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We've got some great new promotional flyers done! They're in a z-fold format.
To order some, just use the order form.
Thanks to Ayesha Garrett who has, yet again, done some great design work for us and who is a real pleasure to work with. Thanks also to Frederik Ramm, whose great OSM leaflets provided inspiration for the format, and Shaun for the idea.
A techy post reporting on some work in progress, and seeking suggestions! …
A while back we introduced various new URL formats like:
http://www.cyclestreets.net/journey/to/SW1A+2AA/
which would allow someone at that postcode to put a link 'cycle here' on their website.
This is designed so that the user needing to plan a journey would just follow the link, type in where they want to start from, and click 'Plan'.
We've been working on some more formats lately (well, actually, last night until 3am!). This is a quick 'work-in-progress' post, and we'd welcome any ideas.
You can enter /to/ or /from/, can enter postcodes, lat/lon and can add an optional label at the end. Examples:
Postcode:
Both – London to Cambridge:
Lat,lon, with or without a zoom level:
With a customised label added:
There are also the area homepages, which can be combined with the above:
Very experimental, and not yet working well: including the NameCapitalised in the URL, e.g.
What other formats could be useful?
Once we've finalised them, we'll turn them into a nice interface like the Link page has.
Definitely stop reading now if you're not a techy :)
The regexp for these is not very nice! /journey/<from>/<to>/ is done using:
^/journey/((?:[A-Z]{1}[^/]+)|(?:[a-zA-Z]{1}[^/]+)|(?:(?:-?[0-9][0-9]?\.?[0-9]{0,7}),(?:-?[0-9][0-9]?\.?[0-9]{0,8})(?:,(?:7|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16))?))/((?:[A-Z]{1}[^/]+)|(?:[a-zA-Z]{1}[^/]+)|(?:(?:-?[0-9][0-9]?\.?[0-9]{0,7}),(?:-?[0-9][0-9]?\.?[0-9]{0,8})(?:,(?:7|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16))?))/$
Today is our second birthday – CycleStreets was launched on 20th March 2009.
The last year has seen a huge amount of development work, leading to new features, speed improvements, and more. However, the next six months will be even busier as the project really ramps up!
In the first year, CycleStreets planned 67,000 routes. In our second year, around 437,000 routes have been planned, and the rate of increase continues to climb. By November we had planned enough routes to cycle to the moon ten times, and in February, we reached the milestone of half a million journeys planned.
A major challenge we faced a year ago was the technical challenge of generating the routes fast enough.
A year ago, CycleStreets used a routing engine written in PHP (!) that we created for the Cambridge-only predecessor of CycleStreets – the Cambridge Cycling Campaign journey planner. It was slow, taking half a minute to plan a route across London, and taking up most of the system resources. Effectively, it was the wrong technology and didn't scale to UK-wide routing.
We held our first Developer Day, which lead to very productive discussions about the routing engine and how we could provide routes to users of the site faster. A friend of the project, George, wrote us a new engine (using Python) which lead to a massive speed-up. Then Robin, another volunteer, took the Python engine and created an even faster version in C++. This has been in place for most of the year and has quietly sat at the heart of the system, planning routes in a few GB of RAM while barely challenging the processor.
The work on the routing engine meant that we have been able continually to increase the maximum planning distance, which is now 200 miles (320km), which is well above a day's cycling! The development version of the system can even now do Dover to Cape Wrath!
Improving the routing speed was a key requirement for mobile apps, several of which signed up to use our routing through the year. These include the leading app for the London cycle hire scheme – London Cycle: Maps & Routes, plus two other excellent 'boris-bike' apps, the briliant and world-first 3D bike satnav app, Bike Hub, BikeRoute for Android and, of course, our own CycleStreets for iPhone app.
Our own iPhone app was made possible thanks to two grants we successfully applied for.
Our Android app is nearing completion, and like the iPhone app is being developed as an open source project. Thanks to our mobile developers for their brilliant work on these.
