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Bike Route Tracker (CyclePhilly)

Stage

Drifting

README

I am interested in developing a smartphone-based project to collect voluntary data on cyclists' bike route preferences.

The goal is to promote the app during a two to four week window where city or regional bicyclists would be encouraged to download and use the app to track their biking habits. The route data would be linked to a webmapping viewer that would allow users to the recorded routes and bike patterns of of all participants in realtime (users get fun instant feedback, we get great if self-selectedâ data in the aggregate).

The data generated would supplement the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission's existing demographic data, and help us understand from a network perspective how bicyclists move through the city and provide another data resource to help prioritize improvements.

The city of Austin has done this exact project and it was very effective. I am looking to do the same for Philadelphia. Here is the documentation from Austin:

http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/45000/45700/45731/Hudson_11-35-69.pdf

Source Code from Austin app:

http://www.sfcta.org/modeling-and-travel-forecasting/cycletracks-iphone-and-android

Project Activity
Log Buzz

Update #52

These datasets contain CyclePhilly trips from May, 2014 through April, 2016 (2 years; 12,202 individual trips by 300 unique CyclePhilly users) that were mappable to DVRPC's Open Street Map facility network. CyclePhilly trip data was processed and snapped to the nearest road or trail segment using an algorithm so that total volumes by segment could be calculated and compared (some facilities—particularly trails—may not be in the mapped network; CyclePhilly data for these segments is not shown). Note the data sets include only CyclePhilly trips; CyclePhilly users' trip patterns may not reflect those of all cyclists. Trip ends (origin/destination) have been 'fuzzed' to protect users' privacy, so true start and stop locations are obscured in these datasets. Please refer to the descriptions below for information on the datasets; a data dictionary is also included within each ZIP file.

Next City: Philly Is Racking Up the Bike-Friendly Points

Building on the city’s two-wheeled momentum of recent years, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission released a CyclePhilly app (created by Code for Philly) last year to gather user-generated biking data. The DVRPC recently transformed those numbers into a cool map, showing 8,000-plus trips by app users in six months.

Read the full article on nextcity.org…   Published

DVRPC releases new CyclePhilly data on which streets cyclists use most

During the first six-month study period, 220 unique users logged 8,340 individual trips on the app, yielding a trove of trip data that provides a glimpse into the cycling behavior of the people who used it.

When the initial findings were released, DVRPC said they would eventually make (anonymized) trip-by-trip GIS data available for those looking to conduct additional analysis of specific routes, and yesterday they made good on that promise.

Three new datasets have now been added to the “download data” tab under “Tools and Data” on the DVRPC web site.

Trip detail by segment (available as a Shapefile) Discrete trip data for each segment in the network, including voluntary (but not personally-identifiable) rider characteristics for each trip. Trip by trip summary (available as a Shapefile or a GeoJson): Linework for every individual trip. Segment network nodes (available as a Shapefile or a GeoJson): Can be used with the above datasets to support spatial analysis, such as origin-destination analysis.

Read the full article on planphilly.com…   Published

Ignite Philly 15 -- Best Civic Hacking Shoutout

The most bicycled street in all of Philadelphia is Spring Garden Street, at least according to CyclePhilly, the mobile app built by civic hackers at Code for Philly. The Spring Garden Street Greenway team quoted that data as they explained why and how they wanted to beautify the dilapidated and dangerous street that cuts across the whole city. (Twenty-one percent of all crashes on Spring Garden involve bikes, they said.) Their plan is to make the street not life-threateningly scary.

Read the full article on technical.ly…   Published

Update #49

CyclePhilly Datasets

These datasets reflect CyclePhilly trips that were mappable to DVRPC's Open Street Map facility network from May through October, 2014 (6 months; 8,340 individual trips by 220 unique CyclePhilly users). CyclePhilly trip data was processed and snapped to the nearest road or trail segment using a special algorithm so that total volumes by segment could be calculated and compared (some facilities—particularly park trails—may not be in the mapped network; CyclePhilly data for these segments is not shown). Note that the CyclePhilly trips do not reflect all bicycling in the city and region; CyclePhilly users' trip patterns may not reflect those of all cyclists. Trip ends (origin/destination) have been 'fuzzed' to protect users' privacy, so true start and stop locations are obscured in these datasets. A data dictionary and ReadMe are included within each ZIP file.

