1. FixMyStreet: a useful tool for councillors

    At FixMyStreet there’s nothing we like better than to see….well, streets being fixed!

    And we especially like it when people share a couple of good ‘before and after’ photos. It proves the system is working, and also helps more people discover FixMyStreet and understand what it can do.

    Here’s one that we spotted recently. First the Oxfordshire Cycling Network posted a delighted tweet to show that a path had been repaired –

    Tweet with a photo to show a nicely repaired join between cycle path and road

    – upon which, Oxford city councillor Anna Railton replied to say she’d reported it on FixMyStreet, with an image of how it had been previously:

    Photo of a cycle path joining the main road with a big rut/puddle where the two join

    We were interested to hear more about how a councillor uses FixMyStreet, so we asked Anna, who said: “I use it quite a lot. The location plus photo combination, and the fact you don’t have to work out where to send it, is invaluable.

    “It’s very good in two (or more) tier authorities where I don’t always have direct access to the right officers.”

    Anna’s right when she says that FixMyStreet routes reports to the right authority to deal with them: even if you live in an area that has, say, a city council and a county council, it knows which one deals with which types of issue — and sends your reports to National Highways where appropriate, too.

    But councillors don’t have to do all the hard work themselves: everyone in the area can also, of course, report anything that needs putting right, giving the council the benefit of many eyes on the ground as people go about their daily business. 

    “I do plug it a lot with residents!” says Anna.

    Councillors can also find the FixMyStreet local alerts very handy in their work. This free service sends you an email every time a new report is made within a defined area. 

    Not only can they see what new issues are being reported, but over time they can also get a good overview of what problems are most common, or recurring. One option is to sign up for all reports within a specific ward, which is ideal for councillors — or anyone who’s interested in their own neighbourhood.

    Thanks very much to Anna for letting us know how she uses FixMyStreet: we hope we can help bring many more smooth rides for the cyclists of Oxfordshire.

  2. Freedom of Information as a tool for making cycle routes more accessible

    The Equality Act of 2010 requires that disabled people are not disadvantaged by any ‘provision, criterion or practice’. You might be familiar with its implications in the workplace or in providing customer services, but the law also applies to the public realm.

    If we’re thinking about streets, for example, certain clauses of this Act mean that councils have a duty to ensure that access is as easy for a disabled person as it is for anyone else.

    We’ve recently become aware of people making good use of our Freedom of Information site WhatDoTheyKnow to challenge cycle routes that are impassable for some, for example where a cyclist would have to dismount to get past, or where an adapted bike or tricycle would not fit through the space allowed.

    “I’m honestly shocked at how easily FOI can get results”

    The request-makers identify barriers to access, and ask the relevant authorities to confirm that all requirements of the Equality Act have been adhered to in their implementation, from the carrying out of an impact assessment to the making of ‘allowances and accommodations’ for those that need them.

    It’s easy to find such requests by searching for the term “Was an Equality Impact Assessment carried out at this location” on WhatDoTheyKnow, which brings up several examples.

    These FOI requests have been inspired by  a request-maker going by the name of Heavy Metal Handcyclist, who provides a template for others to use as an example — and whose WhatDoTheyKnow account shows him using the Act to very good effect himself, as for example with this request picking up on some obstructive barriers in Warrington. And he gets results: in this case the issue was dealt with constructively by the authority concerned; and a request to Warwickshire County Council will mean that some ill-placed new barriers in Clifton upon Dunsmore, Rugby will be removed:

    Tweet from the Heavy Metal Handcyclist as seen at https://twitter.com/CrippledCyclist/status/1418242775443808257

    We came across this little seam of activism thanks to an article by Jamie Wood, in which the author writes affectingly about how cycling has returned to him some degree of the independence and mobility that his Multiple Sclerosis took away: he goes on to say, however, that there are frequent frustrations in the form of paths blocked by thoughtlessly-placed bollards, posts and barriers that he can’t navigate on his tricycle. Constructive engagement and polite letters to his local council didn’t do the trick, and so he turned to activism.

    “In the vast majority of cases, an FOI request should be enough, with no need to resort to legal means.”

    Describing his learning curve, Jamie pointed to the Heavy Metal Handcyclist as well as to this letter on Doug Paulley’s DART website  — which brings us full circle, as Doug is a WhatDoTheyKnow volunteer as well as an accomplished campaigner on accessibility for disabled people.

