As mentioned previously on this blog, we were delighted to be involved in the ‘Late’ at the Science Museum on Wednesday August 31 as part of the ‘Our Lives in Data’ exhibition. It was great to see hundreds of people coming along to enjoy the TfL display, as we demonstrated some of the practical benefits of using our data resources to improve our customers’ experiences.
Bringing our data to life
We had many practical examples of how our data can be used to improve the experience of our customers when they are travelling around London, and here are some of the highlights of the TfL display:
- Interactive Oyster data display – this showed travel patterns, including where people travel to and from. Visitors could select a station and see the volume of entries and exits, busiest times at the station, and so on.
- iPad quiz – visitors could take part in a quiz, with 10 questions on travel information to test how well they know transport in London.
- A Phd student from MIT (USA) – discussing his research project, and how planned improvements and regeneration can have a local and economical impact, e.g. accessibility of jobs.
- Pedestrian sensor – a display of how a pedestrian sensor can work, for example detecting the number of people waiting at lights, which means the ‘green man’ is displayed for longer.
- Modelling teams – London Underground and Surface Transport teams showed how they use 3D modelling from datasets for huge tasks such as designing stations and redesigning the road network.
- TfL Online – members of the Online team were there to discuss how we use open data with partners to develop innovative products to tackle transport challenges.
- Bus technology team – there was a demonstration of how we can use data on vehicles and on bus stops, such as route information, disruptions on the road and on other modes, such as Tube lines when the bus stops at a station.
We’d like to thank everyone who came along, and we hope you enjoyed our demonstration of how data can improve the experience of our customers. If you were there, please leave us a comment below to let us know what you thought of the event. Keep an eye on this blog for news of other events coming up.
I actually read the report and is very informative
All these ways for data gathering could be extremely helpful for different businesses and common folk.