CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure

Website for Edinburgh cyclists needs your feedback

(27 posts)
  • Started 11 years ago by tarmac jockey
  • Latest reply from chdot

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  1. tarmac jockey
    Member

    We're a team of students from the University of Edinburgh and we are creating a website that should help cyclists find the safest path to take between two locations. You can find the site here: edicycle.eu.

    It's still very much a work in progress: refining searches by date and time of day, displaying bike storage facilities, and adding bike theft data are all planned.

    But for now, we'd like as much feedback as possible so play around with it, try to break it, use it to rethink your commute, just tell us what you think.

    http://www.reddit.com/r/Edinburgh/comments/19xysv/website_for_edinburgh_cyclists_needs_your_feedback/

    Posted 11 years ago #

  2. chdot
    Admin

    Think we've had that before.

    I probably said -

    http://edinburgh.cyclestreets.net

    Posted 11 years ago #

  3. cc
    Member

    http://edinburgh.cyclestreets.net/

    chdot beat me to it.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  4. Radgeworks
    Member

    2nd try

    Hiya, Ive just been onto the site,
    I thought that it might be best to include the URL for the actual site itself: I have typed in my standard commute start and finish, and its still thinking about it in the time its taken to type all this...
    Ive also waited 2 mins before posting this and its still lagging behind, no answer yet and its not terribly complicated places to and from either.... hmmmmmmmmm
    R

    Posted 11 years ago #

  5. steveo
    Member

    It might have just been slashdotted though, depending on when it hit redit they might have got more traffic than they can cope with.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  6. cc
    Member

    RonnieJ - your link is missing a colon so doesn't quite work properly. Thanks for the URL though.

    The site is http://edicycle.eu/

    I've now tried the site and got routes which I think are inferior to both the cyclestreets and google ones. In particular one alternative directed me along Minto St / Clerk St which I think is insane.
    All three sites suggested I use the awful QBC. The route I actually use for that journey is more or less the council's "quiet family route 6" and none of the sites suggested that at all.
    Finding safe cycle routes is a tricky problem I'd have thought, cyclestreets has been improving its algorithms for years now.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  7. ARobComp
    Member

    /b/edinburgh is unlikely to create the necessary traffic to DDOS the site itself! Unless they built it assuming only 1 person would use it at once.

    Site is alright. I dunno - Can I download .gpx? Can I print? Can I drag route to reroute it to go via somewhere. Those would be features I'd like to see.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  8. Radgeworks
    Member

    For cc. Aye hiya, the link in my comment is working, think the cutpaste didnt take everything first time....

    Ronnie

    Updated EDIT: 12.38pm Ive left the planner running with my morning commute from first post til re editing the URL in it and posting this, and its STILL thinking about the journey Roseburn Terrace to Regent Road....

    Posted 11 years ago #

  9. Morningsider
    Member

    All I see is a site that uses Google's cycle journey planner then adds a "safety rating" value, without any explanation of what this actually means.

    Rating safety on reported incidents is pretty much a waste of time as these statistics don't include close calls, unreported incidents and so on - which make up the vast majority of cycling related incidents. In addition, many cyclists tend to already avoid the most dangerous sections of road - which may make these seem safer than they actually are as the number of incidents at these locations will be low due to low cycle usage.

    Rant - when are people going to realise that it isn't a lack of route information that is stopping people from cycling. It is an actual lack of safe routes. All it takes is for one (probably unreported) incident to scare a novice cyclist off their bike for good, or the thought of such incidents stopping people from cycling. Until this is resolved you can give people all the advice they can possibly want - it won't really make any difference.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  10. Instography
    Member

    Perhaps worth explaining that a safety rating of zero is good and 10 is bad. At least that's what I'm assuming from the route on the cycle paths being rated zero and the route on main roads being rated 10. If that's correct then the scales seems the wrong way round as a measure of safety. I'd give good things high numbers. Or call it a risk rating - zero risk and 10 risk.

    Colouring the good route red and the bad route green makes it confusing. Red I associate with danger and 'stop'. Green with safety and 'go'.

    Unless I've completely misunderstood. Route is from EH3 6DH to Barnton.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  11. SRD
    Moderator

    Can someone explain how a route from Polwarth to George square that goes via Gilmore Place, so involves a right turn in front of the Kings, is judges equally safe to a route via the Links & meadows?

    a bit worrying.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  12. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    Won't work on my machine here.

    Does sound like an attempt to create something that is pretty well covered by the likes of CycleStreets (and Google to some extent).

    And as Morningsider says, "All it takes is for one (probably unreported) incident to scare a novice cyclist off their bike for good"

    Posted 11 years ago #

  13. crowriver
    Member

    I think the idea is good, but Cyclestreets already offers a similar (if not exactly the same) functionality.

    As Instography notes, the low/high rating thing is counter-intuitive. I'd expect safer=higher rating.

