Back in March we found out that Auckland’s first civic hackathon would be held and that the focus would be on transport. Auckland Transport are providing support for the event and opening up some of their data for the first time.

The event is next weekend and so far there have been a couple of warm up events. There is one final warm up event this Friday and it will include a presentation by Thoughful Design, the company behind Auckland Transport’s customer experience strategy (and also Air NZ’s customer experience). You can get an idea of the customer experience project from this presentation to the AT board last November (4.3MB) and some of the outcomes are already starting to be seen through the likes of new wayfinding maps  at the Onehunga station (sorry can’t find a photo).

The event will be held at Sir Paul Reeves Building AUT University
Building in downtown Auckland. You can find the location map here.

ThoughtFull Design will share the findings and outputs that form Auckland Transport’s Public Transport customer experience strategy. This will give you insight into the needs and motivations of the different Public Transport traveller profiles (Car Addict, 1st Timer, Regular and Explorer), the journey stages they take through a Public Transport system and the insights that are relevant to each stage of the traveller journey

17:30 Venue open
17:45 Welcome Greeting
17:50 Presentation – ThoughtFull Design
18:40 Drinks/Canapes
19:30 Venue closes

I was really looking forward to going next weekend but unfortunately something else has come up  that I can’t get out of so I won’t be able to attend. That’s a shame as I have a couple of ideas I’d love to work with some people on. For example I’d love to see a map using  the real time data to work out the areas where buses are being held up throughout the day. That’s something we could then use in our advocacy for better/more bus lanes. If anyone wants to form a TransportBlog crew to work on this or other ideas then let me know in the comments (or email me).

Seeing as I can’t make it now, I’d also like one or more people to volunteer to put in writing (and pictures) some of their experiences of the event

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11 comments

  1. I’m not an Aucklander, but I’m very jealous of HackAkl. However for Wellington, I’m in process of making something that shows the times and places where buses and trains are chronically late or early, as part of my Masters thesis which is essentially on that issue. Unfortunately I can’t share the data, but I’ll spread it around once it’s ready (follow me on Twitter if you want).

  2. Im an engineering science student at Auckland would be keen on the bus hold up idea if anyone else is keen.

      1. I’ll be attending hackakl and don’t have a project yet. This could be an interesting one. Matt do you see this as
        a) map of stops where buses tend to be later than timetabled or
        b) map of areas where buses tend to be moving slowly?

        If we just go for (a) we would miss routes where the timetable already allows for slowness caused by the absence of bus lanes.

        1. I’m more thinking (b), a map showing the average speed of buses along each part of their route. Obviously where multiple routes join together it would need to aggregate all of them to give a proper picture. I would expect to see the Northern busway at quite a high speed, routes with bus lanes doing ok but routes/parts of routes without bus lanes slower due to impacts of congestion.

  3. Having spent last year commuting between Auckland and Sydney, I don’t think that those responsible for the Air New Zealand customer experience should be let near anything as important is the Public Transport experience. The updated AirNZ app that replaced mPass is woeful.

    I also don’t see why those who are technically inclined amongst readers of the blog can’t look at some of this project work, as long as we can get access to the data feeds. Also with the data being electronic, it means that we don’t necessarily need to be gather in Auckland to make it work, the downside is that some of these projects may take longer to get completed. Structure and governance are the key.

  4. Real time bus tracking that people can view from at.govt.nz and mobile applications like many other countries have would also help for those waiting for there bus. Also the AT app is over a year old since the last update (at least on android), and is riddled with bugs like the other day I had it quote me $1.90 to get from Khyber’s Pass to Red Hill on the 472 which is actually $7.90 or such. Also what happened to tagging on/off/viewing your LIVE balance/topping up LIVE with your smartphone demonstrated almost 2 years ago and completed trial over a year ago…? Really would like to see this finished and public as per completion of this event.

    1. How about a real time journey planner, that changes in real time as delays occur – with option to choose rank your priorities cost, arrival time, least walking etc.

      There was a discussion a few days ago about finding the right stop to go to takapuna. I imagine you would say I want to get to Takapuna from current location, and it would say ‘walk to this stop, catch this bus’. Then the bus the wanted you to catch was delayed, so it pops up and says, walk 50m down the road and catch a different bus’.

      1. Yes I’m keen on a responsive journey planner. Probably not able to do it in the hackakl timeframe as the journey planner API won’t be available to us.

  5. I thought it didn’t sound too promising last Wednesday that it’d be resolved by this weekend. OpenTripPlanner might be an option.

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