you or someone you know would be interested in this offer they should email us at hello@missionexplore.net to find out more.

We will be blogging again next month with an update on our work to increase users of the National Cycle Network.

You can become an explorer on Mission:Explore for free by visiting www.missionexplore.net.

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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, 14 September, 2011 8:00 am

Have you heard about liftshare week?  It’s being organised by liftshare, one the winners of our ‘How can we improve transport in Britain?’ GeoVation Challenge. Find out more about it and also what’s happening with myPTP below:

The countdown is now on to liftshare Week 2011 (3^rd – 7^th October 2011). liftshare Week is the UK-wide event which aims to encourage more people to discover the benefits of car-sharing.  Awareness of car-sharing is at its height during liftshare week and more people than ever are registering to share their journeys, so there is no better time to give it a try.    This year we’re incentivising individuals to give car-sharing a try, by reminding them that drivers in the 1980’s will only have been paying 37 pence per litre for petrol!!  The only way you can get yourself such a great price on petrol these days is by splitting your petrol costs with other people.  Share your commute with just one other person, and you will be leaving your car at home 2 weeks out of every four – typically saving yourself about £800 a year.  A persuasive argument we hope you’ll agree!  Individuals can register for free at www.liftshare.com and why not tell your friends and family members too?  The more car-sharers we’ve got, the better chance everyone’s got of finding their ideal matches.

For Businesses and Communities who have their own car-share schemes, there is no better time to do some promotion and capitalise on the heightened awareness. We’re expecting more car-sharers to join in this year than ever before, so taking part will do wonders for your travel plan targets.   Organisations already working with liftshare should already be well under way with their preparation and lots of promotional materials have already been made available.  If  you don’t have your own car-share scheme you can take a look at http://www.liftshare.com/business/liftshareweek.asp#chap3 where you can downloads lots of freebies to get your staff car-sharing.  Alternatively visit www.liftshare.com/business or give us a call on 01953 451166 to find out how you can get involved.

In other news…… myPTP is also in full swing and our developers have been working hard.  We’ve been talking to lots of organisations to ensure we’ve got a spot-on understanding of what their Travel Survey requirements are, which has proved really useful in helping us to hone our ideas into an exciting new tool.  More on this to come…

Louise Boom

liftshare

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By viv, 13 September, 2011 8:00 am

Interest in the London Cycle Map Campaign, one of our GeoVation Challenge winners,  is growing;   Ben Irvine tells us more, below.   Have you signed the petition to support it yet?

I’m delighted to say that 1,000 people have now signed the London Cycle Map Campaign petition which is being run by Cycle Lifestyle magazine .

Fittingly, the 1,000th signature was accompanied by a comment which really says it all:
“Love this idea, great for tourists and locals.”

Public interest in the London Cycle Map Campaign is intensifying as the 2012 London Olympics approaches. With millions of visitors and hundreds of millions of viewers around the world rolling up for the ‘greenest Olympics ever’, the capital is calling out for a better system of cycle routes and mapping.

In step with this mood, political interest in the idea of unifying and improving London’s cycling infrastructure has been growing too. In 2010 Labour Baroness Oona King was championing the idea of a ‘Tube map’ for cyclists, and more recently Green Party mayoral candidate Jenny Jones has promised ‘a safe cycling network for the whole of London, not just blue paint and hire bikes in zone 1’.

The London Cycle Map Campaign is calling on politicians and cycling campaigners alike to ensure that the London Cycle Map idea becomes a stated electoral issue in the run up to both the 2012 mayoral elections and subsequent Olympics.

We believe Simon Parker’s ‘compass colour’ mapping system is genuinely groundbreaking and would offer an economy of navigation unparalleled by proposed or existing cycle networks anywhere in the world. His map is also – importantly – beautiful, iconic and inspiring, and would really send a statement to cyclists and non-cyclists in London and the world over.

Let’s make it happen. Here’s to the next 1,000 signatures…

Ben Irvine
Cycle Lifestyle Editor and London Cycle Map Campaign

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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.