Background+Reading

="Tactical Urbanism 4"= [| http://issuu.com/codesignstudio/docs/tacticalurbanismvol4_141020/1]

=Programmable Cities - Hacking for Transport=

As part of the Programmable City project, some of our research involves looking at hackathons, hack nights, and their role in city governance. Hackathon’s are increasingly being used by city governments as a way to tap into the creativity of its citizens and make use of open data to help manage the city and address issues that citizen’s may find important.

=**Vehicle traffic monitoring through bluetooth detection**= We present a traffic probe for vehicle monitoring powered by rasberry-pi that leverages on techniques such as the detection of signals as Bluetooth. The entire system is powered by free and open source software.

=**Auckland Hackathon Challenges**= A great example of the ideas that came out of an all of Auckland transport focussed hackathon.

=[|**Mobilities Symposium**]= Some presentations from the 5th Mobilities Symposium held in Wellington may also be of interest.

=[|DIY Traffic Counter]= Here's a very cool sensor project that we should think about building and improving on during the weekend. For example, why not have wireless uploading? Unfortunately the people behind that project are not quite as open as you would hope and rather than publishing instructions / shopping lists (like all our projects will) they opted to try to make it into a product via KickStarter and missed their funding goal by a wide margin back in 2013 (http://trafficcom.org/). Let's build one and publish the specifications for everyone! Who wants to research the air pressure sensor?

Some great discussion on sensor selection for DIY traffic counting projects here:

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**[|Web Accessibility Information]**
"The New Zealand Government Web Toolkit (Web Toolkit) provides standards, guidance, tips, and advice for Government agencies on effectively using online channels. Based on a 2003 Cabinet directive (Cabinet Minute (03)41/2B), all [|Public Service departments and Non-Public Service departments in the State Services] [|(external site link)] are directed to implement the Standard. Other State sector organisations are not required to implement the Standard, but are strongly encouraged to do so. By virtue of the legislation (i.e. Human Rights Act 1993, Bill of Rights Act 1990) and New Zealand’s ratification of the [|United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities] [|(external site link)] that underly the requirement for mandated organisations to produce accessible websites, there is a reasonable expectation that the websites of all Government organisations will be accessible to the widest range of New Zealanders, including people with disabilities."

Relevance? With an aging population, and many people living with a range of disabilities including blindness and vision impairments, it would be good for solutions to help people move around include a range of accessible options for getting information. Not everyone has a smart phone or uses apps.

=Online management good practice= From the Web Toolkit, these notes show Government understanding of their ideas on a minimum expected level of good practice for creating, maintaining and developing websites, and for sharing ideas across the wider government web domain. If a transport solution is proposed for government funding, knowing their expectations may help.

NZ Online Engagement Community
The Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) and Victoria University of Wellington School of Government (VUW) developed a collaboration site __**‘NZ Online Engagement Community’**__

This a private site where the NZ Online Engagement Community can: 1. Share and contribute knowledge, experience and resources related to stakeholder engagement 2. Create and own fit-for-purpose guidance for best practice online engagement There are over 100 members on the site. As it is a private community you need to [|register] before participating.

**Thoughts on Public Engagement with Local Government**
Observations from "PublicVoice" digital engagement company about decreasing public participation with local government, comparing USA survey data with the New Zealand situation. How can engagement and participation be improved? Social media is one way to increase this, if done well.