Design and implementation of an open-source urban mobility web service based on environmental quality and bicycle mobility data

Abstract

Fostering urban and interurban bicycle mobility is a priority for cities in order to cope with net-zero emissions' mandates that arise in the near future. However, authorities and municipalities in charge of developing the underlying structures for this means of transport are lacking suitable tools to gather and visualise real-time mobility data with which these authorities or businesses could make better decisions towards the design and maintenance of bicycle infrastructure. At the same time, the developments described in this article are part of the Deustek research group's work leading up to the SOCIO-BEE project, which seeks to encourage the participation of citizens in decision-making on policies related to the environmental improvement of our territory. Therefore, this article seeks to provide public administrations, private companies, researchers and entrepreneurs with a web service that visualises environmental-quality and mobility data. The tools and framework developed aim to provide information to citizens that will help them to better understand the existent mobility dynamics, and thus develop actions that will foster bicycle transportation in any city context. To this extent, the design and implementation of an open -source mobility data web service is provided. This service is connected to a web-accessible central system that stores both environmental-quality and mobility data, allowing the correct visualisation of collected measurements. Furthermore, the proposal is provided with an embedded system capable of gathering mobility and environmental-quality data while it's attached to any given bicycle. This enables the web service's users both the inspection of the actual track of the bicycle they own or have rented as well as the understanding of the different environmental key parameters of their route related to air or noise pollution. Initial findings have been obtained from testing the application in the bike renting system offered by the city of Bilbao, Spain