Over the past month we’ve changed the algorithm that searches the map to find routes. It is now much more like the A*search algorithm. The results it produces are identical to those produced previously, but it happens faster. A* is fast because it uses a clever way of minimizing the amount of map it needs […]
Just a short blog post as we’ve been relatively quiet in the last few weeks! Simon in particular has been knuckling down on some new core routing algorithm work which is set to speed up longer journeys in dense areas like London. We’ll blog on this soon, once a key bug has been squashed. We’ve […]
Until now the ‘quietness’ of the suggested routes has been a fairly discrete percentage score. We’ve add a graphic and some descriptive text that gives a quick overview of how busy a route might be: The overall quietness of a route depends on how much of the journey is spent on the different types of […]
After about a month in testing we’re today making available a new kind of routing on CycleStreets – namely ‘Balanced routes’. Regular users of CycleStreets will be familiar with the Fastest and Quietest routes. They represent two extremes of cycle route – one where time is of the essence, and the other which tries to […]
We’ve added elevation profiles to the route listings. They show how hilly or gentle the suggested routes are likely to be: The vertical scale shows the height in feet, and the horizontal scale the distance along the route, in miles. The vertical scale is usually 300 feet, unless you’ve found a very hilly route, (in […]
Our regular imports of data from the openstreetmap.org (OSM) project now includes ways that are marked as ferry crossings. For the UK, this amounts to around 250 links. Here’s an example where the quietest route uses the ferry, but the fastest goes a longer way round on the roads: http://www.cyclestreets.net/journey/70755/ The hours of operation and […]
Currently we’re finding that about 1% of users who plan a journey are leaving us feedback about their routes. If the feedback comes directly from the route listing page, then that route is immediately marked as requiring our attention. We try to look at the route as soon as possible alongside your comments. We then […]
Since CycleStreets went to national beta release in late March this year it has been used to plan over 10,000 journeys, despite our staying a little bit quiet for a few months while we’re in beta! (This builds on the almost 50,000 journeys that were planned during the previous two and a half years when the system […]
We’ve been working on improving the reliability and quality of the import of street data from the OpenStreetMap (OSM) project. Traffic Signals Two types of traffic signals are read from the OSM data. Junctions where cyclists can expect to wait on average 20 seconds. Crossings which interrupt journeys less frequently and for a shorter period, […]
Since we took CycleStreets to public ‘beta’ launch three weeks ago, we’ve had lots of feedback, all of which is extremely useful to us. We’ve been hard at work fixing various bugs and adding improvements. We now have a weekly refresh of mapping data taking place. This means that we can now more effectively work […]