Our core aim with CycleStreets is to create “routing that thinks like a cyclist”. One of these aspects is the way that cyclists treat junctions and turns, something that is not currently modelled in the engine. Another challenge that the grant can cover is our desire to incorporate changes to OpenStreetMap data into the routing engine shortly after they happen, rather than after a one-day import period. Both of these are challenging in the context of a routing engine that works over a heavily pre-compressed network and in an environment where expansion of hosting capacity is cost-constrained.

We’re therefore looking for someone with a computer science approach (as distinct from purely “web development”) who can work on these interesting challenges. However, we’d hope that a suitable person can help work on the website (e.g. backend/frontend integration, general web development, refactoring) as well where this is required to implement these changes.

If you are interested to discuss this further, please contact us (by Friday 24th May 2013).

The work must be completed by 31st July 2013, and we are required to work with a company we have not worked with before. The £5,000 includes any VAT we are required to pay by the supplier. The supplier must be a public sector provider or a registered company.

Background info: about our routing engine

The CycleStreets routing system finds, quietest, fastest and balanced cycling routes between two points in the UK (and other countries being added). It does this by building a route planning version of the map (known as a graph) for each of these types of route.

Each graph consists of vertices and edges that correspond to junctions and streets. On each graph the length of an edge corresponds to the cost for that route type of travelling along a street. So, roads and wide cycle tracks will have relatively short links on the graph for fastest routes, but the links that represent footpaths and bridleways where the cycling speed is slower will be longer. By contrast, on the graph for quietest routes, cycleways and park paths will be short relative to busy roads.

The optimal route of a certain type will then be the shortest path on the graph for that type.

So there are two main parts to the CycleStreets routing system: (1) Building the graphs (2) Finding the shortest path. The quality and performance of CycleStreets is governed by how well we do 1 and 2 respectively.

The current OpenStreetMap (OSM) map of UK & Ireland contains millions of paths and nodes. Streets are usually represented by their centre line, with nodes at junctions. The characteristics of each street, including for example the type of road, whether it is hilly, has a cycle lane, or is a one-way street are used to measure the suitability for cycling. In graph theory speak, they translate into the cost of an edge.

These costs are measured during our daily translation of OSM’s data into a graph by application of a series of rules.

Junctions – reducing wiggly routes

Simple graphs constructed from maps of street centre-lines lack are limited in their capacity to express how easy it is to cycle through a road junction. This series of photos introduces the problem.

In essence, the simple graph cannot represent banned turns, and nor can it indicate that a right turn across a busy road might incur quite a wait until it is safe to cross. However, some of the turn delay modelling can be derived automatically, knowing the ‘before’ and ‘after’ street types, and the turn angle. We believe that accurately representing that sort of information has the best chance of improving the quality of routes recommended by CycleStreets.

The way this route wiggles on and off Glasgow Road is a good example of this problem. (NB Click on the + button in the top-right corner of the map and switch to the OpenCycleMap view to get a better map background.)

Implementing turn delays at every node presents real challenges in terms of the use of a standard A* routing engine. This is further more difficult given the need to avoid very large amounts of RAM being needed.

Solving this problem is a significant technical challenge. It needs to be transparent so that there is a clear link between each piece of data and each rule used in the solution and the decisions that a knowledgeable cyclist would make. The solution must also be scalable, so that neither the amount of time taken to find a route nor the amount of data required to represent the problem, increase significantly. That will make it attractive and manageable. A solution also needs to avoid creating excessive hardware cost requirements.

We’d welcome any feedback from users of different devices.

See more screenshots on our mobile pages, or download it free now.

Route result

Route result

Replan route

Namefinder

London Cycle Hire points

Points of interest

This year, Velo-city are running “Cycling Visionaries Awards” which showcase cycling promotion projects from around the world, which people can vote for. We have entered this. The highest-voted 30 projects will win attendance at the conference.

Please take a moment to vote for our two projects – you can vote for both with your e-mail address:

1. Vote for CycleStreets: cycle journey planner, and then:
2. Vote for Cyclescape: campaign group toolkit

They will not use your e-mail address for any other reason, and voting is easy and quick.

Thank you for your support.

In 2006 Steer Davies Gleave developed the UK’s first multi-modal journey planner for Brighton and Hove Council, as part of the Journey On project. Whilst it was ground-breaking, the project was tough – there was nothing on the market like it at that time so we had to work with a GIS software provider, set up a web service and play around with ITN data ‘fused’ locally collected network information. Whilst this allowed us to create a really accurate network for journey planning (including gradient information), maintenance was expensive and time consuming. Also, whilst we had full control of the network, it was near-impossible to let others edit or contribute.

