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Dublin Frequent Transport Map complete and up for sale!

Colin Broderick — Sat, 19 May 2012 13:58:06 +0000

Just a quick post for this glorious Saturday on which Leinster are going to kick arse! My Frequent Transport Map is now up for sale over on my portfolio website – cbroderick.me/dublin_transport_map

The idea is you pay 5 euro and you get a digital copy of the map which you can print and do what you like with! And in return I will provide you with 1 year of free updates to the map, by reissuing the updated map to you any time fare information or routes change throughout the 1 year period from when you first purchase!

Hope you like it, and will buy some copies to help fund the still continuing complete Dublin Transport Map, showing all the routes!

Keep in touch

That’s it for today! Don’t forget you can get your daily dose of me through my twitter @Rusty1052 and your daily Irish Planning News courtesy the paper.li aggregator.

Not down with any of these new things? Or maybe you would like to offer me a job or use my services? Well sure just drop me an email at colinb@dt106ers.com. Will be great to hear from you! (Whoever you maybe).

Peace out planners!

[Movie Thursday] Brendan Finn on BRT

Colin Broderick — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 07:30:40 +0000

Movie thursday might have fallen a bit to the wayside in the last few weeks but it’s back with a bang! First up we have Brendan Finn, who is a wonderful speaker, talking about Bus Rapid Transit and what it could do for your city in this case, Dublin. I first saw Brendan speak when I was doing my thesis at a CILT Event. I was blown away by the work on Buses with a high level of service, it formed quiet a significant part of the assumptions I made during my study as to the levels of service that could be provided on the orbital network.

Brendan makes some key points about Dublin; NAMA will hold a awful lot of sway when it comes to future transit development and Dublin is completely lacking in terms of Orbital services (finally nice to see it recorded in a video!). So I urge you take a few minutes and watch the video below! Presentation Slides to follow along with.

The other presentations are available at – SPATIAL PLANNERS GRADUATE NETWORK SET THE FUTURE PLANNING AGENDA FOR DUBLIN CITY

To Norway

A country whose population recently reached that epic figure of 5 million people, which Ireland ain’t far behind. So keeping the transport theme alive in all its tilt-shift glory, I leave you with Norway a country almost as spread out as Ireland.

Tiny Capital - https://vimeo.com/39470129 (in case the video does not work)

Links I liked 13/02/2012

Colin Broderick — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 13:45:03 +0000

I’ve been a bit quiet on the blog over the last week, totally skimping on the resolution to write two posts a week minimum! However I have been a wee bit busy, compiling my complete Dublin Transport Map the work in progress shots can be seen over on the tumblrverse

City Parks

Following on from the Public Realm Strategy submission by the greens, a friend of mine sent me on a link to a wonderful artcile by National Geographic on the public parks that adorn the streets of Paris:

Urban Downtime
The City of Light is also a city of green, with a panoply of parks and gardens where Parisians rest and rejuvenate.

Wind Farms

The Guardian DATA Blog has again outdone itself by producing a map of all the windfarms located within the UK. I plan on taking their data and Irish Windfarms to the map, if anyone wants to help out that would be fantastic, just let me know via twitter or email.

Copenhagen

Copenhagenize this weeks carriers an interesting discussion on the new congestion ring being proposed to reduce the volumes of traffic in central copenhagen

Human Transit has arrived!

Finally, amazon got off there backside and shipped my copy of Jarrett Walker’s new book, Human Transit. Initial impressions are its fantastic, certainly a comprehensive pocket guide for those interested in transport planning and how anyone can get involved in the debate and brush away the technical mumbo jumbo. I shall be writing a review of it in the coming weeks with any luck so, stay tuned!

Some Charity – Love Dublin Festival

A friend of mine asked me to put on note up regarding St Vincent De Pauls upcoming event Love Dublin Festival – Checkout the Facebook event for more info by clicking the image below.

Keep in touch

Get your daily dose of me through my twitter @Rusty1052, your daily Irish Planning News courtesy the paper.li aggregator.

Peace out planners!

Leapcard has still got some living up to do!

Colin Broderick — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 07:30:17 +0000

Ok this post is all about blowing off some steam about some of the flaws in the current implementation of the leap card system. Let’s put this way, i’m not entirely sure what’s the point in it being “live” when these issues are present, as I consider them pretty much fundamental to the the usability of the system. So instead of just venting on this here blog I decided I would pop off a nice construcive email to the folks at leapcard.ie HQ.

Below is the email I sent this morning with added pictures for blogging posterity cus who likes to read just a bunch of text!

