Want to Change Auckland’s Transport for the Better?
I caught on Twitter this:
Curious I went to the site and had a read through. The quick link is here: http://hackakl.org.nz/
The introduction goes:
HACKAKL:Transport (24-25 May 2014)
Welcome to HACKAKL:Transport, Auckland’s first civic hacking event. This is an open invitation to designers, software developers, architects, activists, innovators or anyone who wants to be involved to participate in a weekend of ‘hacking for good’.
In what we hope is the first of many, this event seeks to establish a community of innovators and developers who are interested in making an ongoing contribution to civic solutions that leverage open government data, from both regional and national sources. This is about thinking differently and leveraging the power of a community and creative problem solving.
If we are successful, not only will we have some cool ideas and creative solutions, but more importantly, we will have formed a community (HACKAKL) within a community (Auckland and New Zealand) that is willing to own the ‘civic hacking for good’ agenda going forward.
To give us some focus, the theme for this inaugural event is transport. Take a look at the challenges page for inspiration on the types of problems we could help solve. Keep visiting this page as we will continue to provide more information to contextualise the issues as we are approved to share it.
The mission of this weekend is multifaceted. Our goals include:
- Providing an opportunity for personal development and network building
- Enabling innovation for greater good
- Support the evolution and democratisation of open government data
- Supporting the government STEM agenda – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
- Creating a new community and its self governance going forward
This event is for and about those that participate. You can choose to take a known challenge or render your own solution based on the data sets you think will bring value to the wider community in some new useful form.
As this is a free event, the organisers reserve the right to limit the number of participants based on the registration response.
Source: http://hackakl.org.nz/
After reading it I was initially reluctant on this as I was thinking what could I offer. I am not a web designer and do not know code for peanuts 😛 But as I read this graphic on the site which I have pasted below that reluctance became excitement.
From Hack-Auckland Transport:
Okay looking at number 4 I do not have the skills nor attributes from the left hand side but on the right hand side I do have those skills and attributes. That said even if I had none of the six attributes I would have followed the “No” line but would have said yes to the “Would you like to learn new things?” box.
The Challenges that were listed are quite broad but that is fine as it gives a wide birth to apply those attributes and work with others in bring forward this evolution in Auckland’s transport system.
Again from Hack-Auckland Transport
Challenges
Auckland Council has set the ambitious goal of becoming the world’s most liveable city. Auckland Transport and its services are seen as a key enabler of this goal. Whilst Auckland Transport has a clear set of infrastructure projects and service improvements underway, it also realises that its customer experience and emotional connection with users of its services will drive patronage and growth of the services.
While we certainly encourage you to share your own ideas in the wiki – you might even want to redesign the entire transport network! – below are some broad areas which could benefit from creative data solutions and may spark inspiration.
Public transport
- Intuitive journey planning that allows users to leave at the last minute and navigate while on the move
- The relationship between public transport and attractions/destinations
- Ease of use for first time users and tourists
- User loyalty and gamification of public transport
- The linkage of walking, cycling and public transport as part of an overall journey
- Helping commuters compare real costs of driving vs public transport
- Journey safety
Walking and cycling
- Journey planning
- Safe routes
- Promotion of cycling and walking as an alternative to driving
- Linkages with public transport
Parking
- User awareness of parking restrictions and cost in any given location
- Availability and demand management
Driving
- Journey planning and congestion
- Roadworks and disruptions
Sounds exciting. I’ll go and register to this Hackathon Event to be held in May (this will be subject family commitments though) and go along and participate in this first-ever event in Auckland.
If you are up for a challenge then maybe you should go along too and be part of the evolutionary change in Auckland’s transport
Talking Southern Auckland 