CycleStreets blog

Today, we're very pleased to announce the beta mobile web version of CycleStreets – written by me, project-managed by Martin, and funded by Cycling Scotland.

http://m.cyclestreets.net/

Built in jQuery Mobile and HTML5, this extends CycleStreets' mobile support beyond our well-received Android and iPhone apps to cover other platforms, including iPad and BlackBerry.

Just like the other apps, you can plan cycling routes while out and about, upload photographs you take along the way, and find photos others have uploaded nearby.

Features

The mobile HTML version has an experimental change from the native and desktop CycleStreets. Instead of tapping the map to add a draggable marker, we use fixed crosshairs in the middle of the screen. We hope this makes route planning a little easier, by reducing the possibility of accidental clicks.

Once you have a route planned, it's easy to compare the different journey types that CycleStreets offers – fastest, quietest, or balanced – and see individual turns.

In a somewhat alpha feature (as HTML5 doesn't yet offer brilliant phonecam integration), you can also upload photos you've previously taken of cycling problems nearby. And you can see photos that others have added to CycleStreets.

We automatically save your routes for future reference, and your preferences for cycling speed, route type, and preferred map type – OpenStreetMap, OpenCycleMap, or Ordnance Survey.

Technical notes

For me as a coder, this was pretty much a dream project: a meaningful application, a cutting-edge platform, and a supportive project lead, in the form of Martin, to manage it all.

My goal for the mobile HTML app was to create something easy to use and as accessible as possible – while being realistic about the fact that CycleStreets routing, with its maps and polylines, is inevitably going to work best on a smartphone as a native app.

To that end, technical readers may be interested in the following notes:

• jQuery Mobile: As we were using jQuery anyway, I chose jQuery Mobile for its lovely look and feel, its clever Ajax page transitions, and its sensible graded browser support – plus a general good feeling about the project. Now in beta, it's perhaps a little slow (they're working on it), but definitely a project to watch.
• HTML5: We use geolocation (ahem) plus localStorage to save user details – though the app should still function if neither are available. There's clearly also scope for offline route storage, which we hope to add in v1.1.
• Responsive design: This would obviously have been nice (for an example, visit FixMyTransport in a desktop browser, and then resize it so it's really small). However, it would also have required changes to the CycleStreets desktop CSS beyond the scope of this project – though I believe it's still in the longer-term CycleStreets world domination plan.
• Browser testing: Technically, the most challenging part of the project was not coding, but finding the emulators and real devices to test on. We've tested in Android, mobile Safari, iPad, and BlackBerry (led by the UK browser stats), plus Opera Mobile and Fennec on Android, but we want to hear more from Nokia and WinPhone7 users.

Help us improve!

This is still very much a beta. However, mobile HTML is a long-term play for CycleStreets, so we expect to add lots of improvements in the coming months and years.

You can help us by trying out the app on your mobile device, and reporting feedback on GitHub issues list. If you're a coder, free to fork the repo (GPLv2) and make improvements.

Happy cycling, and let us know your thoughts on the app.

Thanks to Cycling Scotland!

We'd like to thank Cycling Scotland for a grant to enable this project to come to fruition.

We’re pleased to announce that our bid, for a comprehensive online campaigning toolkit to assist cycle campaign groups around the UK, is a winner in the GeoVation contest!

It brings £27,000 for the development of a toolkit which, in the words of one supporter, should be “a hugely important step forward for all cycle campaigning groups”.

Our bid was one of 155 ideas submitted to the GeoVation challenge, on the theme of “How can we improve transport in Britain?”. Our bid was shortlisted, and we attended the GeoVation Camp in March to help develop the proposal amongst a total of 30 ideas invited. We were one of the final ten proposals, and took part in a Dragon’s Den -style pitch on Wednesday.

We were delighted to be picked as one of the winners who share the £150k pot of funding.

   

Photos by Ordnance Survey, licenced CC BY-NC 2.0

Martin Lucas-Smith, who presented the bid alongside CycleStreets’ routemaster, Simon Nuttall, said:

“We were delighted to be picked by the Ordnance Survey’s judges as one of the winners. The £27,000 of funding will enable us to get this much-needed project off the ground.

“As a member of one of the many local cycle campaign groups who will benefit, I’m all too aware of the large number of issues on the street network that need improvement, and the difficulty of managing this deluge of problems.

“The new system will help campaigners around the country convert these problem reports into prioritised, well-evidenced solution proposals. It should help them work more productively with local councils to see changes implemented.”

We’d like to thank all the groups who provided quotes of support for our bid, including the CTC, Cyclenation, London Cycling Campaign, and a variety of groups around the country. We’re working to provide you with a really great, useful and user-friendly system that will save a lot of time and effort.

Some of the things the new system will be able to do are:

• Enable members of the public and campaigners easily to pinpoint where cycling is difficult
• Help groups prioritise what to work on
• Pull in planning application data automatically, so that potential issues needing attention are readily accessible
• Automatically notify and involve people who cycle through an area – who therefore have an interest in seeing issues fixed
• Make geographical data such as collision data and accessibility analysis easily available, to provide context
• Enable simpler and more focussed discussion based on specific issues, groups of issues, or themes
• Enable best practice to be ‘pulled-in’ to discussions, by providing off-the-shelf examples shared from elsewhere in the UK
• Enable groups to include LA contacts in these discussions if they wish
• Enable groups to assemble ‘solution’ resources so that problems can be resolved on the ground
• Give groups a variety of ways of publishing their activity on their website easily.