Leap Card Feedback

My name is Colin Broderick and I’ve recently purchased a leap card and have been mostly satisfied with its ease of use on Dublin Bus and Luas services. However there are a number of issues which detract considerably from what can be a fantastic product and are as follows.

Your website (leapcard.ie) is not user friendly in that it’s navigation structure is very difficult to navigate, this is especially evident when you login to the “My account area”.

When one is logged in it is not immediately apparent what services are available. The only difference that is apparent upon staring at the screen for a number of minutes is two extra items on the left navigation bar. Clicking the manage my profile link on the right, brings you to a page where the main body has information which is irrelevant for the main purpose of being logged in, such as what is a Leapcard, newsletter signup and info on getting your Irish rail /Luas card as a leap.

This is the screen you are presented with after login. Useless.

It is not immediately apparent where one can view their Leapcard balance, this is hidden in a sub menu only available when you click manage my profile, which frankly does not link to any sort of profile management either. Another issue is that when signed in and one returns to the root page/main page (leapcard.ie) the extra navigation options are not present in the left nav bar.

This is the page you get when you click "Manage my Profile" after login

This can be simply remedied through the sign in redirecting to the accounts page such as a user/account dashboard showing total money spent through leap or monthly money spent alongside a current balance and possibly a list of last three journeys. Navigation links for the actions available during login should be moved to the right hand navigation, where the login box was.

I like the majority (some 68%) of the population in Dublin use the Dublin Bus service for my public transport needs, I live in north county Dublin near the airport and as such do not live nor work near a Luas stop or Irish rail station. As such I cannot check the balance of my leap card without registering online, where I believe the details in which must be provided are onerous (i.e. having to provide a date of birth and full address). And if one does not have a credit card or laser card you cannot complete a registration as bank details must be provided. I do not understand why there is no facility to simply query the balance of a card online?

Top Up online is not topping up online as far as I can make out. Similar to the last point, what’s the point of providing this facility when I still have to visit a Payzone outlet or a Luas or Irish rail station in order to “activate” my top up. You already have the money, it just defeats the purpose of online top up. Surely the balance can be disseminated throughout the card reader system, including those on the buses.

As regards, buying a Leapcard, I had no issues as I ordered it online and it arrived two days later with a nice information leaflet on how to use the card. However another family member of mine purchased their card at a Payzone location in the Dublin 9 area and only received a card with no information leaflet. Is a customer meant to only receive a card or are they to receive a card and information leaflet exactly like those ordered from leapcard.ie?

One final issue I have is as regards the woolly statements provided as regards future functionality specifically travel rebates, the wording only suggests that changing between modes will be rebated, such as changing from bus to Luas or Luas to Dart, etc. There is no mention of rebates for multiple journeys on bus, such as getting a bus to town from the south-side like the 14 and then changing to an airport bus like the 41. I assume since the system appears to be modelled on that of London’s Oyster card, will there be a flat rate Bus charge introduced instead of multiple fares with a rebate after like 5 journeys?

While I understand the leap card is in its infancy and there will be teething problems and issues to iron out, however I cannot understand how the product was released across the city without these services being fully functioning.

To end on a positive note I really like the leap card and really hats off to you for finally getting some semblance of a combined transport card out into the open for Dublin. I hope this can seen as constructive feedback.

Kind Regards
Colin Broderick

If you have any gripes with the leap card, I would love to hear them! Comments below.

Keep in touch

Get your daily dose of me through my twitter @Rusty1052, your daily Irish Planning News courtesy the paper.li aggregator.

Peace out planners!

What’s the story like? 1/2012

Colin Broderick — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 09:30:17 +0000

It’s a new year, its a new dawn and all that stuff and i need a job! Hello 2012, may you be a good one! Well kicked off the year with my first ever web application competition entry for the #Apps4Fingal competition. You may have see my entry, it’s UrbanRural and i’m going to give it a shameless plug below again. I would really love to win the competition!

I would also advise you to check out all the other entries, some fantastic ideas providing food for thought in the ideas section and some great apps!

UrbanRural – Built on Heritage

Given that everyone seems to be mad into searching their family trees and establishing their personal histories, I figured why wouldn’t they be interested in their local area also. There’s a lot of built heritage out there that most people may never of known existed right in there back garden. UrbanRural aims to change that! I would be grateful if you could check out my entry and like it, spread the word, whatever!

The problem with Irish Planning is….

We don’t have enough documents like this one kindly retweeted by Dominic Byrne.