    As Doug quotes on his site, court cases have established that:

    The policy of the (Equality Act) is not a minimalist policy of simply ensuring that some access is available to the disabled: it is, so far as reasonably practicable, to approximate the access enjoyed by disabled persons to that enjoyed by the rest of the public.

    We admire the level of knowledge and clarity in these requests and we hope that they bring good results. At the same time, we recognise that this sort of work shouldn’t be left purely to the disabled people who are affected by blockades and impediments: we can all keep an eye open for where such barriers may be making paths impassible for some. And, thanks to the examples linked to in this post, it is simple enough for us all to follow their lead.

    As Jamie says, “It’s the Equality Act itself that can be only be used by people directly affected; anyone can make an FOI request”.

    He also points us towards this report from the York Cycle Campaign, released last week, identifying more than 30 places across the city where the requirements of Equality Act have not been met. Kate Ravilious from the campaign says, “If City of York Council does not step into gear and rectify the problems, they will be forced to take legal action, which could end up with the council having to fork out as much as £50,000 for every person that pursues action via the small claims court.”

    But Jamie points out that Freedom of Information is a softer and sometimes more effective first step towards getting these issues fixed: “In the vast majority of cases, an FOI request should be enough, with no need to resort to legal means.”

    The Heavy Metal Handcyclist agrees:

    “Whilst it is true that local authorities continue to install barriers to access despite their S.149 obligations, it is entirely possible to force almost immediate removal of barriers both new and predating the EA2010 by using a sufficiently pointy FOI request. To date, only one authority has needed further legal action, with officers in almost all the others immediately recognising the problem and addressing the issue quickly. I’m honestly shocked at how easily FOI can get results in this regard.

    “WhatDoTheyKnow has been an excellent tool to catalogue and track FOI requests, particularly with regards to time limits.”

    Image: York Cycle Campaign

  3. A data refresh for Collideoscope

    As Zarino explained in his recent blog post, we’ve recently spent time talking to road safety advocates and cycling groups, as we prepare for some big improvements to Collideoscope.

    This has resulted in a shortlist of the tickets we’ll be working on, which you’re welcome to browse (and comment on, though this requires a GitHub account).

    Collideoscope, like many mySociety projects, is a website of two halves. On the one hand, it invites those involved in a cycling collision or near miss to contribute information to a database; on the other, it provides an output of all that aggregated data for planners, researchers, campaigners and anyone else who will find it useful.

    We’ll shortly be making some changes to the site so that its purpose and functionality are crystal clear; but in the meanwhile the next important step was to import the most recent batch of STATS19 data.

    STATS19 is the form the police fill in when road accidents are reported, lending its name to the dataset released annually by the Department of Transport. We include this data on Collideoscope alongside our users’ reports: we just take the reports which refer to cycling incidents, and with this latest update we’re now displaying everything from 2013 up to 2016, the most recent data available.

    That means, when you browse the site, you can see at a glance how many incidents have occurred in a specific area, not just from our users but from the primary national accident database too. Just click the checkbox (‘show reports from the Department of Transport’) at the top of the page to include them on the map.

    So that’s our most recent bit of housekeeping; now watch this space for some bigger changes to Collideoscope.

    Image: Charisse Kenion

  4. An update on our Collideoscope research

    So the last time we blogged about Collideoscope—our cycling collision and near miss reporting service, based on the FixMyStreet Platform—we’d just begun an exciting new phase of exploratory work, looking into how well the site currently meets user needs around collision prevention, and whether it could do more, for instance, in helping cyclists campaign for better safety measures, or helping police collect collision reports more efficiently.

    Since then, we’ve conducted a series of interviews, both with cyclists and campaign groups in the Merseyside area, as well as road safety data specialists from further afield, and also West Midlands Police, whose approach to cycle safety has garnered much praise over the last few years.

    One-on-one interviews are a part of the user centred design toolkit that we use a lot at mySociety, when we’re early on in a project, and just want to map out the process or problems people face, without jumping to conclusions over how they could be solved right now.

    In this case, we used the interviews to improve our understanding of five main areas:

    • The physical process of reporting a collision, or a near miss, to the police.
    • What incentives / disincentives cyclists have faced when reporting.
    • How police forces currently deal with collision reports, and near miss reports.
    • What role video recordings can play in reports / prosecutions, and what legal considerations need to be made, to prevent video damaging the case.
    • What data cycle safety campaigners currently use, and what new data they feel could improve their case when arguing for better cycling provision.

