Visualisations for the England Cycling Data project

Visualisations for the England Cycling Data project

As part of ongoing efforts for the England Cycling Data project, we’ve been keen to get visualisations done, to show the extent of the data and to show where merging needs to be done.

Shaun from ITOworld – who are experts in the collection, management, analysis and presentation of complex transport data – has been working on such visualisations.

In terms of showing already-merged data, ITO Map now contains various visualisations that show the DfT data appearing in OSM in places where merging has been done.

For example this visualisation of cycleway widths, showing Nottingham, where 84% of ways have been assessed by local mappers (great work!) :

However, to assist mappers, we are keen for visualisations which show where merging work remains to be done.

Using the raw data from the Snapshot Server (which serves the data, that is in OSM-aligned and has an OSM tag structure), Shaun has combined the data from each region into a single file, and rendered this with Mapnik. The result is a basic map showing the location of streets, roads and paths having data:

OSM-aligned DfT cycling data locations for Cambridge:

As you can see in the next screenshot, there is considerable richness in the underlying data. For instance, the section highlighted in blue shows whether the location (here: Cheapside, Central London) is lit, as well as the widths of cycle lanes, and a surface indication:

Some of the data dates back upto three years, and so the locations of streets that form the Local Cycle Networks are sometimes more comprehensive and joined up in OSM as new cycle network signage or paths have appeared.

However, in most cases, the data that is present in the DfT dataset is richer (with widths, surface, lighting information). Also, the DfT data certainly has paths that have not made it into OSM yet in some parts of the country.

1 (left) – OSM OpenCycleMap – cycle network shown in blue, and paths as red/blue dashes.
2 (right) – DfT data – showing the locations of where attributes exist.

 

The next steps will be to import the data into ITO Map, with similar visualisations to those visualisations created for comparing OS Vectormap District (Open Data) with OSM data.

Stay tuned for another update soon!

Shaun and Simon looking at the visualisation: