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SA Dept of Transport's new online ‘Cycle Instead Journey Pla

Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2010 4:01 pm
by Aushiker
Hi

This initiative in SA looks really great ... anyone here tried it yet?
The SA Dept of Transport have just announced their new Cycling Instead Journey Planner. It’s an online cycling trip planning tool. It’s a map tool using google maps to help Adelaide cyclists plan the best way of getting from A to B.

From the few test trips I’ve thrown at it I am impressed. You might have read that Google had attempted a ‘by bike’ route planner with their maps but it was quite criticised. The DETI planner allows you to choose your preferences such as - fastest, low traffic and maximise paths. This is where it is very smart. I asked it to give me a route from my suburb to Mawson Lakes using paths. It knew to use Linear Park and most impressively knew where the little bridge was for crossing over. It then offered me a route I had not considered and showed me it was 10.72km and should take me 33 minutes at an average (default) speed of 20km/h. The average speed can be reduced to 5km/h or increased to 50km/h. If you don’t like hills you can also set the maximum gradient you want to challenge you and it will re-route you around the steep bits. Once you have set your route you can print it out as ‘turn by turn’.
More details at Adelaide Cyclists ...

Regards
Andrew

Re: SA Dept of Transport's new online ‘Cycle Instead Journey

Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2010 5:02 pm
by alex
i had a look at it last night, looks really good

Re: SA Dept of Transport's new online ‘Cycle Instead Journey

Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2010 7:34 pm
by Biffidus
It ignores some really nice bike paths I use on my commute and sends me down all the main roads. When I click "less traffic" it sends me 2km down a busy 90kph highway to get to some backstreets!

Mind you, Google Maps fared no better and the the route I take is marked as bike paths on the TransportSA Bike maps.

Re: SA Dept of Transport's new online ‘Cycle Instead Journey

Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2010 3:18 am
by gdt
It's a very good "I haven't gone this way before" helper. The routes are roughly right but I think if you rode it once you'd be in a position to select a better routes. I think that makes it a very useful tool for getting more people to ride.

With the basic fabulousness in mind, some suggestions:

It could do with a stripmap running down an A4 page as the default printing choice. That would get more detail into the selected route. If the directions had a lot of changes within 2Km, then printing an extra page with the detail of that 2Km (or whatever) would be good.

Elevation diagram would be nice.

It could do with a list of notes on the selected route. For example, I plugged in two points that I knew would have to be routed down South Road north of Port Road and the words "are you insane?" did not appear. Similarly, I think there should be a note for any rise where an unfit person would have to walk (as that's going to effect their time), you could tweak the value of "unfit" based on the user's offered Km/h.

The routing should reference local landmarks too. eg: turn left at the McDonalds.

There's no/insufficient penalty in the time calculation for traffic lights and crossing major roads. 9 minutes for North Terrace between East and West Terrace. Hmmm.

The user interface is a little too fiddly. Especially moving the end points just a little.

There isn't enough cycling culture points of reference. "Mount Lofty", "HMS Buffalo", "Eagle on the Hill", "Whale centre", bike shops.

A measure of "effort" would be good -- hills, restarts due to lights, exposure to oncoming wind, etc. You could have a bit of fun with the units of effort (its a two proteinbar ride). With a bit of fiddling you could get a good metric for "exposure for wind" from a GIS system, which would benefit the routing a lot (eg, around Grange/Henley using the Esplanade for South to North but Military Road for North to South).

The route calculation for longer rides is more likely to ignore the "low traffic" request. For example, Semaphore to Gawler with Low Traffic sends me down the Port River Expressway, but choosing an intermediate point correctly uses the streets through Wingfield.

The map runs out of steam before me. Adelaide -- Victor Harbor isn't able to be routed. That might be too long for what the designers had in mind, but Crystal Brook -- Port Pirie isn't routed either so maybe there's a routing boundary not shown on the map.

Re: SA Dept of Transport's new online ‘Cycle Instead Journey

Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2010 4:15 pm
by alex
re your last point, as it is called 'cycle instead' i would imagine it is aimed at people wanting to commute so the crystal brook-pt pirie and adelaide-victor routes will probably not be very relevant. i dont think it is designed for mapping out a touring ride.

i think the best result here is it gives these first time commuters some options, ie they might be at home thinking oh no i cant ride to work because of this particular road... or whatever, then they punch it into the system and it might give them a better option including some bike lanes/paths that they were not aware of.

re your points 'turn left at mcdonalds', 'effort', 'exposure to wind' etc, i mean there are only a finite amount of resources available to put this sort of thing together. maybe if we had 200,000 public servants developing this then you could map out every possible route and every landmark and every pothole and so on... would you be happy with paying 75% of your income in taxes though? :lol:

for a state government project i think it is pretty good

Re: SA Dept of Transport's new online ‘Cycle Instead Journey

Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2010 6:16 pm
by you cannot be sirrus
If this website encourages more people to 'Cycle instead" then it's a good thing. I reckon it needs a few tweeks though. I plotted a route from Sheidow park to the Tollgate/ Initially it had me going down South Rd, Atyliffes, goodwood, Springbank, Blythwood etc. all busy, lots of light and junctions to negotiate. The low traffic option takes in a few more back streets. My logical route would be Veloway, Marion, Croos. two turns, cycle lanes all the way.The other route would be great in my car.

Re: SA Dept of Transport's new online ‘Cycle Instead Journey

Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2010 2:50 pm
by foax
I entered my home as starting location and my work as destination on this website, selected 'low traffic' for the route type, and it plotted nearly exactly the route I take on my commute into work. This is a mixture of back streets and Linear Park, so I'm impressed.

So either I'm riding the most efficient route to and from work, or the State Government are tracking my movements and using this to "teach" their webapp :)

Re: SA Dept of Transport's new online ‘Cycle Instead Journey

Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2010 6:30 pm
by gdt
I should have been clearer in my own post. I think it is wonderful. The comments were in case they were wondering what to do next.