Join us for this innovative cycling hackathon, bringing people together to develop ideas to monitor and improve cycling for all in Oxford and beyond. Come with an interest in delving into a problem and designing diverse and creative solutions in a new and exciting way.

The event is open to anyone who is interested: you do not need to be a cyclist to come along, and you do not need to know about data. Perhaps you have an innovative idea for the shared economy; perhaps you find the collection of and application of data fascinating; perhaps you want to cycle but fear for your safety and would like to help to improve our city’s transport network; perhaps you’re just curious about the hackathon process and want to come and find out more.  Whatever your reason, you’re very welcome to join in the fun.

Why are we doing this? 

Building on discussion at our event in the summer (‘Can you see the future of cycling in Oxford?’, 18 June 2015) , it has become clear that there is a knowledge or data-gap around cycling in the county, and this is holding us back from taking effective action to improve the experience.

For example, have you ever had trouble finding a good place to park your bike? Bike storage can seem like a challenge in the city, and it is something which we could take practical action to improve. However the fact is we don’t actually currently understand how much of a challenge it is. The same can be said for cycling safety. We simply lack the data to truly understand the depth of the problem (if it is in fact a real problem at all).

How you can help

To enable us as a city to take constructive and targeted action to make cycling in Oxford great, we want YOU to help us answer the following questions:

• What do we want/need to know about cycling in Oxford? 
• How can we capture the information that we need?
• And how can we put this data to practical use?

Before we can support behaviour change, we need to understand behaviour. Examples of projects and results which the data could help us realise in future include: bike sharing schemes; improved bike parking across the county; new education initiatives, including more targeted bike buddying; improved safety and infrastructure; fewer abandoned bikes; a better understanding of congestion and real-time journey planning for bikes; innovative research…

So, how do we go about collecting data? This is where you come in. How would you go about designing a programme to collect this data?

Perhaps you have an interest in the technical side of the process and want to explore how we go about collecting the data. Ideas might include a smartphone app; a cunning gadget attached to each bike; or maybe you have a completely different idea…

Link: Pedalling Innovation