    The map window needs to be bigger, though perhaps it has been formatted mostly for mobile devices? On a desktop/laptop screen there's an ocean of blue and just a thin strip of map...

    Posted 11 years ago #

  14. Dave
    Member

    "There are no cycling deaths on the bypass. Zero risk!"

    Posted 11 years ago #

  15. Min
    Member

    I am not able to work out what the ratings mean at all. It has Old Deathtrap Road as being equally as safe as the Innocent path (8) and seems to be directing me through Princes Street gardens at one point (is there any cycle route through there?) which has a 5.5 rating, lower than going up the mound at 7.5 whereas going along Rose Street is an 8? :-/

    Posted 11 years ago #

  16. fimm
    Member

    Hehe.
    It is a student project, guys, cut them some slack...

    Posted 11 years ago #

  17. chdot
    Admin

    "It is a student project"

    Yeah we had that one about considerate cycling where the students seemed to know best...

    I'm all for youthful enthusiasm (I used to have lots), but I do wonder about 'coursework projects' which are not really about anything other than getting the students through a process and (potentially) wasting other people's time.

    CycleStreets is better than this and is likely to remain so even IF these people keep going.

    Adding accident stats into the algorithms is an interesting idea but, as others have pointed out, is of questionable value.

    Researching that might be interesting - but presumably would be a different student discipline(?)

    Posted 11 years ago #

  18. lionfish
    Member

    My plan, which I never got 'round to was to make my own version of this. But my plan was to get people to enter their own commutes, maybe noting which bits were busy/quiet... Then when you ask for a route it uses the mass of pre-entered journeys to find the optimum solution (based, like the cycle streets one on speed vs quiet). Figured the only way to get the info a routing system needs is from actual cycling (maps etc don't provide enough info). Just an idea!

    Posted 11 years ago #

  19. chdot
    Admin

    Two 'real' problems -

    1) a lot of 'info' would be highly subjective

    2) especially now (with the trams) things change too much/often

    In addition if an end result could be produced for 'commuting' it would be skewed towards travelling at 'rush' hours.

    Might be useful.

    But it's back to the 'problem' of Edinburgh's 'traffic problem' - the people responsible for 'solving' it are caught up in it every day.

    They get to believe it's 'normal' and inevitable...

    Posted 11 years ago #

  20. lionfish
    Member

    @chdot, re 1: Yeah, maybe I'd not considered how much people's perceptions vary. Maybe it could be normalised some-how? Also people who cycle on busy roads lots will be the sort of people who estimate business as less busy. Maybe just restricting the interface to allow people to highlight busy bits (so it's binary) will mean there's not too much subjectivity?...hmmm
    also: I sort of hoped it would some-how take into account cobbles etc too, as people's commute routes probably avoid annoying things like that?

    re 2: changes: I'd not thought of that at all. I guess that's always a problem, but at least by using people's routes, it will be able to adapt over-time. Depends how active the site would be. Might be good to combine with one of the 'track-my-ride' sites (either for health or 'racing'). This would have (presumably) telemetry regarding the speed of different routes.

    I assume an app like this must already exist for cars - so people (out of altruism) leave it running and it sends data -> collates anonymised travel info re car movements to give really detailed info about where on motorways etc traffic holdups are happening?

    Posted 11 years ago #

  21. Min
    Member

    It is a student project, guys, cut them some slack...

    True but they want feedback so it is good to discuss it first. :-)

    Posted 11 years ago #

  22. neddie
    Member

    All this only reinforces the perception that cycling is dangerous.

    Why don't they create a risk assessment website for motorists to decide which is the safest route to take (oh wait, that would be absurd!)

    The innocent railway would get a perfect safety rating (as there are no cars on it)

    Posted 11 years ago #

  23. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    "The innocent railway would get a perfect safety rating (as there are no cars on it)2

    Wouldn't be as black and white as that though. Lot of walkers and dog walkers. And I've seen someone with blood pouring from a head wound after coming off on ice, and Kirst of this parish has done some nasty damage coming off on the ice - so the Innocent has accident statistics.

    Much like the NEPN and the discussion around dogs last week.

    No cars does not immediately = safe (safer I'd more than likely say, but there are a lot of roads around my house where your chances of encountering a car are lower than your chances of encountering a dog walker and on which I'd say I feel more 'safe' than on the Innocent).

    Posted 11 years ago #

  24. chdot
    Admin

    "so the Innocent has accident statistics"

    But does it - in a 'reported to the police and recorded sense'?

    Posted 11 years ago #

  25. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    No idea. But in a 'reported to a website to determine safe routes' it would.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  26. lionfish
    Member

    @chdot:
    an edit to my above posts, I'd not read or looked at the original tool closely enough! My idea was just a standard routing tool (from the user's point of view). I wasn't particularly thinking about 'safety', more above pleasantness and speed. Hope that makes sense!

    Posted 11 years ago #

  27. chdot
    Admin

    @WC True

    @lf OK

    Posted 11 years ago #

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