    The experiences, anecdotes, and connections we collect from interviews like these help us shape our thinking about how to build or improve our products, as well as highlighting particular avenues that need more research, or that we can start prototyping right away.

    Take video camera footage, for instance. A number of Collideoscope users have asked that we allow them to upload clips from their helmet- or handlebar-mounted cameras, along with their reports.

    But, on the other hand, we’d also heard a lot about how police forces were wary of collecting video footage, and especially worried about online videos damaging the chances of successful prosecutions in court.

    Our recent interviews showed us the line isn’t quite so clear – savvy police forces realise video evidence is hard to argue with in court, and they want people to submit videos as often as possible. In reality, if a claim reaches court, it’s not the presence of videos online that poses a problem, but the finger-pointing or speculation that often accompanies online footage in the comments section below the video, or in social media posts. This was fascinating to hear, and immediately gave us ideas as to the changes we might need to make, to protect the integrity of video evidence, if we allowed cyclists to upload clips to Collideoscope.

    It was also interesting speaking to campaigners about how the data collected by Collideoscope could help them raise the profile of cycle safety in their local areas, or on a national scale – especially data about near misses, something not covered by the UK’s official STATS19 dataset. We’re going to investigate how we could bring some of our boundary-related reporting expertise from MapIt and FixMyStreet onto Collideoscope, to help policy makers compare safety efforts in different areas, and help campaigners and councillors raise concerns over dangerous hotspots.

    Later this month, we’ll begin prototyping how some of the things we‘ve learned could work their way into Collideoscope. We’re also particularly keen to investigate the technical feasibility of integrating directly into police incident reporting products, such as the Egress-powered Operation Snap used by police forces in Wales and soon, hopefully, other forces in the UK.

    As before though, our research is by no means complete, so if you have expertise in this field, and would like to be consulted or participate in the project, we’d love to hear from you.

  5. Recycling Collideoscope

    In 2014, along with Integrated Transport Planning (ITP), we created Collideoscope — a service based on our FixMyStreet Platform to map collisions and near misses between motor vehicles and cyclists.

    Through a mix of imported Department of Transport Data and user submitted reports, the service highlighted potential dangerous hotspots before cyclists were killed or seriously injured.

    Since the launch of Collideoscope, cycling has seen even more of an increase in popularity, and we suspect that there have been numerous new initiatives and campaigns developed to highlight and tackle the dangers faced by cyclists through insufficient provision of safe cycling infrastructure and dangerous driving.

    So a recent approach from the Merseyside Road Safety Partnership (MRSP) was of great interest: they wanted to explore how we might revisit this task and determine if Collideoscope still has a role to play — or whether some other approach might be more beneficial.

    Over the next three months, with the help of funding from MRSP, we plan to carry out a fresh discovery exercise to identify up to date user needs around collision prevention, and also determine how well served these issues are already by other similar initiatives around the country.

    In addition to speaking to cyclists, campaign groups and safety experts, we’ll also be working with MRSP and in particular the Cycling Safety team within Merseyside Police to better understand how submission of reports can actually contribute to the development of actionable policy.

    We’d also like to better understand the process of evidence submission, especially video evidence, in cases of near misses and collisions, and improve how that might lead to appropriate enforcement action.

    For the moment we’re approaching all of this with a very open mind. We’re not going to assume that Collideoscope as it currently exists is necessarily the correct approach, and even if it does have a role to play we suspect it may need to be substantially altered to cater to any newly identified user needs.

    Whilst this exploratory part of the project is going to be centred on Merseyside, we’re keen to hear from groups across the country and if you’d like to be consulted or participate in the research we would be keen to hear from you.

    In the meantime, ride safe and we’ll update with progress reports over the next few weeks.

    Photo by Roman Koester on Unsplash

  6. Catching up with Collideoscope

    It’s been a while since we looked in on Collideoscope, our project for reporting and collating data on cycling collisions and near misses, developed in collaboration with ITP. But what better time than now, when days are short and accidents have unfortunately, as always at this time of year, taken a sharp upturn.

    So, let’s have a catch-up, and a reminder that you should use the service. Of course, we hope you won’t experience any problems, but remember that Collideoscope is there if you do.

