Mobility: Understanding traffic bottlenecks, health and CO₂ consumption all at once

Find the full story here: dublinactivetraveldashboard

It is not boring to look at how Dublin City has encouraged more people to walk or take the bike instead of driving by car on their way to work, to study or to the fishmonger. And hold on to the edge of the table:

Dublin City Council has a goal that 95% of the city’s citizens should be able to find their way to an “Active Travel” route within 5 minutes, meaning a route where they can walk or cycle safely. What is new is that the Dublin Active Travel Dashboard does not only combine historical data with real-time data on people’s movement through the city. Mobility is linked with data on health, CO₂ gains and economic benefits.

The recipe contains three ingredients:

• A broad foundation of partnerships. From interdisciplinary stakeholder involvement to openness towards citizens. On your phone, you can follow how your own increased heart rate on the bike also makes sense on a larger scale.

• Data is the key to change. You cannot fix what you cannot see, as one developer puts it. Data from AI roadside sensors, Google and other platforms has been connected to understand where bottlenecks and poor traffic situations arise. From there, the solutions can be mapped.

• Citizen involvement. Ultimately, the change has to happen among people. Some are strongly motivated towards healthier behaviour when the CO₂ savings can also be measured, while others are drawn to following traffic patterns or downloading maps. And then, of course, there is the wayfinding type, who simply wants to get from A to B as quickly as possible.