Through the year we have given various presentations and got involved with various social enterprise -related activities., such as WhereCamp EU, CamTechNet, Cambridge Geek Night and Net2Camb amongst others. These events lead to interesting discussions and also resulted in useful new contacts, such as people helping out with our mobile apps.
It was a particular plesure to give a presentation to Net2Camb as it gave us the opportunity to speak about the challenges faced by us as a not-for-profit social enterprise, rather than purely talking about technical challenges.
We have launched a funding drive for £130k to raise funds for two full-time developers. Such funds would enable the project to move forward much more quickly.
The DfT has this year been collecting cycling data which we are keen to see added to OpenStreetMap. We have since had informal discussions with Cycling England about use of the data, and how conversion of the data might be undertaken and at what cost. Discussions have been positive, and we feel this data would improve the quality of routes that we can deliver to users.
Over the year, more and more governmental bodies have been linking to us. For instance, in April, Cycling Scotland linked to us, and we are keen to work with them to help motivate people to improve OpenStreetMap data in Scotland. Others, including some of the Cycling Demonstration Towns like Chester and Lancaster now link to CycleStreets, and we have just sent a new brochure to councils around England.
Increasing the flexibility of the CycleStreets platform has been an ongoing priority.
In February we created a customised cycle journey planner for West Sussex County Council, building on work we have done to make it easier for organisations to have a journey planner within their website. Another has been created for the Bike Hub website, and a demo Local Authorities site is available.
The year has also seen a few developments on the Photomap. This is an area we would like to do much more on, as explained in our GeoVation bid for which we have now been shortlisted.
We created, under contract for Cambridgeshire County Council, a site called 'Cycling Sorted' to help manage the shortage of cycle parking in that area. We are keen to create similar sites for other Local Authorities. We have also created a similar system to support the great work of London Cycling Campaign.
OpenStreetMap is the backbone of our project, and we have been pleased to promote OSM and encourage more mapping for it. Over the summer we helped obtain a database of all the bike shops in the UK, for use in OSM, from the Association of Cycle Traders. Much of this has been merged into OSM, but more needs to be done to complete this crowd-sourcing exercise.
CycleStreets' use of open data saw it being featured on the front page of the government's new data website – data.gov.uk.
Throughout the year, we implemented many smaller improvements and innovative new ideas, such as the new cycle.st shortlink domain, our new Photo of the Day on Twitter (featuring the best of the 25,000+ pictures in the Photomap), a new gallery viewer, better facilities to link to the journey planner, adding an integrated editor (Potlatch 2) as well as various ongoing design/usability improvements (though there is much more to be done, time/funding permitting).
Routing quality work, however, remains our highest priority. Our aim is to provide the highest quality routing possible for cycling, using our knowledge as cyclists. Various improvements have been made recently, and we are currently working on new routing attributes and reducing the wigglyness of some routes, which is proving a difficult problem to solve with limited hardware resources.
Simon and Martin, lead developers, would like to thank a range of people who have helped out in various ways, such as Andy, Shaun and David from OpenStreetMap, George and Robin for work on the routing engine, huge support from Chris in Edinburgh, George from Camden, our mobile developers – Alan, Neil, Jez, Theodore, Christopher and Jonathan, advice and a free dev server from our brilliant web hosts Mythic Beasts, our designer Ayesha, Jeremy for occasional advice on business matters, support from key individuals at the CTC, LCC and Cycle Nation plus others in our stakeholder group, Carlton and Bike Hub, helpful ideas and data from cycle campaign groups around the UK, and of course the amazing community of OpenStreetMap contributors whose mapping makes everything possible.
Lastly, we would like to thank our users, whose cycling needs provide us with the inspiration to keep going, and who provide us with much feedback and many great ideas.
Today saw the 500,000th route planned on the system!
Route 500,000 was planned by a user of the Bike Hub iPhone app, a cycle satnav/planner app with a handy bike shop finder. Their route was a half-hour journey from the King's Cross area to South Kensington, a distance of 4¼ miles.
CycleStreets exists to help get more people cycling, whether by the journey planner providing cyclist-orientated routes, or by helping cycle campaigners with their work thanks to our Photomap.
Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Cycling Group, Julian Huppert, MP for Cambridge, said: “CycleStreets is a well-designed, incredibly useful tool for people to find a route that suits them, whether they are a speedy, confident rider or prefer quieter rides. It encourages new cyclists to start cycling, and helps existing riders to find new routes and cycle more."
CycleStreets' journey planner is made possible thanks to the hard work of OpenStreetMap mappers, a project which everyone can get involved with.
And here's a quick usage chart (with not much cycling in December due to the snowy weather for some of that month!):
We really enjoyed the January Net2Camb Meetup event, where one of our lead developers, Martin, gave a talk 'Our Story'. Thanks to Claire for organising the event and everyone who came!
It was particularly enjoyable as it was a rare opportunity to talk about the business and competition aspects of CycleStreets, about the challenges we face, and the future opportunities for the project.
We were also pleased that a couple of people came forward as new volunteers!
Here is our presentation [link]:
Cycle Cambridge, the cycling section of Cambridgeshire County Council has issued a great new edition of its 'Get Pedalling' publication (Autumn/Winter 2010/11 issue).
It features CycleStreets and our iPhone app, alongside updates on cycling schemes in Cambridgeshire.
We're speaking at the Net2Camb meetup event, on the subject of 'Building CycleStreets'. It should be a really enjoyable and social evening; do come along!
The talk will be suitable for both non-technical and technically-minded people alike.
For more details, and to sign up, go to: http://www.meetup.com/Net2Camb/calendar/15827958/ (it's free!)
About the event:
CycleStreets is the UK-wide cycle journey planner, whose website has just seen its third-of-a-millionth route planned. Enabling people to plan cycle journeys from A-B anywhere in the UK, it has been created by two Cambridge-based people (plus help from others, not least OpenStreetMap mappers!) who have combined their interests in cycling and computing. It uses information from OpenStreetMap, the map equivalent of wikipedia.
Martin Lucas-Smith will explain the history of the site, what it can do, and the challenges that CycleStreets faces as a social enterprise with virtually no funding but masses of ideas and enthusiasm.
About the venue:
This event is at a new venue, a pub called The Emperor on Hills Road, convenient to the city centre and train station. The pub just opened, and the landlord is the same as the Empress, which won pub of the year 2010. The Emperor is located where The Globe used to be.
Map to the venue – plan a route there!
Spread the word!
This is a free event. Please help us spread the word to your friends and colleagues!
We were delighted to discover today that CycleStreets is featured as the default front page item on the government's relaunched data.gov.uk website!
CycleStreets uses four main open datasets:
We're really pleased to see the work of thousands of cyclists and others around the UK recognised through this feature.
As one commenter on the data.gov.uk website notes, however:
"It would be good if CycleStreets got UK Government money/co-operation."
We are continuing to try to obtain funding as part of our new Funding drive, to raise £90k to facilitate much faster development of CycleStreets over the coming 18 months.
CycleStreets, the UK-wide cycle journey planner website, today reached a new milestone: a third of a million cycle journeys planned. Route 333,333 was a typical cross-city route, in Cambridge.
The 333,333 journeys amounts to 3.85 million km of route planning – that's an awful lot of cycling!
This is also the equivalent of cycling to the moon ten times, or cycling round the earth almost 100 times.
CycleStreets is an independent project created by two cycling web-developers based in Cambridge. It uses the excellent data in OpenStreetMap which is collected by thousands of people all around the UK, creating the 'Wikipedia of maps'. Cyclists – and anyone else – can get involved by adding information to www.openstreetmap.org. CycleStreets is truly a project for cyclists, by cyclists.
Planning a cycle route is quick and easy with CycleStreets. Just go to www.cyclestreets.net, search / click on a start point and finish point, and hit the 'Plan route' button. A map and detailed journey plan is given.
People can also plan a journey on the move. A free mobile phone version of CycleStreets is available at www.cyclestreets.net/mobile – currently for iPhone, but Android and other versions are in the works. A range of other apps, including great apps from Bike Hub (including a bikeshop finder), Cycle Hire app, London Cycle, and London Bike App also make use of CycleStreets routing – with other app-makers coming on board to add cycle-friendly routing to their apps.
