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Contents:
What is CycleStreets?
CycleStreets is a UK-wide cycle journey planner system, which lets you plan routes from A to B by bike. It is designed by cyclists, for cyclists, and caters for the needs of both confident and less confident cyclists.
CycleStreets is currently in beta
This site is currently a beta testing release so that cyclists around the country can test out routes and let us know about any problems they find on the site, before we launch officially.
Problems we already know about in this release are:
- DONE - Photos on planned routes are not being shown yet
- DONE - Traffic lights and crossings are not being taken account of fully yet
- DONE - Journeys planned on the old Camcycle system are not yet properly imported
- DONE - Accounting for the delay caused by hills
- DONE - Speeding up the system in London and other dense areas
- Avoiding wiggly routes. (The time taken to turn left and right is not accounted for - leading to wiggly routes).
- Banned turn restrictions are not yet in place in the routing engine (but one-way streets are handled correctly)
Please do send us feedback - positive or negative, if you have any.
Cambridge CycleStreets
Read more about the Cambridge-specific version of CycleStreets, and about cycling in the area.
Funding needed
We are seeking funding for new features - can you help? Things we'd like funding for are:
- Core developer funds, to cover a range of general tasks and ongoing improvements
- Annual server equipment and colo hosting costs (our excellent hosts are Mythic Beasts)
- OpenID integration
- Adding the Specific routes feature (the lead developers used to organise Leisurely Rides, and we've long wanted a plotting facility for this!)
- Improvements to the photo/video addition system, including simpler multiple-photo addition
- Commenting system for photos and routes
- Local Authority reporting/updating mechanism
- Improving the gallery user interface
- Mobile app for Android
- Roadwork data integration
Origins
CycleStreets is effectively a national version of the Journey Planner and Photomap launched by Cambridge Cycling Campaign in June 2006.
Following a presentation of the Cambridge-only system at the CCN/CTC Conference in November 2006 in Cheltenham, we have received many enquiries from people and organisations around the UK (and beyond!) about the possibilty of having a version for 'their' area. Since then we have worked to produce a national system, which also has 'instances' that are specific to a particular area.
Who created and runs CycleStreets?
The system has been created by Simon Nuttall (lead developer) and Martin Lucas-Smith. Both of us are regular cyclists based in Cambridge, who have been involved with Cambridge Cycling Campaign for many years.
CycleStreets is being set up as a company (on a not-for-profit basis) or a charity to act as a vehicle for any incoming funds.
We also plan to release the code as Open Source project and enable others to get involved.
How can I get one for my town/city?
If you are a Local Authority we will negotiate a charge with you if you want it under your domain name, which will go towards the server costs and programming time that keep the system running and developed.
If you are a local campaign group, just get in touch and we will sort it out. Donations would be welcome.
It is possible to have area-specific 'branding' when setting up yourarea.cyclestreets.net. Also we should be able to set up the system on a domain name of your choice, but still run on our servers to save you the need for maintenance expertise or time.
Where does the map data come from?
The map data is from OpenStreetMap, and we are immensely grateful to all the volunteers who have created the base data. Please consider donating to OpenStreetMap.
OpenStreetMap data, and therefore the routes that CycleStreets plans, can be used freely under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
How can I help?
There are all sorts of ways in which we need help:
- Donate funds - we have very real costs of running the equipment, paying for bandwidth, and keeping the lead programmers fed!
- Promote CycleStreets by adding a link on your website (possibly using one of our web banners) or write an article in your newsletter or other publication about CycleStreets
- Contribute mapping data to OpenStreetMap
- If you are a programmer, contact us about joining our project team that we are in the process of setting up
- … and many other ways - see our get involved page!
Core project team
- Simon Nuttall, lead developer and Routemaster (particularly on concepts and routing engine)
- Martin Lucas-Smith co-developer and Webmaster (usability specialist and code structure)
Who else has helped so far?
- Cambridge Cycling Campaign, who acted as the incubator for the concept and have helped create an online presence.
- OpenStreetMap, whose mapping we are using, with grateful thanks.
- Tile rendering and tileserving from OpenCycleMap.org
- Non-profit cycling promotion business ChangingPace, who saw the potential of the work done in Cambridge and persuaded the Scottish Government's Sustainable Transport section to give a small grant (with the help of Cycling Scotland) to develop an Edinburgh version of the system. We are very grateful for their assistance.
- Mythic Beasts, our web hosts, who kindly donated a free colo machine and bandwidth to act as the development system.
- David Earl from Cambridge Cycling Campaign who has helped with the signin package and licensing issues (not to mention mapping all of Cambridge in superb quality for OpenStreetMap!)
- Francis Irving for invaluable help in diagnosing server performance issues
- Anthony Cartmell's SRTM reader code, which was used as part of our hills implementation
- Icons used are the excellent FamFamFam silk icon set, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
- For IP geolocation, CycleStreets uses GeoLite data created by MaxMind, available from http://www.maxmind.com/.
- Wordpress, used for our blog.
- Design template based on Flash Web by: Template World
- Our Sysadmins, Frank and Wookey
- And most importantly, cyclists who have given us feedback and suggestions, not least on the routing performance.
Legal
CycleStreets is from CycleStreets Ltd, a not-for-profit limited UK company. Company no. 06948959; Company office: CycleStreets Ltd., 80b York Street, Cambridge, CB1 2PY.
Map data and tiles: © OpenStreetMap (and) contributors, Cloudmade, OpenCycleMap. CC-BY-SA.
Postcode data: This data contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2010; Code-Point Open contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2010.
How does it work?
Have a look through our help pages to find out more about the routing system and other aspects of how the system works.