Valuable discussions during 2nd BITS Advisory Group meeting
On 25th of September the BITS Advisory Group (AG) met during an online meeting. Seven external advisors from the industry (Hermes Traffic Intelligence, ATKI A/S, Eco-counter, See.sense), a regional government (Province of Utrecht), a cycling advocacy group (Fietsberaad Vlaanderen) and the academic world (Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences) discussed the progress of the BITS project with eight BITS project partners. The purpose of the AG is to give strategic advice to the project and help in dissemination/communication of the project results.
With respect to the latter it was concluded that due to COVID-19 physical events are cancelled and thus that the project will have to be visible more on the online platforms and events. CIE, leader of the communication work packages states that the project will be present on upcoming digital events like the EU Week of the Regions and Cities and the Virtual ITS Congress. Also more effort will be put on the social media, with a focus on LinkedIn.
The Province of Antwerp showed the progress with respect to the CycleDataHub (CDH). The CDH will not contain the actual data but it will create links to existing data sets. It will not only show data from the BITS implementations but will be open for other cycling data as well. The CDH is the best there is at the moment in terms of an international platform for cycling data. It will be important to include links to both local and national databases with cycling data. The CDH will not only be useful for local and regional authorities; it can also be a platform for commercial parties to show (a sample of) their cycling data. The development of the CDH is in its final stage and soon the beta-version will be tested before launching it to the wider cycling community.
BITS partner VIVES presented the first general survey results from the BITS implementing cities and regions. More than 7.000 inhabitants responded to the survey. The analysis of the data is not yet completed, but general insights in cycling behaviour, cycling motivation and the attitude towards ITS have been derived from the data. Stay tuned for the detailed results from the different BITS locations.
The meeting was concluded with a presentation of lead partner Province of Overijssel showing the current status of the ITS implementations: four implementations are up and running, six are planned to start within a few weeks and a further seven are expected to start at the latest in spring 2021.
The next meeting of the BITS Advisory Board will be in March 2021 in Oldenburg (if COVID-19 developments allow).