Very interesting paper on Participation in #SpatialPlanning (for both content & presentation) ow.ly/8sGDg via @rusty1052

— Dominic Byrne (@Dominic__Byrne) January 14, 2012

Open publication – Free publishing – More participation

My Dissertation is now available online

Open publication – Free publishing – More brt

For those of you interested in transport may want to have a read of my undergraduate dissertation which is now available online at issuu. Long story short, it looks at the barriers that one would come up against establishing orbital bus rapid transit routes in Dublin.

DT106ers is now on Google+

So plus one us!

Dublin Rail Transport – What it might be

Well the guys over at the Mental Planners have put together a nice map of what the complete NTA 2030 Vision transport strategy would look like if all the rail projects are all implemented. It’s an interesting idea. I have mashed up their map with the population growth maps of the NTA strategy and the result is below. Interesting to note that while the strategy fails in many respects it actually deals with the growth areas by proposing rail projects quite well.

Other Stuff

My Dublin Rapid Transport map final version will be available for printing soon! So watch this space.
The Irish Planning Institute is on twitter, Follow them @IrishPlanInst
I’m planning on setting up some planning podcasts, if anyone is interested in being part of that, get in touch with me!
Since their is bugger all planning work out there, we may aswell start our own businesses. That’s what the Dublin StartUp weekend is for! Build a business in 54 hours, more at – dublin.startupweekend.org

Keep in touch

Get your daily dose of me through my twitter @Rusty1052, your daily Irish Planning News courtesy the paper.li aggregator.

Peace out planners!

[OPEN DATA] NTA NaPTAN Mapped

Colin Broderick — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:57:50 +0000

A quick post today showing just the sort of data that has been made available through the DubLinked project. I attended the recent DubLinked workshop in IBM themed around planning data. It was great fun had some serious chats with @josephcorr and @Fingal_Data_Hub on the upcoming #Apps4Fingal competition, and no I have not come up with a proper proposal yet.

Any who that aside it was announced that the National Transport Authority had made one of their datasets available fo public consumption. This particular dataset is that of all the transport stops in the country, and for those transport planners/traffic engineers among us will know theses are the ~~same nodes used in the Greater Dublin Area Saturn Model for travel and transport~~. [Update] As per Peter’s comment below: “The transit access nodes used in the NTA Saturn Model are not the bus stops in NaPTAN, but rather access to public transport is generalised to road junction nodes.”

So basically to break it down the data is a rather large xml file which contains all the points (the individual stops and stop areas) and a .mbd file containing what i presume is service information. Unfortunately I can’t open that one as I don’t have microsoft access on the mac. So if someone can open it I would love to hear what is in the file.

Right long long story short I parsed the xml file into a csv file and uploaded it to the great fusion tables and below is the result. There are a few problems with the data in that if you zoom out you will see stops are mapped all over the world! This I reckon is a result of a portion of the co-ordinates not being projected in WSG84 as they are probably in Irish Grid form.

NTA NaPTAN Data Mapped

Just for a small bit of brevity if you’re wondering what the hell a Stop Type of BCT means check out this handy reference from the Department for Transport, UK.

NaPTAN Stop Types

Value	Description	Nat		Mode	Type	Version
BCT	On-street Bus / Coach / Tram Stop		On street	BusCoach	MarkedPoint	1.0
					UnmarkedPoint	1.0
					HailAndRide	1.0
					FlexibleZone	2.0
TXR	Taxi Rank (head of)			Taxi	TaxiRank	1.0
STR	Shared Taxi Rank (head of)			Taxi	SharedTaxiRank	1.0
AIR	Airport Entrance		Off street	Air	Entrance	1.0
GAT	Airport Interchange Area	920		Air	AccessArea	1.0
FTD	Ferry Terminal / Dock Entrance	930		Ferry / Ship	Entrance	1.0
FBT	Ferry or Port Berth	930			Berth	1.0
FER	Ferry or Port Interchange Area	930			AccessArea	1.0
RSE	Rail Station Entrance			Rail	Entrance	1.0
RLY	Railway Interchange Area	910			AccessArea	1.0
RPL	Railway Platform	910			Platform	1.2
TMU	Tram / Metro / Underground Entrance			Tram / Metro	Entrance	1.0
MET	Underground or Metro Interchange Area	940			AccessArea	1.2
PLT	Underground or Metro platform	940			Platform	1.0
BCE	Bus / Coach Station Entrance			BusCoach	Entrance	1.0
BST	Bus Coach Station Access Area	900			AccessArea	1.0
BCS	Bus / Coach bay / stand / stance within Bus / Coach Stations	900			Bay	1.0
BCQ	Bus Coach Station Variable Bay	900			VariableBay	2.0

Source: http://www.dft.gov.uk/naptan/stopTypes.htm

As always!

Comments are welcome, you can follow me on the tweet machine @Rusty1052. Only want the blog? Subscribe to the RSS Feed with your favorite reader!

