Jul 2021
Derilinx worked with Smart Dublin and other partners on the Active Travel Challenge
Derilinx have been providing support and maintenance for Smart Dublin Open Data portal and related Open Data projects since 2015 (Customer Success Story). We are delighted to have been involved in SmartDublin’s Active Travel Challenge competition as a member of the organising committee.
Sponsored by a grant from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform’s Open Data Engagement Fund, all of the Dublin region local authorities and several organisations involved in active travel came together to support the project selection and mentoring process.
All competing projects used Open Data to support and promote walking, cycling and being active as an alternative to motorised travel. The showcase and prize-giving event was held on 15th Jul 2021. You can watch the recorded showcase webinar below.
Derilinx worked with SmartDublin and other partners to mentor two of the final projects, Automatic Broken Bike Detection and Active-travel-counts.ie, to make suggestions for improvements to their projects and help facilitate the provision of data from the bike scheme providers.
The Active Travel Showcase gave an opportunity for the 12 finalist projects, mentored by members of the organising committee over the past 8 weeks, to demonstrate and publicise their results.
The event was kicked off with an inspiring Smart and Sustainable Mobility Keynote from Ciaran Cuffe MEP. This was followed by a showcase of solutions, including interactive maps allowing to see their nearest available city bike, bike parking racks, or local things to see and do. There are online tools which facilitate citizen participation in planning for active travel environments, and which show where interventions could facilitate active travel school runs or improve bikeshare services. There are APIs and route planners which show scenic, cultural, green or better-lit routes for the active traveller. In addition, there are analyses which highlight potentially preferable locations for cycle lanes, show locations and impact of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, or predict and counter the likely impact of factors such as weather on active travel.
All of the projects were developed or significantly improved through the course of the challenge.
From top-left to bottom-right: 1. Dublin Bay by Bike: Interactive Maps, 2. Where’s the Craic, 3. Urban Routes, 4. Popular Cycling Routes without Cycling Infrastructure, 5. Dublinbikeparking.com, 6. Mapping LTNs (Low Traffic Neighbourhoods), 7. Not Made of Sugar, 8. Active-travel-counts.ie, 9. Safepoints, 10. Active Travel to School: Locating Investment for Impact, 11. Widen My Path: Co-designing street layouts, 12. Automatic Broken Bike Detection
All showcased applications use Open Data from the Dublin Regionand National Open Data portals, both of which are supported by Derilinx. These projects demonstrate how Open Data can be used to promote a healthy and green agenda.
The winners were Where’s the Craic, Active Travel to School: Locating Investment for Impact and Dublinbikeparking.com, but all contestants are to be congratulated on the quality and potential impact of their projects.
It is expected that several of these projects will be picked up by local authorities or travel bodies to enable and enhance the opportunities for active travel. In particular, for the projects mentored by Derilinx, we expect the Automatic Broken Bike Detection project to be picked up by Dublin micro-mobility providers, and that the project will continue to be promoted by SmartDublin in these fora. Barry Rogers, the Smart Dublin Tourism manager, has already expressed interest in the Active-travel-counts.ie.
Webinar Recording
Smart Dublin is a joint initiative by the four Dublin local authorities, Dublin City Council, Fingal County Council, South Dublin County Council and Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. Smart Dublin is the platform for the public sector to engage with entrepreneurs, business, technologists and citizens to find new solutions to city region challenges. A key element underpinning Smart Dublin is the dedicated Open Data Platform provided by Derilinx. Derilinx also provides client-side expert advisory services in the area of Open Data Best Practice, Data Quality, Ecosystem Management as well as a range of Analytics/Web Application services to facilitate access to data (e.g. API) and delivery of powerful data insights.