Marco Quaggiotto

BikeDistrict - The Smart City by Bicycle

Crowdsourced Tools to Support Urban Cyclists and Urban Bike Planning

Abstract

In the context of the optimization of resources to devote to bicycle mobility, the two-years experience of the BikeDistrict project will be presented.

BikeDistrict is primarily a web and mobile application working as a free navigation tool, suggesting the urban bike-friendly paths. An intelligent "street rating" system has been developed for the BikeDistrict map interface with the double purpose of:

• allowing the complete customization of the bike path, according to the specific needs of the user,
• contemporarily collect and aggregate users "street ratings" to better inform the routing algorithm, and the bike network database, with the final aim of providing the best possible routes for the different categories of urban cyclists.

BikeDistrict is then configured as an urban bike mobility monitoring and analysis device. BikeDistrict has the ability to identify critical infrastructural gaps, to evaluate the potential benefits of specific interventions on the bicycle network and in general to support the planning activities by providing real-time-data and analysis related to the infrastructure condition and demand patterns. BikeDistrict is capable of collecting valuable information about the bike mobility demand (e.g 400 000 origin/destination itineraries in the city of Milan during) and regarding the perception of quality of the road infrastructure and the bike facilities, expressed directly by the bike users.

About the author

Marco Quaggiotto has a PhD in Industrial Design and Multimedia Communication and is currently a lecturer and research fellow at the Polytechnic of Milan. He is also co-founder of BikeDistrict.