Organisation Name | Smart Cambridge |
Main contact | Dan Clarke |
Name of challenge | The Movement Measurement Challenge: Design data collection for cycling and pedestrian movements. |
Brief summary of challenge | To inform transport policy and scheme design, and to measure the success of schemes, it’s necessary to measure the movement of people by all modes of transport. Smart Cambridge wish to improve cycling and walking movement data collection. The focus of the data collected should include start and finish points, reason for journey and whether the journey was made in combination with other modes of transport (with overall start and finish points). Additional data would include desire lines, displaced trips, new trips etc. |
Context |
Greater Cambridge is growing an estimated 36,000 new homes will be built by 2031 and an additional 44,000 jobs created. The transport infrastructure is already nearing capacity and congestion is a significant issue for the city. The Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) has a programme of significant transport schemes which aim to alleviate congestion and improve mobility for residents. The schemes are designed to shift behaviours away from cars and to encourage the use of more sustainable modes such buses, bikes and walking. Smart Cambridge is part of Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC), a partner in GCP. To inform policy and scheme design, and to measure the success of schemes, GCP needs to be able to measure the movement of people by all modes of transport. Most transport modes offer some measurement possibilities relatively easily, but cycling and walking present particular challenges and there is no adequately robust data collected or available. |
The benefits to be gained from addressing this challenge are… | There are significant quality of life benefits, congestion means many people are wasting unproductive hours sat in cars. This is a key concern for employers as it impacts on staff retention. A reduction in congestion will help to address the issues of pollution the city faces particularly in the city centre. There will also be significant economic benefit as congestion impacts on productivity and if unaddressed will mean that Cambridge is less attractive to new companies looking to relocate to the city. |
Any work already done and status | The Smart Cambridge programme recently undertook an audit to catalogue all the transport data currently held. Both cycling and walking were identified as areas where there is a shortfall of data. The data that is currently held is in organisational data silos and is difficult to find and re-use. The City has built an IoT network which consists of:
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Success would look like… | A model for data collection showing explicitly:
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Support available |
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Key skills and technology sought |
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Key attributes of successful challenge teams | Willing to work collaboratively with the Cambridge ecosystem. An understanding of how new and emerging technologies can be deployed in cities to address challenges Wanting to move to an actual trial deployment within the city. |
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