bristolstreets.co.uk

About Bristolstreets.co.uk

The map is the site and the site is the map

Bristolstreets.co.uk represents an entirely new approach to presenting information. There are lots of web sites these days with maps in them, but there are few where the map is the site.

When location is an important aspect of the information it makes sense to present this first on a map and then show further details when you the visitor have identified the items of interest.

This site was launched in November of 2007 and has evolved significantly since then as use has shown which ideas worked and which did not, and the data set has also grown with the number of routes and areas covered increasing further and further outside of central Bristol. The data will continue to grow.

Increasing public awareness of transport information

Transport is one of the most significant issues facing modern cities and Bristol in particular which has a number of distinct challenges in this area. It is an issue that touches everyone's life even those who do not travel regularly as noise, pollution and congestion affect anyone near roads.

The fact that the conurbation that most would consider to be Bristol is in fact divided up into several different city and county councils has hampered the organisation of public transport and has meant infrastructure that should have been put in place decades ago has still not been built. Additions to infrastructure will be introduced over timescales measured in decades rather than years. So it is vitally important that we make best use of current resources.

There are already many sources of information about public transport and the data they can provide is volumous. And this is one half of the problem. People are faced with a needle in a haystack and often multiple haystacks as different transport modes have different web sites or different organisations providing information. There is little consistency in the presentation of the information from different sources.

The second half of this problem is that people have to go out of their way to find the right source and then hunt for the specific information as transport sites usually only deal with transport information and people have no other reason to visit them.

Non-transport data

Bristolstreets.co.uk includes property information collected from estate agent web sites using the same sort of techniques employed by search engine sites such as Google. The purpose of presenting this information is to encourage regular visitors to the site so that more people will be exposed to the transport information. This is a good match because where one lives and how one travels are closely linked and someone choosing a home will also be likely to take an interest in local transport.

However, there are many other types of location based information which could be of general interest and help to make people visit the site regularly and use it to find more sustainable modes of travel.