Last year we took the decision to start looking at alternative data sources that are crowdsourced and alternative planning engines, and CycleStreets was the obvious match for our needs. We’d previously been working with a broad range of APIs for travel information provision – we like to use existing data sources rather than replicate or create new ones.

We were impressed with the CycleStreets approach, and really liked the way that OSM data was being managed by local people. With the push for ‘Big Society’ and an emphasis on local authorities saving money, we thought that hooking into what CycleStreets had created would be a good move. After discussing with Martin and Simon it became clear that an API could add considerably value to what we do and what we could offer our clients and, importantly, the public.

We’ve recently used the CycleStreets API for a wide range of multi-modal journey planning projects.

The first was a schools journey planner for Hertfordshire County Council. The client on this project really liked the way that their sustainable transport team could update the cycle network themselves and encourage others to do so as well.

At the same time we were working with Swindon Borough Council to develop a new Swindon cycle map – we soon realised that we could use OSM to provide printed outputs as well as online and journey planning networks. Genius! With some initial support from the OSM team, we started to train up Swindon’s sustainable transport staff and get them involved with maintaining Swindon’s OSM network.

We now take regular updates to maintain their cycle map (printed and online) and rely on CycleStreets to update their journey planning network. It’s a fantastic proposition that works brilliantly.

More recently we’ve used the CycleStreets API for Travel West’s new multi-modal journey planner and will be using it for three more UK local authority mapping and journey planning projects.

What makes the API so attractive, apart from the regular updates to the network, is the ease of use and the way it can be integrated with our existing products. Clients love it too as they can keep their costs down and feel that they are buying into a really cutting edge source of data.

We’re really looking forward to what CycleStreets come up with next!

For further information, visit www.steerdaviesgleave.com.

We can create ‘white label’ sites which blend our journey planner seamlessly into your website, for a small fee.

We’ve created such sites for a range of organisations as our new webpage about this service outlines.

These sites are a great way to promote cycling in a Local Authority area or for a business. (They do not include the Photomap aspect of our system, to avoid liability issues.)

These sites can include:

• Quick links to particular towns/cities in your area (or perhaps employment sites for a company)
• ‘Cycle to us’ links so that the start/destination point for a journey can be pre-set
• Extra option: Points of Interest (e.g. bike shop locations, cycle parking, etc.)

We can also include our leisure routing mode, or undertake customisation work.

Read full details on our White label sites page.

London Travel live started as a one man’s quest for travelling around London. The concept materialised more out of frustration whilst standing out on a cold winter’s night waiting for the public transport to arrive.

The app provides more than one transport option and aims to answer the travellers needs whether be it TUBE / BUS / CYCLE / CAB or if one needs to walk to his/her destination.

The app combines data from different sources to keep it realtime and hence the tag “live” to the app name.

If one were to travel in London during the Xmas period you would definitely notice the swarm of Barclays Bikes zipping past you, when there is limited or no public transport.

To benefit these users we integrated the CycleStreets journey planner solution.

The idea of letting the user to plan his/her rides along the roads of London with the ability to choose a Safe / Quick or Balanced route instils them with confidence, whether they are tourists or locals.

We thank CycleStreets for providing this valuable information. This integration sets the base for further sharing of data by the community between the two entities.

For more information on London Travel live visit:
http://www.vdocreatives.com/londontravellive/

Please do add your reviews/suggestions about the app.

Traveline Cymru has launched the latest addition to the journey planning service on its website, with the introduction of the option to plan a cycle route. The routing is provided by CycleStreets.

Now when planning a journey in Wales using the Traveline Cymru website, you will be able to select ‘cycle only’ and a written route of directions will be provided as well as the option to view your route in map form.

Step 1: Go to the Traveline website and plan your journey by entering a travelling from and a going to destination.

By selecting ‘Additional Options’ it allows you to decide what kind of cycle route you require for example the fastest or quietest way. It also gives the option to select a cycling speed.

Step 2: Select the ‘Cycle Only’ tab.

Step 3: This then allows you to see how long your cycle journey will take you. To get further information on the route, click ‘Journey Details’.

Step 4: The journey details will tell you exactly what roads you will be cycling down, how far to go and how long it will take you. This can be saved, bookmarked, printed or emailed for future reference.

Step 5: If you would like to see your journey plotted on a map, click ‘View route on map’. This will then open another browser with your cycle route shown on a Google map. The yellow markers indicate a new point on your written instructions.

Traveline are very excited about the addition of CycleStreets to the website as it will allow people to consider cycling as one of their travel options. It helps put Traveline Cymru one step closer to being Wales’ one stop shop for ALL travel information.

Please visit http://planner.traveline-cymru.info/journeyplanner/enterJourneyPlan.do to try it out for yourself!

