With London’s ‘Boris Bikes’ now being used for 14,000 journeys each day, the need for an easy-to-use and real-time representation of which docking stations are full has been met not by the organisers of the cycle hire scheme but by a research associate at UCL’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis working in his spare time.
Oliver O’Brien has used open-source data provided by Transport for London (TfL) to create a simple colour-coded chart to display vital information at a glance, reports Londonist.com
TfL has its own system to show how busy the cycle scheme is at any given time, but each individual docking station to see if it has places.
Information revolution
Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the worldwide web, has been working with our national government to help make more information available to the public and more importantly to make it accessible.
Government has generally made a mess of data-handling schemes – usually because they make the exercise too big and it is out of date before it is installed.
The internet allows for incremental steps to be taken and more importantly allow others, be they individuals, private companies or local groups to use government data and translate it into digestible information. The projects undertaken by Oliver O’Brien and others are part of an information revolution that could be as big a change to our lives as the worldwide web itself.
Cycle insurance
Cycle insurance from the ETA includes new-for-old replacement, third party insurance (in the case of an accident you may need to seek compensation or even deal with a claim by someone else), personal accident cover and if you breakdown, they will even come out and recover you and your bike.
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