Do you like what you have just read? Maybe you are interested in being a guest writer too. Email me at colinb@dt106ers.com

[UPDATE] Dublin Transport Map v1.5

Colin Broderick — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 16:39:45 +0000

First I would like to say thanks a million to all those who provided feedback on my first version of the Dublin transport map, you all know who you are, thank you! Before I show you the revised map I would like to explain my design process a bit better so as to clear up some of the issues raised in the feedback to the original post.

Background

My dissertation in college focused on this idea of the network effect in public transport with study on the north eastern area of Dublin (Santry across to Howth), while also critiquing the differences in spatial land use policy and transport policy. That is a post for another day though.

There is no map of Dublin that shows the Dublin Bus, Luas and Rail networks on one sheet of paper. The closest representation is by Aris but also includes other possible modifications.

What really spawned this map was that I have been working on a geographically accurate map of all Dublin’s Transport in a similar style to the maps produced of Paris. But this map would also show the frequency of routes simply by varying the thickness of the lines. It is showing the frequency part that is the major challenge using illustrator as any minor changes are much more difficult than using a grid like with the map below.

Also as has been pointed out by a number of tweets such as this one:

@rusty1052 But Rusty, about 13% of the region’s population live north of the airport and another 8% live in Dublin 15

— Fingal Data Hub (@Fingal_Data_Hub) December4, 2011

As such there is also a slightly loaded message behind this map in that it can’t address a large proportion of the Dublin population lives in both Swords and the Dublin 15 area, where rapid services are very limited. It is also a shame that no orbital services like the 17A lack frequencies to allow seamless transfers. Instead most transfers have to made within the city centre.

Finally the current cash fare system penalizes people who need to make transfers to complete a trip by charging full fares twice. Hopefully the National Transport Authority will soon fix this as they are they have the power to set fares as part of the Public Transport Licensing process.

Objectives

Only services which operate at 15 minute of less frequency Monday – Friday off-peak will be represented on the map.
To show all transport modes, Bus, Light Rail (Luas) and Heavy Rail (DART & Commuter)
To illustrate the frequent network of transport routes that are available in Dublin.
To show the places which are possible to transfer as part of your journey.
To create the first multi-modal map of Dublin.

Map v 1.5 [UPDATE 2.o]

Why version 1.5? The map is still in development and I have not implemented the full array of suggestion that people were so kind to make in the comments on the last post.

The Future

I hope to refine the map into a usable product with the ultimate goal of pitching it to the National Transport Authority for use in Dublin.

I’m considering the addition of some combined routes, including the number 41′s which operate to Swords and beyond, which when combined roughly have an off-peak frequency of 15 mins. The 25′s and 26 to Lucan are similar in that combined they will be of sufficient frequency. Another feature which no one noticed was that Docklands Rail station is also missing and it will be added in a future release.

As I mentioned earlier I have been working on a complete Dublin Transport map which shows all services in the Dublin Region. This is a huge job! Unfortunately that is on the back burner as I have lost my enthusiasm it due to the difficulties of representing each and every route in the inner city. It is a nightmare as almost every Dublin Bus service stops on either D’Olier Street or Westmoreland Street. This map will take many months to complete to the same standard as the Frequent Map above. If someone has a GIS solution that they could put forward as alternative solution to hand drawing the map I would be over the moon! Here is a preview of that map in its current work in progress state:

http://zoom.it/hXh4

Draft Geographic Dublin Area Transport Map

As always!

Comments are welcome, you can follow me on the tweet machine @Rusty1052. Only want the blog? Subscribe to the RSS Feed with your favorite reader!

Do you like what you have just read? Maybe you are interested in being a guest writer too. Email me at colinb@dt106ers.com

Dublin Rapid Transit Map – Feedback please!

Colin Broderick — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:38:48 +0000

Ok anyone who has met me or listened to me talk about transport will know I’m a bit of nut for mass public transport and how its portrayed to the public.

Not sure if you remember but last year a Aris Venetikidis completed a future fantasy (with a lot of fact) complete transport map for Dublin as part of his design masters at NCAD, you can view his work on his website ventikidis.com. It was fantastic to finally see someone produce something well thought out and could actually work, except for there was one problem it didn’t reflect what is on the ground now!

We all know Dublin’s public transport network is not the best but hey it works (most of the time). So I figured we don’t have a map showing the most frequent routes in the city, so why not make one? Here is what I have come up with, it include Dublin Bus, Luas and Irish Rail/DART:

The Map

(Click for Full Image)
Please I would love to hear feedback from you regarding the above map, any and all feedback is welcome via twitter email or the comments below!