    Previously on Collideoscope…

    As you may recall, Collideoscope is a site for reporting cycling incidents, collisions and near misses. Because it’s built on the FixMyStreet platform, it offers all the same functionality for the user: it’ll help you to pinpoint the precise location of the incident you’re reporting, and then send the details off to the relevant authorities.

    When cyclists make a report, they’re contributing to an open dataset that improves the quality of the evidence base on cycling incidents.

    While FixMyStreet sends reports off to councils, Collideoscope sends reports to local authorities’ highways departments, with the aim of highlighting potential accident blackspots.

    The data, after going through an anonymisation process, is also shared with campaign groups.

    Finally, the anonymised data is also available for anyone to download via Socrata, to be used for any purpose. One potential project we’d love to see, for example, would be route-planning applications to help cyclists avoid going through areas with a high density of incidents.

    Image by Rob. A road sign showing a cyclist being thrown off his bike because of an uneven road surfaceThe data is also available to researchers, town planners and the police: when cyclists make a report, they’re contributing to an open dataset that improves the quality of the evidence base on cycling incidents.

    So, that’s the model. Let’s have a look at how well it has stood up.

    Data quantity

    Collideoscope launched in October 2014 and users have thus far made a total of 1,195 reports.

    In order to provide a more complete dataset with the clearest possible indicators of accident hotspots, we also imported STATS19 data from the annually-updated open police database of accidents, meaning that Collideoscope now contains data points on over 20,000 incidents across the UK.

    Here’s what we’ve learned

    Steering a project from concept to reality is always a learning process. Here are some of the key lessons that emerged:

    • Collideoscope sends each report to authorities as it is submitted. It became clear that a bulk dataset would be easier for highways authorities to handle and to draw conclusions from, and this is now available.
    • Originally, we’d believed that it would be useful if Collideoscope could forward reports to local police forces, so that they could be actioned where suitable. However, this proved impractical, because the Road Traffic Act states that collisions must be reported to a police officer in person. Collideoscope’s data would not be sufficient for police to take action on those cases which merited it.
    • There was some concern that reports made via Collideoscope would replicate, rather than complement, the police force’s official STATS19 data. Happily, once enough reports had come into Collideoscope, a comparison was run and found that there is very little overlap between the two datasets.

    While STATS19 data tends to cover serious incidents, it doesn’t hold much on the near miss or minor incidents that Collideoscope encourages users to also report  — and which make up 90% of the Collideoscope database. One of the underlying beliefs behind Collideoscope has always been that near miss data can tell us a lot about accident prevention.

    Changes afoot

    ITP have now stepped away from Collideoscope: we’re extremely grateful for their collaboration and support with the development and running of Collideoscope in its first couple of years. This move will mean that we can pursue funding from charitable grant foundations.

    As you may recall from prior updates, the site was also supported by the Barts Bespoke campaign, a multi-pronged initiative to reduce accidents for cyclists. This support, and a further research grant from the Department for Transport, came to an end last month. As a result, we’ll no longer be asking people about injuries sustained when they file a Collideoscope report.

    Collideoscope will keep on rolling: we’re open to potential partners and have plenty of ideas for further development, including the possibility of a public API, or incident-reporting forms that could be placed on any website.

    If you’re from a local government, third sector or private company, and you’re interested in using Collideoscope data to enable better decision making on cycle safety, this’d be a great time to get in touch.


    Images:
    This hill is dangerous by John Kennedy (CC by-nc/2.0)
    Falling off bike sign by Rob (CC by-nc-sa/2.0)

  7. Show your commitment to cycle safety – sponsor Collideoscope

    Dunsmuir Separated Bike Lane by Paul KruegerCollideoscope, our new tool for reporting and gathering data on cycle accidents, launched this week.

    As we mentioned in our launch blog post, the first phase has been sponsored by Barts and the London Charity’s Bespoke Study. They’ll be using the data gathered through the site to provide them with ground-breaking insights into accident prevention in the East of London.

    Would your organisation benefit from such data – or just from association with the Collideoscope project? We’re actively seeking new sponsors to make Collideoscope as good as it can be, and we’re offering a few options:

    Marquee Sponsorship

    Are you an organisation that wants to make a visible impact on cycle safety? Then you might consider Marquee sponsorship.

    We’re asking for contributions of £6,500 for 12 months’ support of the site. In return, we’ll display your logo as one of up to four prominent sponsors on Collideoscope’s sponsor page, with a brief message about your motivations or involvement in the project.

