Winner Announced for Reading’s Open Data Challenge

Winner Announced for Reading’s Open Data Challenge

07/07/2015
Reading Borough Council Press Release

Reading Borough Council has announced the winner of its two week challenge for app developers to use its open transport data to create travel apps for people living in and around Reading.

The winner is local team Rajneesh, Anurag and Mohit, who came up with a concept for a new app to provide commuter and retail information tailored to individual needs and interests.

The event was run in partnership with ConnectTVT at GROW@GreenPark. Six teams took part developing a range of ideas for new travel apps including live maps of congestion hot spots, an app helping travellers choose when to commute and journey planners.

Reading Borough Council opened up all of its real time transport information earlier this year, to make it easier for the public to make informed decisions about how to travel around town. The idea behind the move was to enable more travel apps, like the trvlRDG app, to be created by third party developers, which can then be used by the public for up to the minute, live information to help with travel.

The live data feeds include bus timetables and arrival times, roadworks, car park occupancy information and live data on journey times collected by the 140 Bluetooth devices around the Reading area.

Rajneesh Gautam, from the winning team said:

“This event has given us the opportunity to come up with ideas to make commuter travel in and around town a little easier. We are looking forward to putting our concept into practice over the next few months and expect our travel app to make full use of Reading Council’s live transport data.”

Tony Page, Reading Borough Council’s Lead Member for Strategic Environment, Planning and Transport said:

“The Council opened up its real time transport information earlier this year and was one of the first towns in the UK to do so. There has been a very positive level of interest in this initiative and this challenge has made excellent headway in ensuring that app developers have the data they need to bring a range of travel apps to market. Ultimately it will mean more choice of travel apps for everyone living and working in and around Reading.”

Rob McDonald, Intelligent Transport Systems Director at Peter Brett Associates, who presented the award said:

“Reading Borough Council was very pleased at the response to the challenge. All the developers who took part came forward with good ideas, and we hope that many of these concepts will result in useful travel apps for the public.”

The winners received a Microsoft Surface 3 tablet computer and will attend the TIDE (Transport Innovation Deployment for Europe) project final conference in Barcelona in September.

The open data server is funded by Reading Borough Council’s Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF) project and European INTERREG funding through Reading’s involvement in the Regions of Connected Knowledge (RoCK) project. The challenge was made possible through collaboration with ConnectTVT and EU FP7 funding through the TIDE project.

ENDS

Notes for Editors:

All the data shared on the open data server is cleared to be used in public and does not contain any personal or confidential information. App developers can register for a free user licence to use the Council’s open transport data at http://opendata.reading-travelinfo.co.uk/

Media Contact: Oscar Mortali
Tel: 0118 937 2301