CycleStreets

CycleStreets is not-for-profit United Kingdom organisation that provides a free-to-use national cycle journey planner for the United Kingdom. The planner uses OpenStreetMap data for routing, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission for height data and official postcode data. It was launched in March 2009 and by January 2010 had planned 100,000 journeys. As of August 2015, the site has planned over 45 million itineraries. It was 'Highly Commended' at the 2009 ACT Travelwise awards. It provides worldwide routing using OpenStreetMap data.

CycleStreets
Founded2009
FocusCycling
Area served
United Kingdom
WebsiteCycleStreets

History

CycleStreets is a development of the Cambridge Cycle Campaign Journey Planner, which was launched in 2006.[1] CycleStreets itself was launched on 20 March 2009;[2] which was by co-incidence the same day that it was announced that the Transport Direct Portal was about to introduce cycle routing for a small number of trial locations including Manchester.[3] In June 2009, a feature to plan circular routes was added[4] and the project was featured in The Guardian newspaper.[5] In August 2009 functionality was added to export routes for use in GPS device[6] and the ability to route via ferry services[7] and then in October 2009 the project released elevation profiles[8] and 'Balanced routes'.[9]

In December 2009, CycleStreets was 'Highly Commended' in the ACT Travelwise annual awards.[10]

In February 2010, the ability to share short video clips was added[11] and then in March 2010 CycleStreets added Google Streetview images to the route description pages[12] and a post code look-up function.[13] They reported their 100,000th journey plan itinerary the same month.[14]

Development

In 2007, during the development of CycleStreets, Simon Nuttall and Martin Lucas-Smith advised Transport Direct on the CycleNetXChange data exchange standard for cycle route data which was later used in the Transport Direct Portal cycle journey planner.[15][16]

In July 2009, CycleStreets was presented at the OpenStreetMap annual 'State of the Map' Conference[17] In September 2009, Martin Lucas Smith of CycleStreets presented the project at the School of Cartography Summer School.[18]

The project held its first 'Developer Day' in March 2010, where technical issues relating to the project were discussed[19] and there was a session on cycle routing at WhereCampEU.[20]

Funding

CycleStreets is a not-for-profit project and has been largely self-funded. It has received grants from the following organisations (in chronological order):

  • Cycling Scotland (£5,000): To develop a version of the site for Edinburgh,[21] which Cycling Scotland are now promoting as a Scotland-wide system[22]
  • Cambridge City Council — Cambridge Sustainable City project (£3,200) in February 2010.[23]
  • Co-op Community Fund (£1,000) in March 2010.[24]

It has also applied for funding through the following channels:

  • They entered the TalkTalk 'Digital Hero Awards'[25] and were supported by the local paper, the Cambridge Evening News.[26]
  • They entered the Geovation awards in 2009.[27]

The project has also benefited from a number of donations in kind not least of which has been the voluntarily donated geographic information in OpenStreetMap.

References
  1. "About". CycleStreets. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  2. "Welcome to CycleStreets!". CycleStreets. 20 March 2009. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  3. "Manchester cyclists first to benefit from pioneering online route planner". 20 March 2009. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  4. "Planning a circular route". CycleStreets. 13 July 2009. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  5. Robins, Peter (10 June 2009). "Tube strike chaos? Get on your bike — with CycleStreets". The Guardian. London.
  6. "Exporting cycle routes to GPS". CycleStreets. 14 August 2009. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  7. "Ferry Crossings and more". CycleStreets. 5 August 2009. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  8. "Elevation Profiles in CycleStreets". CycleStreets. 8 October 2009. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  9. "Balanced routes". CycleStreets. 8 October 2009. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  10. "CycleStreets 'Highly Commended' at the ACT Travelwise Awards 2009". Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  11. "Photomap shares video". CycleStreets. 2 February 2010. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  12. "View from the Street – in itinerary listings". 17 January 2010. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  13. "Postcode searching added". CycleStreets. 14 March 2010. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  14. "100,000 cycle journeys planned on CycleStreets". CycleStreets. 16 January 2010. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  15. "A meeting of the Department for Transport's Mapping Working Party, which map developers Simon and Martin attended". CycleStreets. 3 July 2007. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  16. "schema targetNamespace="http://www.cyclenetxchange.org.uk/cnm"". Department for Transport. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  17. "CycleStreets quickfire presentation to OSM State of the Map 2009". Slideshare. 10 July 2009. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  18. "CycleStreets presentation to Society of Cartographers". SlideShare. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  19. "Lessons from the Developer Day". CycleStreets. 10 March 2010. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  20. "WhereCamp.EU session - CycleStreets cycle routing". WhereCampEU. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  21. "Now It Can Be Revealed". Changing pace. 15 July 2009. Archived from the original on 8 July 2012. Retrieved 13 April 2010.
  22. "Cycling Scotland (homepage)".
  23. "Funding grant from Cambridge Sustainable City". CycleStreets. 21 February 2010. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  24. "Award of grant from the Co-op Community Fund". CycleStreets. 25 March 2010. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  25. "Last day to vote to get OpenStreetMap-based CycleStreets some funding". CycleStreets. 23 October 2009. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  26. "Cyclists urged to root for website". Cambridge Evening News. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  27. "CycleStreets: UK-wide Cycle Journey Planner and Photomap". Geovation. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
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