    We can also email you anonymised notifications of reports in any combination of cities, districts, London boroughs and counties to aid your own research.

    Partner Level Sponsorship

    Or would your organisation simply like to help us improve Collideoscope? We’d love to hear from you.

    £3,500 covers 12 months’ support at this level. Your logo will also appear on the Sponsors page, but less prominently than the Marquee option, and without supporting text. You’ll also be able to opt for notifications of reports in your chosen areas.

    Notifications Service

    Are you a local council, town-planner, cycling charity, campaign group or club?

    If so then you may be interested in receiving anonymised reports as they are made, within a defined area of your choice – within a single ward, across a whole council area, or even the whole country.

    This option is available for a one-off contribution of £250, and does not expire.

    Where do I sign?

    If you’re interested in become a sponsor, fill out our sponsorship form and we’ll be in touch as soon as we can.

    Something Else?

    Are you interested in publishing incident reports on your own site? Do you know someone who might benefit from our work? Or would you like to write about Collideoscope in your publication? Then get in touch.

    Thanks for reading – and please do pass this post on to contacts who might be interested.

    Image: Paul Krueger (CC)

     

     

  8. Collideoscope: collating cycle accident data

    Just how safe is your area for cyclists?

    You can check the accident statistics for one answer to that question, but for every serious accident, there may be hundreds more near misses. And if the cyclists, drivers, and pedestrians involved don’t report them, that data is lost forever.

    Collideoscope Enter Collideoscope

    Launching today, Collideoscope aims to collect data on everything from full-on cycle accidents to near-misses.

    We’re encouraging anyone involved in an incident to record it on the site, so that we can share it with Highways Departments, police forces, cycle campaigns and even healthcare providers.

    In short, Collideoscope will amplify the impact of individuals’ reports, and improve understanding of factors affecting cycle safety in the UK.

    Familiar but different

    Collideoscope’s interface will be very familiar to those who have used FixMyStreet. That’s because it’s built using the same technology, where a user places a pin in a map to show where a problem occurred, and the system sends the report off to the right authority – in this case, the Highways department and/or the local police.

    But there’s more to Collideoscope than just reporting accidents. Our first sponsors, Barts & The London Charity, will use it to collect data to go towards the Bespoke project. Barts and TLC is an innovative charity which – among many other activities – supports research and technology that will improve healthcare within their local NHS trust, and Bespoke is a multi-pronged initiative to reduce accidents for cyclists.

    Collideoscope is also a bit different to the existing tools and campaigns out there. Just like FixMyStreet, Collideoscope publishes all reports openly, so anyone can browse them with no log-in required. And, while many of the mySociety team are keen cyclists of one sort or another, we are not campaigners – so Collideoscope does not aim to change anyone’s mind or make the case for better cycling provisions.

    Instead, the idea is simply to share the data as widely as possible, increasing public knowledge about what’s effective in road safety, and what set-ups appear to make accidents more likely.

    Data to the rescue

    Demonstration of a user reporting an incident Over time, Collideoscope will show close misses and actual accidents across the country, building up a geographic picture of dangerous hotspots for cyclists. This data can be sliced in multiple ways – so for example, you could isolate all the accidents within a specific council’s boundaries, or look at them month by month.

    Barts and TLC will be taking this data, and adding it to data on cycling injuries which they’ll be collecting in the emergency department at the Royal London Hospital. The final, joined up picture, will seek to find insight among such factors as whether the cyclist was wearing high-vis clothing, the surrounding road layouts, potholes in the area, and the type of vehicles involved.

    Once all this data is in place, of course, the next step will be to make recommendations about how future accidents can be prevented. So for example, if a certain type of road layout is implicated in a large proportion of accidents, well, maybe that type of road layout should be phased out. Barts and TLC see the potential for extending the project in the future, looking into playground accidents, falls, and even street violence.

    Better Together

    Collideoscope is a partnership between mySociety and Integrated Transport Planning Ltd. With the time mySociety and ITP have invested and the support from our first sponsor Barts and the London Charity we have developed and launched the site, but we have so much more we’d like to do. We are seeking further sponsors as the project goes forward; if you’re interested in supporting then please get in touch.

    Meanwhile – be safe out there. And in the unfortunate eventuality that you are not, have a cup of sweet tea, and then remember to log your accident or near miss on Collideoscope.