Examples of Collaborative Data, and Free and

Open Source Software, of interest to Urban

Researchers

Patrick Sunter: PhD Candidate in Architecture Building and Planning, University of Melbourne

Acknowledgment: maps produced during this presentation have been part of collaborative work with Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE).

Outline   Collaborative Data (OpenStreetMap) and

customised cartography

  Importance of Open Data standards: GTFS

  About Free & Open Source Software (FOSS)

  FOSS for urban researchers (QGIS)

  FOSS in my PhD for public transport: OpenTripPlanner

  Other resources & web-based informatics projects

OpenStreetMap   http://www.openstreetmap.org

  A global impressive collaboratively-developed street database

  Unlike Google Maps etc, can download the data, license allows use and further modifications

  Hint: segments for major city-regions, inc. Melbourne, downloadable from https://mapzen.com/metro-extracts

  OSM in Iquique, Chile (re Jorge’s talk last month)

  Spin-off projects: www.cycletour.org (cartography & hosting by Steve Bennett, here at UniMelb)

Image left from http://www.ideasintransit.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap : showing global edits to OSM in 2008

Data Standards: GTFS   GTFS = “General Transit Feed

Specification’

  developers.google.com/transit/

  Emerged in mid 2000s from Portland TriMet and Google’s 20% time

  Plaintext format: Entire GTFS feed of Portland is ~169 Mb

  Live feeds available from 376+ agencies, see:- www.gtfs-data-exchange.com/

  Now available for all AU state capitals, not yet Melbourne (though other data released ~Mar 2014)

  Quite strong ecosystem of tools, apps to process & work with this format

  (* re Territories, not sure about Darwin?)

Top diagram courtesy Martin Davis via http://lin-ear-th-inking.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/data-model-diagrams-for-gtfs.html

Intro to Free & Open Source Software (FOSS)

  Movement partisans claim its “free as in speech, not as in beer”;

  (One) definition of Open Source (http://opensource.org/osd )   Inclusion of source code with program;   Free redistribution of source code;   Permits derived works;   Retention of license;

  Or via http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html , “roughly it means that users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software”.

  Different types of FOSS licenses, broadly categorised into strong/’viral’ (GPL) and permissive

  FOSS is about many things, but these include:   Ability to share your work and ideas with others;   Ability to collaborate on building complex artifacts by people in different organisations and

locations (often difficult under other IP regimes);   Ability to make software portable and improved over time, compared to proprietary software’s

possibility to languish (if original commercial publishing company folds etc)

  Supported by collaborative web platforms to manage and share source code: https://github.com/

FOSS and Academia   Arguably fits very well with an academic context:-

  Similar to publishing articles :- publishing software related to your research for others to read, critique, and possibly re-use, while required to give due credit (especially if publically funded);

  (Thus, like articles, both enhance your reputation but support ideal of peer-review)

  Ability for many academics to collaborate and cooperate and not have to all “re-invent the wheel” – especially relevant to us PhD students with limited time and zero budget!

  Makes the software aspect of your work “portable” when you move between research institutions;

  Later:- I’ll talk re Python and other high-level languages very much designed with the non-full-time programmer in mind

Quantum GIS

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8ss39pxjswmd721/Screenshot%202014-05-11%2016.41.18.png

Other helpful & useful FOSS tools for spatial analysis I use

  Languages: Python, Javascript

  http://www.osgeo.org/ Foundation manages many of these:

  GDAL (Geospatial Data Abstraction Layer) & OGR – for raster & vector data file conversion & manipulation (www.gdal.org);

  Shapely – spatial geometry processing (toblerity.org/shapely/)

  PostGIS – PostgreSQL database spatial extensions (postgis.net/);

  Leaflet - Interactive spatial web app development (leafletjs.com/)

  Stuff I’m interested in:   D3 (lightweight javascript interactive web application devt) -

http://d3js.org/

Context of my PhD

  Interpretive Action-Research Paradigm using:-   Co-Development of Tools   Participant Observation   Interviews,   Focus Groups,   Artifact Analysis

PhD: Focus is on exploring Free & Open Source software as a potential means of increasing civil society organisation’s ability to engage with Metropolitan-scale transport planning and propose alternative futures

Partner Organisations:- * Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) * Public Transport Users Association (PTUA)

Network image from HiTrans Best Practice Guide (Nielsen et al, 2005). Photo credits: www.pt4me2.org.au, Wikimedia commons user "voland b", Flickr user "avlxyz”. Travel time map from www.mapumental.com.