Six months of Cycle Philly data shows which streets cyclists like best

The CyclePhilly app, a product of Code for Philly, the Bicycle Coalition, DVRPC, SEPTA, and the City of Philadelphia that logs cyclist trip data for planning purposes, has been up and running for a few months, and now we have a first look at the first six months of data they collected between May and October.

Read the full article on planphilly.com…   Published

Ride With Purpose: CyclePhilly app strives to make the city a better place to bike

The future of Philadelphia’s bike lanes is in your hands thanks to the new smartphone app CyclePhilly. Launching the app when you start your ride allows CyclePhilly to track your route–whether it’s your morning commute or just a leisurely weekend ride. The app then collates your data with that of other users, which, according to CyclePhilly founder Corey Acri, makes “Philly a better place to bike” by using biking habits to inform future bicycle infrastructure planning.

Read the full article on www.gridphilly.com…   Published

Update #46

Exported GeoJSON of CyclePhilly trips from the database. Shapefile can be made from the GeoJSON using ogr2ogr.

Script to do export is here.

(Just plug in connection parameters to server.)

MAPS: An Early Look at Where the CyclePhilly App Says We Need Bike Lanes

A new Census report came out yesterday showing that bicycling is the fastest-growing mode of transportation for commuters in Philadelphia.

Two percent of workers in Philly biked to work between 2008 and 2012, which is low in absolute terms, but more than double the 0.9 percent number from the 2000 Census. The percentage of people walking to work fell from 9.1 percent in 2000 to 8.6 percent for 2008 to 2012. One explanation might be that as the city has installed more separated cycling infrastructure, more people have taken to biking instead of walking.

A more pessimistic take on the walking numbers might be that more people are working in the suburbs than commuting from the outer neighborhoods into Center City.

One interesting finding from the national data was that the number of male cyclists was almost double the number of female cyclists. Studies show that women are more comfortable cycling on separated bike lanes than in mixed-traffic, so if America’s Number One Green City wants the bike commuting rates to keep growing, city politicians are going to have to get behind more protected bike lanes.

Luckily, a new tool from Code for Philly points the way forward.

Developed in partnership with the City of Philadelphia, DVRPC, SEPTA, and the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, the CyclePhilly smartphone app allows cyclists to record their bicycle trips and compare their routes to other cyclists on an interactive map.

Read the full article on thisoldcity.com…   Published

New CyclePhilly App Aims to Help Plan Better Bike Lanes

The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia posted today about a new free app for Philly cyclists called CyclePhilly. Its goal: to record trip data to help city planners get a better handle on where bike trips take place and how to better accommodate them. Meaning? With enough buy-in from Philly cyclists, the app’s data could be used to pave the way for new and better bike lanes down the line.

Read the full article on www.phillymag.com…   Published

New Cycle Philly Mobile App Helps You Help Us Help You Ride Better

One of the challenges of the better bicycling game is figuring out where people ride. We conduct our annual bike counts, and organizations like DVRPC can put down counters on select streets, but these give us snapshots at best. Philadelphians take thousands of bike trips a day, and if we knew where, when, and why folks were riding, planners could use that information to design better streets and connect our trails.

Now a cadre of volunteer Code for Philly developers have created a mobile app that attempts to fill in this gap in our knowledge. The Cycle Philly App is out of beta and available for download for Apple and Android.

Read the full article on bicyclecoalition.org…   Published

CyclePhilly hopes to record biking patterns to help plan bike lanes

Developed by local civic hackers at Code for Philly, in conjunction with the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, the idea of having community cyclists crowd source their bike routes for planning authorities first originated in San Francisco, but this is the first attempt to record Philadelphia bike patterns, despite the city having the highest rate of cyclists per capita of the nation’s 10 biggest cities.

Read the full article on technical.ly…   Published

Update #34

Met with representatives from the City of Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission.

They will develop a marketing/communications plan for a Spring 2014 launch of the campaign.

We will work on rebranding and front-end web and app enhancements.

Update #32

Updated nav elements to cyclephilly.org

Added enhancement request in github for public facing mapping element so that user can draw two points on the map and then sort rides from there.

Update #31

The iOS and Android apps are now available for beta testing through our Testflight app.

Please click here from your mobile device for instructions on installing the app.

