We're working on enabling GPS route tracking in our app... a superb way to donate your spare time to generate valuable data sets. Imagine this:
Crowdsource Your Ped/Bike Route
As you begin your commute to work (via ped or bike), you launch The Extraordinaries on your phone and press "Track Route." Every 20 seconds, your GPS coordinates are sent to the server. At the end of your commute, you press Stop. You then tag & rate your route for a variety of factors: safety, scenic-ness, physical difficultly, your mood on this route.
So, now we've got the holy grail for GIS-geeks: data. We can see route heatmaps, average commute time, safe routes, dangerous routes, hilly routes, fun routes, miserable routes, desire lines. You can put this data in the hands of the geeks and see what they come up with.
We can imagine a whole array of (non-Extraordinary) uses for this data either online or on another iphone app:
* Show me a scenic route that is safe
* Show me a physically challenging route that makes people happy
* Show me how to get downtown via a highly rated walking route
* Give me a hilly 60 mile cycling loop from the Golden Gate Bridge.
* Give me a flat 40 mile route from from my house that passes the beach
* Show me how to commute to work in the fewest minutes by ped or bike
* Shake the phone and show me a random new fun route
To close the feedback loop with the Extraordinary user, maybe we can display a bumper page that shows how many routes have been submitted along with a summary of the user's commute data - such as average time, time leave every morning, etc - interesting data to make the user feel like they're doing good for their city - and also getting some valuable personal information. Maybe we can list all of the other apps that have been created with the data that they've contributed to. Or we can suggest alternate routes submitted by other users who live nearby.
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Since coming up with this idea, we've found a couple of orgs creating similar apps. I'll use this post to list those I find. If you know of any, please post a comment.
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"Cars at the Mobile Century command center in Union City head out on their 10-mile driving route on I-880. The drivers, all UC Berkeley students, carried GPS-enabled cell phones that transmitted speed and position information to researchers at the command center, creating a nearly real-time picture of traffic flow.
There is currently no projected date for commercial launch of such a system, but when it does become available, its benefits could be huge. In the United States alone, traffic congestion leads to 4.2 billion hours in extra travel time and an extra 2.9 billion gallons of fuel burned, for a total cost of $78 billion, according to a 2007 report from the Texas Transportation Institute. With the number of vehicles on the road increasing rapidly around the world, a cost-effective method of travel planning could help drivers make smarter decisions about which routes to take, the researchers say.
Today's experiment was supported by a $186,000 grant from Caltrans. Additional support came from the National Science Foundation, Nokia, Tekes, the University of California Transportation Center and the Volvo Center of Excellence for Future Urban Transport at UC Berkeley's Institute of Transportation Studies, which is also home to CCIT."
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