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By viv, 27 March, 2013 8:00 am

Development funding from GeoVation enables innovative ideas to get started.  We’ve published case studies in which GeoVation winners, like liftshare, explain what happened after they won funding and how they developed their innovative idea.

liftshare were one of the winning ideas awarded funding in our ‘How can we improve transport in Britain?’ GeoVation Challenge with their idea for a tool to create individual personal travel plans.

A personal travel plan in itself is not a new idea. However, being able to create a plan with all an individual’s options in one document, with a search time of under 30 seconds, is the innovative idea that was put forward by liftshare.  liftshare is a social enterprise, which describes itself as mission-driven rather than profit-driven’ and whose aim is to encourage sustainable transport options and cut carbon emissions by car-sharing. It wants to get people to think about their travel options, but understand that this isn’t always easy, especially for those new to an area or working parents. myPTP’s are individual personal travel plans produced in a single document, which allow individuals to evaluate their transport options while considering CO2, financial and other implications such as calories burnt. This can be used to improve the commute to work and create a modal shift towards more sustainable travel options.

Continue reading 'An innovative idea to see your transport options'»

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By chris, 18 February, 2013 8:00 am

With the current focus on the integrity, resilience and sustainability of complex food supply chains – the journey food takes from farm to fork – this post looks at how three GeoVation winners and two GeoVation suppliers are challenging the status quo using geography and geographical information.

GeoVation “How can Britain feed itself?” challenge winner Foodnation : The People’s Digital Co-op has a mission to have neighbourhood Foodnation hubs within bicycle-riding distance of most UK households. It provides an on-line platform to connect customers and farmers in their local area, easily enabling them to buy and sell local organic food and find fruit and veg-box delivery schemes around the UK. This is supported by the Foodnation app launched in May 2012. Working with the Transition town network to pilot the scheme, Foodnation founder Louise Campbell sees the model for the Foodnation Co-operative as being fully scalable in transition towns across UK.

Continue reading 'Geography and Supply Chain Integrity'»

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By Luke, 5 November, 2012 8:00 am

If you’re in London this Wednesday 7 November, why not join us for an evening of presentations, networking and discussions – with a focus on “The Future of Location Data”?

Where is location data going? How will it impact your work? Where are the opportunities? These questions and more will be explored during our latest Innovation event that we’re hosting at the Google Campus, London. With only a few tickets remaining, it’s sure to be a thought inspiring session, so if you’re interested in coming along, click here to register for your FREE ticket.

The evening will build on two events that we brought to you earlier in the year – ‘Location – Everything happens somewhere’ and the ‘OS OpenData Masterclass’. Once again, there will be an opportunity for innovators, entrepreneurs, developers – indeed anyone that has an interest location data – to meet-up and learn more about the vast wealth of location-based resources, including mapping datasets that are freely available to order from Ordnance Survey, through the OS OpenData portal.

Continue reading 'The Future of Location Data – where are we heading?'»

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By Luke, 4 October, 2012 8:00 am

Last Monday 24 September,  GeoVation – hosted “Collaboration and User Innovation in Transport” at the Royal Society of Arts, London.

Whilst this was a GeoVation event with a different flavour, in so much that funding wasn’t up for grabs on this occasion; the open and collaborative ethos that typifies GeoVation was very much utilised throughout the day. Peter ter Haar, Director of Products at Ordnance Survey kicked off proceedings with a welcome and introduction.

Peter ter Haar’s welcome and introduction

This was followed by a number of thought-provoking presentations, videos, posters and discussions compered by Richard Kemp-Harper of the Technology Strategy Board.

Continue reading 'Collaboration and User Innovation in Transport – presentations now available'»

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By viv, 20 September, 2012 8:00 am

On Tuesday we posted a list of the great speakers lined up for our Collaboration and User Innovation in Transport event at the RSA in London on 24 September.

Today we can show you the Agenda. Find out whose on when and what they’ll be speaking about.

If you would like to attend there are still a few free tickets available so don’t miss out on this opportunity to listen to these great speakers and share your ideas on the future of transport. Register now.

http://geovationcollaboration2012.eventbrite.co.uk

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By viv, 18 September, 2012 8:00 am

We have an exciting line up of presenters at our free Collaboration and User Innovation in Transport Event at the RSA in London on 24 September. Find out more about them below:

Peter ter Haar, Director, Products, Ordnance Survey.  Peter will be introducing the day. He is responsible for all aspects of product management at Ordnance Survey including product marketing, engineering and supply. He joined Ordnance Survey in November 2006, with more than 18 years’ experience in product management and business development in both the public and private sectors in GIS, location-based services and mobile technology. His previous roles include the head of GIS at the City of Amsterdam, and senior product and technical management roles in Geodan, Autodesk Europe and Intergraph Europe.

Richard Kemp-Harper, Technology Lead, Transport and Energy, Technology Strategy Board.  Richard will be navigating us through the day’s programme via a series of lively and interactive discussions. Richard has responsibility for managing a portfolio of innovative projects in the transport and energy generation and supply, and for planning potential future funding in these areas. Prior to joining the Technology Strategy Board, Richard worked for the Intelligent Transport Systems Knowledge Transfer Network, focusing on the themes of technologies for logistics and transport incident management. Richard has a background in academic research in chemistry, biochemistry and medical imaging and 6 years in web development and information management for Oxfam.

Speakers at the event include:

Glenn Lyons Associate Dean and Professor of Transport and Society at the Centre for Transport & Society CTS), University of the West of England.  Glenn’s research has focused upon the role of new technologies in supporting and influencing travel behaviour and on attitudes towards transport. A former secondee and expert advisor to the Department for Transport’s Transport Direct initiative, Glenn has led major studies for the DfT and UK research councils into traveller information systems, teleworking, virtual mobility, travel time use, user innovation, road pricing and public and business attitudes to transport. Glenn has overall responsibility for the Ideas in Transit project.

Continue reading 'Exciting speakers at our Innovation in Transport event'»

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By Luke, 4 September, 2012 9:00 am

We are pleased to announce our next event – “Collaboration and User Innovation in Transport”  – which will take place at the Royal Society of Arts, in London on 24 September 2012. Brought to you by GeoVation and supported by Ordnance Survey, the Ideas in Transit project, Department for Transport, Technology Strategy Board and SBRI.

With rapid developments in social media technology, smartphone apps, open data, and volunteered geographic information, in a context of doing more with less and doing that sustainably, ‘Collaboration and User Innovation in Transport’ considers: Continue reading 'GeoVation – Collaboration and User Innovation in Transport'»

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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