Target Capability: Public Transport Network Analysis

  “Travel Time Maps” (Isochrone maps)

  Display either:-   Locations reachable from a

given origin in a given time;   ‘Catchment’ to reach a given

destination

  Generally involve A* network calculation but can be optimised.

  Good because they indicate overall network quality, including interchanges

Travel time map from www.mapumental.com.

OpenTripPlanner   Open Source software that at core is a fast Journey Planner

(algorithms for time-dependent route-finding), collaboration between Portland’s TriMet and several researchers, + OpenPlans organisation

  Primarily Java-based, built on other standards and software such as Tomcat (web services), Leaflet for web application.

Potential to employ in spatial network analysis

  Left: Differential impact to New York Transit network after Hurricane Sandy

  Right: Mode “Accessibility gap” in Washington D.C. between car and public transport, plus employment

McGurrin, M. F. & Greczner, D. 2011, 'Performance Metrics: Calculating Accessibility Using Open Source Software and Open Data', 11-0230.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/01/best-maps-weve-seen-sandys-transit-outage-new-york/4488/

Progress with OpenTripPlanner   With a mixture of running existing Open Source tools –

especially OpenTripPlanner and Quantum GIS, and some scripting and GIS work, we’ve developed useful visualisations.

OTP Post-Processed in QGIS

Comparing current and ‘virtual’ networks & timetables

Left: calculated accessibility from Chadstone, PTV current.

Right: same location & time, but with revised bus network and ‘best case’ service (30km/h avg speed, 5min headways, implies significant road prioritisation measures)

NECTAR server:- http://130.56.248.56/opentripplanner-analyst-client/

Info re NECTAR and AURIN

  NECTAR:- A “cloud computing” service, to allow researchers Australia-wide to run applications that need servers on ‘virtual machines’. Can apply at http://www.nectar.org.au/research-cloud

  AURIN: Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network. Main work happening here at UniMelb. http://aurin.org.au/

Other examples

  Other examples, lowering barriers to using interactive web maps as a form on communication, engagement, activism

  UCAl Berkeley PhD-ers “visualising urban data idealab”:   http://vudlab.com/#/

  http://www.ghggo.com/d4_PEMS_080813 (By @MikeTaptich )

Software Carpentry course and learning opps

  Upcoming Free Software Carpentry course here @ UniMelb – learn (basic essentials of) Python!:   http://resbaz.github.io/2014-09-15-unimelb/

  Sep 2014 – sold out ! But check http://resbaz.tumblr.com/bootcamps in future!

  Local meetups:   Melbourne Open GIS:

http://www.meetup.com/Melbourne-Open-GIS/

  Datahack Melbourne: http://www.meetup.com/Datahack-Melbourne/

References & Contacts Hillsman, E. & Barbeau, S. 2011, 'Enabling Cost-Effective Multimodal Trip Planners

through Open Transit Data', National Center for Transit Research (University of Southern Florida), Final Report, FDOT BDK85 TWO 977-20, http://www.locationaware.usf.edu/ongoing-research/projects/open-transit-data/.

McGurrin, M. F. & Greczner, D. 2011, 'Performance Metrics: Calculating Accessibility Using Open Source Software and Open Data', 11-0230.

Contacts & Project Website:

  P.sunter@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au

  http://www.appropedia.org/OSSTIP

  http://bze.org.au/zero-carbon-australia-2020/transport-plan