Dublinked Public Transport Data Event 6th December, 2012. Dublinked and the National Transport Authority hosted an to explore Public Transport data within the Dublin region. On the day attendees heard from various speakers, all whom are experts in the field of public transportation. The event included presentations on topics such as Public Transport Data and The National Journey Planner, Real Time Passenger Information, Future Cities – Smart Transportation Research and Leapcard – the first 12 months, trends and what happens next. The presentations were followed by discussion during which attendees were able to voice ideas, ask questions and learn about different aspects of open data.
Speakers on the day included: Peter Cranny – Public Transport Data and the National Journey Planner Senior Transportation Planner, Spatial Information Services, National Transport Authority Peter Cranny is a Senior Transportation Planner with a responsibility for spatial information services at the National Transport Authority (NTA). Since early 2011, he has been Project manager on the National Intermodal Journey Planner Project which was launched on June 27th, 2012 as a web service at www.transportforireland.ie and as a smart phone app for android and apple handsets. Since the launch of the service, the smartphone app has been downloaded 59,550 times and over 1.3 million public transport trips have been calculated.
Brendan O’Brien – Real Time Passenger Information Head of Technical Services, Roads & Traffic Department, Dublin City Council Brendan O’Brien is the head of Technical Services in Dublin City Council Roads and Traffic Department with an overall responsibility for traffic management in the City as well as all of DCC’s intelligent Transport Systems. The Real Time passenger Information project on street displays etc. Has been delivered by DDC on behalf of the NTA throughout the County and the DCC provides the expertise and staff to manage the centralised system.
Dr. Atif Manzoor – Smart Transportation Research Research Fellow, Distributed Systems Group, Smart Transportation – Future Cities Research, Trinity College Dublin Dr. Atif Manzoor completed his Ph. D. dissertation in Vienna University of Technology. Currently, he is working to design a scalable middleware for data collection and dissemination in future sustainable cities. Particular emphasis of this research is to develop novel techniques that can identify high quality data streams in urban sensing environments and preserve the citizen’s privacy. His research interests include smart cities, service orientated architecture and machine learning.
Tim Gaston – Leapcard – The first 12 months, trends and what happens next? Director of Integrated Ticketing Scheme, National Transport Authority Tim Gaston works for the NTA and is director of the Integrated Ticketing Scheme in Ireland. The Leapcard was launched in Dublin in December 2011 and is already the most convenient method to pay for public transport. Tim joined the ticketing project in 2003 from Belfast where he was project manager for the smart card project in Northern Ireland. Previously, Tim worked in the private sector in the UK where he was responsible for supply chain management for a Courtaulds business in London. Particular emphasis of his research is to develop novel techniques that can identify high quality data streams in urban sensing environments and preserve the citizen’s privacy. His research interests include smart cities, service orientated architecture and machine learning.
Discussion Feedback from Breakout Sessions: Crowd Sourcing Example of Fixyourstreet.ie – advice is to limit inputs. NTA is interested in crowd sourcing data not available in commercial roadmaps – Pedestrian links, suitability of cycle routes and would like to engage with OpenStreetMap / OpenCycleMap contributors in Ireland.
Cycling Large interest in Dublin’s Bike Scheme – lack of data disappointing Real-time availability of cycle parking. Anonymised trips / Origin – destination data.
Events The Effects of large events – eg. Concerts, matches – on public transport & traffic network – data can provide insight
Leapcard Tag – off locations are desirable – could only be used for origin – destination / routing Journey profiles for possible bus routes as an application
Suggested Datasheets Road works locations Traffic centre data
Changing Mindsets Private transport to public transport network E.g. Adams town and transport planning Dublinked for improved transport planning?
RTPI Produces large amounts of data. Passenger numbers are recorded and can be linked to routes Potential for RTPI to produce performance / quality of service indicators on individual bus routes and entire network.
Traffic Data Difficulty of designing an API that would cover entire amount of data available due to large amount of data produced by traffic network – possibility of publishing to allow developers / researchers to target what they want to aid developing an API in phases. Cordon counts are useful but only updated once a year – similar output from road sensors would be desirable, especially ad an API.
Journey Planner Accuracy of submitting data from route operators can sometimes impair results from the journey planner. Importance of capturing local knowledge of schedules, especially for infrequent rural rotes. “Report an issue” for the NTA’s app – NTA pleased with quality of public feedback and want to make it even easier to report issues, e.g. potholes on cycle routes, etc.
Tweets from Public Transport Data Event:
About Dublinked: Dublinked, a new regional data sharing initiative sees previously unreleased public operational data being made available online for others to research or reuse. With the initial data coming from Dublin City Council and Dun Laoghaire Rathdown, South Dublin and Fingal County Councils, it is expected that the other public and private organisations in Dublin will link up with Dublinked to share their data and invite research collaborations. The information is curated by NUI Maynooth to ensure ideas can be commercialised as easily as possible and to minimise legal or technical barriers that can be impediments for small and mediums businesses (SMEs) seeking to develop and prove business ideas. If you would like to hear about future Dublinked events, send an email to dublinked@nuim.ie to join our mailing list.
Callan Institute National University of Maynooth Maynooth County Kildare Ireland www.dublinked.ie dublinked@nuim.ie Twitter: @dublinked