So what is Rapid Transit?

There is a pretty standard definition the world offer that most will agree on and that is:

A Rapid Transit Route is one in which a service operates at frequency of 15 minutes or less

You might be wondering why there are some routes missing off the above map. Well I shall explain, I conducted an extensive audit of all the Dublin Bus timetables for all bus routes. I got an average peak frequency for the buses and then found there average off-peak frequency for Monday – Friday buses only. All routes shown above operate Monday – Sunday however Saturday and Sunday frequencies can vary substantially from weekday frequency. So you can view the spreadsheet below which is the data I was working from:

As always!

Comments are welcome, you can follow me on the tweet machine @Rusty1052. Only want the blog? Subscribe to the RSS Feed with your favorite reader!

Do you like what you have just read? Maybe you are interested in being a guest writer too. Email me at colinb@dt106ers.com

News Roundup – Technology, Technology and DATA

Colin Broderick — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 07:18:35 +0000

We start this week wit the announcement of a new website ram packed with old Central Statistics Office data from the last census but shows a lot of promise!

Decision Map

DecisionMap.ie - Is new online resource which maps census data on a number of levels including the electoral distrcts and provides one of those cool percentage box type things on the right hand side like they had on WhereDoesMyMoneyGo. First impressions are it’s pretty cool, it would be great if it went all the way down to the enumerator areas while also being able to compare data across census periods, but sure maybe that will happen in the future!

Keep up with the News

The Mental Planners of DIT have a great worldwide urbanism and planning resource pulling from some 300 odd twitter accounts and blogs – The Mental Planners Daily I encourage you to check it out subscribe and you’ll be amazed what ya find out!

Of course I also have a paper.li account running which you should also check out for your daily spatial planning fix around 9am The Irish Planning News

Open DATA

Dublinked the Open Data initiative between the 5 Dublin based city and council councils has two events coming up this month which if you have an interest in using the data you should definitely check out.

08 December 9.30 – 12.00 Planning Themed Workshop in IBM Research Lab, Damastown.
There are a couple of speakers including the very engaging and entertaining Conor Skehan of DIT. MORE DETAILS

15 December 2.30PM Dublinked Technical Workshop John Hume Building, NUIM.
To explore & discuss the various technology issues that underpin a data sharing platform including interoperability, architectures, semantic web, search engines and real-time data streaming. The main aim of the workshop is to draw up a roadmap that sets out the technology topics, challenges & priorities that are relevant to the successful operation of this Dublinked initiative. MORE DETAILS

Dublin City Council

Dublin CIty Council has published it’s Draft Public Realm Strategy and they are looking for your views regarding it, so pop on over to the DCC Planning Department Page and submit your criticism or positive comments!

As always!

Comments are welcome, you can follow me on the tweet machine @Rusty1052. Only want the blog? Subscribe to the RSS Feed with your favorite reader!

Do you like what you have just read? Maybe you are interested in being a guest writer too. Email me at colinb@dt106ers.com

Grangegorman SDZ Oral Hearing – The last hurdle?

Colin Broderick — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:23:14 +0000

So as the end of the planning procedure element of the redevelopment of St Brendans Hospital or Grangegorman as we have all come to know draws to a close, what do we think of it? Will it be built? Should it be built in absence of the LUAS line which is supposed to serve it directly but only kind of does because it skirts along one edge? (Although it has a slightly better chance of survival than metro north)

Its funny when i started in DIT as many who came before can say, on the my first day i was told by the time your in 4th year you’ll be in Grangegorman, so like 10 years after DIT embarked down the road, finally settling on the Strategic Development Zone model last year, planning is drawing to a close.

The Masterplan is available on the Grangegorman Development Agency website

The last hurdle to jump before the final Bord Decision, is the Oral Hearing. I think it might be useful for anyone even remotely interested in how the process works to make the trip to Bord Pleanala at 64 Marlborough Street on 24th November. Full details below:

ZD2005
Grangegorman, Dublin 7. (GRANGEGORMAN)

Case Type:
Planning Scheme in Strategic Devel. Zone (Board Reference: PL29Z.ZD2005)

Description
Grangegorman Strategic Development Zone Planning Scheme

Date lodged
19/08/2011

Decide By
22/12/2011

Location:
Offices of An Bord Pleanála

Date:
10:00, 24/11/2011

Source: pleanala.ie

As always!

Comments are welcome, you can follow me on the tweet machine @Rusty1052. Only want the blog? Subscribe to the RSS Feed with your favorite reader!

Do you like what you have just read? Maybe you are interested in being a guest writer too. Email me at colinb@dt106ers.com