…by open-sourcing the what3words addresses of all of Greater Manchester’s ‘Talkative’ Bus Stops ! TravelSpirit Partners BT, Republic of Things and Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) are starting to motor on their ‘Use Case’ development phase for Manchester’s smart cities demonstrator.
The CityVerve project is set to redefine the “smart” in “smart city” – by building and delivering a needs-driven, benefit-led, ‘platform of platforms’ Internet of Things infrastructure…
…within the ambition of Cityverve there is some good alignment with TravelSpirit: while the (Cityverve) project is not entirely open-source, it supports open innovation, and a number of use-cases that are led by TravelSpirit Partners, who are promoting Open-Source and Open-API’s throughout their work on the project.
For example, TravelSpirit affiliate tech start up, Republic of Things, is leading on the use case called ‘Talkative Bus Stops’.
From ‘flag and pole’ to interactive locations, we are rethinking the bus stop, to reflect and enrich the environment and communities in which they are located. Through the use of technology, including location based services and mobile apps, the bus stops will deliver location relevant content.
People will have the ability to ‘check-in’ to their bus stop, to let bus operators know they are waiting for their service, and where they want to get to, leading to a more responsive service and enhanced travel experience.
To get going, TravelSpirit has taken Transport for Greater Manchester’s open data and, with the What3Words API (free to use by non-commercial organisations), fuse the datasets to open-source the What3Words address for every bus stop in Greater Manchester…
Visit our new Gitlab to download the new dataset and find out more about What3Words. We don’t know exactly, at this stage, how useful this dataset is, so look forward to seeing what the community can do with it.
And, if you aren’t so sure about the open-source credentials of What3Words, don’t let that put you off our challenge.We’d be equally happy to see what you can do with alternative address systems such as Xaddress, GeoHash, What3Emojis or even What3Pokemon!
TfGM and BT will be releasing some more exciting stuff soon into the open, on another, yet to be revealed, use case – so watch this space.
The CityVerve project was established in July 2016 with a two-year remit to demonstrate the capability of IoT applications and address barriers to deploying smart cities, such as city governance, network security, user trust and adoption, interoperability, scalability and justifying investment. Combining technology and business model innovations, it will create a real-life blueprint for smart cities worldwide.
The consortium of 21 organisations – including Manchester City Council, Manchester Science Partnerships, the University of Manchester, Cisco, BT and other tech players – is backed by Government and Innovate UK.
For more information, please visit www.cityverve.org.uk or follow CityVerve on Twitter at @CityVerve