You can also copy and paste this link:

http://tflig.ht/18Q086Z

We also have the beta site set up on cyclephilly.org

Update #29

Want to try out the Android app without bothering with TestFlight? It's over here: https://github.com/flibbertigibbet/Cycle-Philly-Android/releases/tag/1.22

Update #25

Here's a test release of the Android app with a workaround for the device ID length check the server does. (Should fix issue with some devices not being able to upload trips).

http://git.io/ytmDpg

Update #24

New test release of Android app available here: http://git.io/G7wg_w

Trip uploads may still not work on some devices, I think due to this: http://git.io/JdKL2A

Update #23

Revised preview of CyclePhilly site with parallax effects on desktop version!

http://cyclephilly.businesscatalyst.com

Working out the kinks with the Android app.

Set up HockeyApp for distribution testing

Update #21

New test release of the Android app here: https://github.com/flibbertigibbet/Cycle-Philly-Android/releases/tag/1.21

(I renamed the package, so the previous test releases aren't going to work with the Google Maps API.)

Update #15

-Tweaked public facing map. -Lloyd got the filter rides chosen selector to work.

Next steps:

-Complete backend. -Update iOS for iOS7 and submission to app store. -package Android for distribution testing.

Update #12

We simplified the interactive map website css but need to implement the javascript to update the map.

Lloyd has almost completed the backend.

Corey updated the App icons and splash screen for both the Android and iOS apps.

Next step is to package an installable android app for user testing.

Update #10

  • Lloyd has the android app running on his google glass! He is going to compile a build for android testers

  • Corey changed some of the color schemes on the mytracks.openphilly.org map site and is updating the iOS UI elements.

  • Kevin is working on improving the "note this" functionality to allow users to drop a pin on locations with route issues post-ride.

  • Lloyd and Dave working on backend for compiling and outputting raw route data.

Update #8

On a desktop computer, go to http://mytracks.phillyopen.org/rides/, select all of the categories and click update. You should see a thin orange line running south down Broad Street from Spring Garden.

That's my inaugural test run with the Philly Cycle App! (I thought it would be fitting to go down Broad Street and around City Hall).

The app, server and map are up and running thanks to the gracious work of Lloyd and Chris and also Chris LeDantec in Atlanta who was willing to share all of the code from his version of the project, including the interactive map.

There is still quite a bit of work to do. To list a few things, the App, website, etc. all need to be rebranded to Philly (you will notice a lot of the remnants of the Atlanta site are still on the website). The UI on the map is a little wonky so we have to tweak that. We also have to get the Android app up and running and figure out how to output the raw longitude and latitude data in a form the planners in the city can use.

Update #7

I just spoke to Chris LeDantec from Cycle Atlanta. They used Leaflet to map the datapoints from the cycling app. The framework for the web-facing map seems quite flexible. Chris was kind enough to point me to the source code for all of the Cycle Atlanta stuff on github:

https://github.com/cledantec

I would like to see if we can take a look at this tonight and piece some stuff together.

Update #6

Hey everyone,

It looks like Atlanta just did something similar to what we did, including an interactive map! I am going to reach out to them and see what I can find out.

Check it out:

http://cycleatlanta.org/

Update #5

Dave found an excellent reference for what we would like to do with the route data on a live website.

I am hoping we can basically plot the data in semi-realtime so that it produces something like this:

http://bostonography.com/bus/

Update #4

I've setup mytracks.phillyopen.org to test out the back-end code from the San Fran project. Its a bit lacking on the UI side, but I think I follow the structure they have. Might need to rebuild it in a more efficient and maintainable form.

Update #3

I just spoke to the person who ran the San Francisco project and got the server side code for the CycleTracks app.

It should be accessible from my dropbox:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pxmf56f8g9d8suf/ts-l9l54Qv

Update #2

I have reached out to the folks who ran the San Francisco Project and the Austin Project. One of them is out of the office until Monday and I am hoping to get a call back from the other. I am hoping we can get this server side code from one of them.

I will keep you posted and hopefully have something to report on Tuesday.

Update #1

I've reviewed the open source projects that are available, and it looks like we need. To get access the server side code that is acting as a data repository for the mobile app. Once we see what they're using for that and hopefully gain access to the source code, we can easily rebrand and update the mobile clients to be used in Philadelphia.

I'm very interested in working on the iOS app, and perhaps the android app as well.

Project Info

 Users' Site
http://www.cyclephilly.org
  Developers' Site
https://github.com/CfABrigadePhiladelphia/CyclePhilly-iOS-app
  Chat Channel
#cyclephilly

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