We're helping get new cyclists on their bikes. Said one user:
"Brilliant facility. I have just started cycling to work and found it very useful for planning routes and trying them out."
CycleStreets' 'Routemaster', Simon Nuttall explains the project's roots:
"As cycling advocates and campaigners, one of the things we hear most often from people who don't cycle is their fear of traffic. We've built CycleStreets to help them discover cycle-friendly routes and cut-throughs you never knew existed. CycleStreets aims to be like a knowledgeable cyclist, wherever you are in the UK."
CycleStreets will this week be launching a funding drive to raise funds for two full-time developers. With so many requests for new features and ways of using the system coming from user feedback, we want to move CycleStreets to the next level.
—
For more information contact:
Martin Lucas-Smith, Developer;
www.cyclestreets.net/contacts
Cambridge, 22nd September 2010
CycleStreets, the community-based UK cycle routing people, have today released their much-anticipated CycleStreets Journey Planner & Photomap app for iPhone. And it's free!
Created by cyclists, for cyclists, the free iPhone app is the nearest thing to a SatNav for cycling, enabling people to plan journeys anywhere in the UK with an innovative and quick "three-taps" interface. The app includes a full placefinder, postcode search and turn-by-turn directions.
Not just a journey planner, it has a campaigning edge too. The other half of the app is a Photomap, so that people can help address the legacy of poor cycling infrastructure around the UK, simply by snapping a picture and submitting it. Local Authorities and cycling bodies are signing up to use these pictures and prioritise areas for improvement, with Cambridge and soon London the first on board.
Three different routing modes in the journey planner are available: fastest (for more confident cyclists), quietest (for newer riders) and a balanced mode that aims to suit most users. Hills are no problem – the routing knows about how to avoid an uphill struggle and take advantage of downward slopes where practical alternatives are available.
People using other mobiles aren't being left out – a small-screen web version of CycleStreets is being developed (CycleStreets.mobi) and an Android app (which powers many new phones coming out in the shops) is also being worked on. People can also go to www.cyclestreets.net via a standard web-browser.
Despite this SatNav-like functionality, CycleStreets and the iPhone app have been developed not by a large company, but by what is a community-based group working on a not-for-profit basis to get more people cycling, more often.
CycleStreets' 'Routemaster', Simon Nuttall explains its roots:
"As cycling advocates and campaigners, one of the things we hear most often from people who don't cycle is their fear of traffic. We've built CycleStreets to help them discover cycle-friendly routes and cut-throughs you never knew existed. CycleStreets aims to be like a knowledgeable cyclist but in the palm of your hand, wherever you are in the UK."
Developer Martin Lucas-Smith added:
"CycleStreets has been made possible by the brilliant OpenStreetMap project, dubbed the 'Wikipedia of Maps'. Cyclists and others all around the UK collect and update street data that enables us then to create routing that thinks like a cyclist. Unlike traditional SatNav data, OpenStreetMap data is controlled by its user community. Anyone can get involved in OpenStreetMap, and over 300,000 people around the world are already doing so."
CycleStreets routing is also being used within other cycling apps that include a route viewing amongst other features: it is already being used by the three leading iPhone apps for the London Cycle Hire Scheme, the BikeHub app and TrackMyJourney for Nokia/Java. New developers can apply for an API key.
These images may be used royalty-free and do not need to be credited.
Click on any image to get the highest-resolution version available.
Main loading screen and icon:
Journey planner screens:
Photomap screens (e.g. reporting lack of cycle parking):
Plan cycle-friendly routes from A to B anywhere in the UK!
Photomap photo facility
Links:
Main app info page: http://www.cyclestreets.net/mobile/
iTunes page: http://itunes.apple.com/app/ishare/id391984737?mt=8
Works on iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod)
Free of charge
Requires mobile/wifi internet connection
For more info please contact us.
A project originating from Cambridge Cycling Campaign // Hosting kindly helped by Mythic Beasts
Short link: http://cycle.st/blog/category/promotion/
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