Beat the Street is a community game that encourages people to walk or cycle around the community. It was developed by the UK’s Intelligent Health, an organisation dedicated to increasing physical activity and improving the health of communities. They develop programs that combine technology (e.g., activity trackers and games) with on-the-ground community programs. So far over 500,000 people […]
carsinbikelanes.nyc is a website where people can post photos of cars blocking bikelanes in New York. According to the website, This site is by no means a replacement for 311, holding your elected representatives accountable, or talking to your friends and family. But it will hopefully become a cathartic and productive body of evidence to […]
Project Sidewalk is designed and operated by the Makeabilty Lab at the University of Maryland. The project’s interactive tool allows you to rate the accessibility of sidewalks in the Washington DC area based on Google Streetview photos. According to the website “You virtually walk through city streets and mark accessibility attributes such as missing curb ramps, blocked […]
The Boston area public transport operator MBTA held a competition during the summer to select an “endorsed” user application. The agency decided that having a single, full service app can provide a tremendous improvement in customer experience. The MBTA evaluated four apps: Transit App, Moovit, Swiftly and Moovel. In September 2016 the MBTA chose Transit App […]
The City of Oslo Norway has developed a fantastic app that blends gamification with reporting. The app, called Traffic Agent, is designed to enable children to identify and report transport problems they encounter while travelling to school. It’s such a great example I’ve added it to the Crowdsourced Streets page in two places: reporting and […]
radwende.de is a really neat project from Wiesbaden Germany. They use a GPS tracking app to crowdsource bike trips and then turn the information into a beautiful map you can hang on the wall. Of course they use the data too to help determine where people ride in the city to help planners improve bike […]
Chicago is installing sensors throughout the city in a project called Array of Things (AoT) to collect a wide variety of data. The sensor data will be provided to the public for analysis via the city’s open data policy. This is an excellent example of sharing data so residents can use it to help improve […]
Here’s a great post from the Planetizen Blog Crowdsourcing Clean Drinking Water, Interview with Sean Montgomery by Casey Brazeal, posted August 22, 2016. Sean Montgomery is the inventor of CitizenSpring (Kickstarter), an app that collects and maps data about safe drinking water. It’s currently a Kickstarter project. CitizenSpring is a great example of how to use sensors and mapping […]
ProPublica has developed a very effective interactive application that shows the chance of being killed if you are a pedestrian (30-years old, average for all ages, and 70-years old). You can roll on the app’s X-axis to see the likelihood of being killed when hit by a car going at different speeds. It’s a good tool […]
Tom Saunders of NESTA has written an excellent post: Power to the people: how cities can use digital technology to engage and empower citizens. It recommends four strategies: Resist the temptation to build an app; Think about what you want to engage citizens for; Remember there’s a world beyond the internet; and, Pick the right question for […]