PleaseCycle is an online system allowing councils or employers to encourage and reward resident or employee cycling through an innovative leaderboard system and redemption of ‘points’ earned, whilst being able to report on the carbon saved as a result (very useful for CSR reporting) and routes taken (useful for infrastructure projects and further funding).

PleaseCycle helps organisations or councils understand, encourage and reward resident and employee sustainable travel – a proven way of saving carbon, increasing productivity and lowering absenteeism.

Our system is an online portal containing educational content, safe route planners, weather updates and a ‘leaderboard’. This allows staff or residents to ‘compete’ in teams across the organisation or Council, build morale and fitness, see how much they’re cycling, the resultant carbon saved and earn rewards for their mileage – like an “Air Miles” for bikes. These can be redeemed for free coffee, discounts off fitness/cycle accessories, bike servicing etc.

It’s an employee-engagement, benefit and CSR tool rolled into one, helping organisations or councils to inspire healthy and sustainable behaviour  capture carbon data (valuable for carbon-reduction targets) and demonstrate the ROI of cycle2work schemes.

We utilise the Cyclestreets embedded journey planner solution for the PleaseCycle journey planner – see image below. Our whole product is about getting people new to cycling to give it a go, or have the confidence to cycle further. The Journey planner allows people to get over some of the barriers to cycling such as finding a safe route, or identifying where cycle paths are. The ability to map a quick, safe or balanced route is fantastic, and seeing the journey times makes people realise cycling is so much more efficient than public transport for short journeys.

Thank you, CycleStreets, for a wonderful product which our clients and users value greatly.

Ronan Carter – Director, PleaseCycle

We’ve been reorganising the CycleStreets codebase to get ready for open-sourcing the remainder of our software.

This has been a challenging task involving learning how to write scripts that automate the installation of the CycleStreets website. The job has taken rather longer than expected, but has resulted in a much clearer structure to the highest level of the CycleStreets system and given us greater control of how the system is deployed.

It is fair to say that this aspect of our system had become rather complex with a lot of hidden dependencies. This would have been a real barrier for new coders to our project and so it had to be sorted out. The work now allows our codebase to separate out into these scenarios:

• Live deployment – provides the main CycleStreets website
• Failover deployment – holds a replicated copy of all CycleStreets data that can be used, should the live site fail for some reason
• Import – processes the latest OpenStreetMap extracts into a routing system

An immediate benefit of the work will be that we can much more easily deploy each of these roles. So for instance we could have multiple import machines, and each could be configured to serve different regions of the world.

We still have a little further work to clean and clarify the codebase before we can open the core code. This has been our main priority for the last few months, and will remain so for the next few weeks. It won’t be perfect, but we’ve aimed to get rid of the really bad dependency gremlins.

We’ve also been doing various cleanups, such as removing this blog installation from the main repository, daemonizing the routing process (optionally), and adding SMS monitoring.

The ongoing work on the scripts part of our system can be viewed at our public CycleStreets setup repository.

Prahou na kole (Prague by bike), a Czech webzine and bicycle advocacy portal introduces CycleStreets integration.

What started 7 years ago as one-man’s attempt to show that utility cycling in Prague was indeed feasible by making an unofficial cycle map has grown into one of the best information sources on urban cycling in the country. There are a few blog posts every week ranging from media monitoring, new infrastructure reviews, inspiration from abroad to in-depth analysis of economic efficiency of city’s investments into different transportation solutions, how to improve cyclists and pedestrians coexistence or why obsolete technical and legal requirements end up with unusable cycleways. We also organize campaigns to contact political representatives or provide individual consultancy on finding the best cycle route.

Yet the map remains one of the key elements of the site. The original one drawn in a CAD over a commercial map was replaced in 2011 by OpenStreetMap based solution. We wanted to show as much information as possible so we developed a custom mapnik style (opensource) featuring details such as surface quality (the line is solid on smooth surface while dashed on unpaved or poor ways, cobblestone streets are drawn with square texture) or car traffic levels.

The map application also consists of 3,000+ POIs (some of them were imported to CycleStreets database and you can find them in the CycleStreets Photomap).

The next logical step was to incorporate a journey planner. At first we wanted to develop a custom one, but fortunately we found CycleStreets and it proved to work well. It took us the whole 2012 before we came up with the official release. The process was difficult mainly due to differences in OSM tagging conventions and legal rules between the UK and Czechia, our numerous feature requests on routing algorithm (many thanks to Martin and Simon for implementing them) and last but not least due to OSM license change – significant portion of Prague was gone as one of the key early mappers declined the license.

Anyway, the effort paid off and we can claim to have the best journey planner integrated into our site.

Editor’s note: This collaboration started when Martin was on holiday in Prague. By co-incidence, CycleStreets received an e-mail from Václav asking whether we planned to cover Prague. Martin e-mailed back saying he happened to be in Prague, and we met up the next day!