Recently we published a blog post about how our cities are becoming products, and that location data is one of the key insights to ensure correct and rapid city product development.
We also argue that most cities today have very little of such insights. So, we decided to dig into our data products and new city analytic product suites, built on top of aggregated anonymous data from the telco Telia, to see what we could find.
Read more about how cities are becoming products here
Oslo October 29th - A public transportation planning failure
Sunday the 28th of October Storgata in Oslo, one of the main transportation roads for buses and trams into Oslo city centre, was closed to upgrade, ironically, public transportation logistics. Before the street was closed several citizens complained in the press that there had been little information about the closing and alternative routes. They were right.
We look at travels that passed by Storgata the following Monday compared to the Mondays before.
Findings:
- Around 10.000 people were 9 minutes late to work on average that Monday compared to the Mondays before
- Median travel time throughout the whole of Oslo was 6 minutes more compared to the Mondays before
- One week after the road closing, people still arrive 5 minutes later than usual to work
Oslo October 30th - A concert changes the city patterns of Oslo
This day Bon Iver performed for a sold out Oslo Spektrum, and we wanted to understand how one event changes the flow of the city, and how neighbouring bars and restaurant should plan around a concert event like this.
We look at activity levels near Oslo Spektrum and around Youngstorget to understand the impact of the concert on these two areas.
Findings:
- 1200-1300 people arrived the concert area more than 2 hours in advance
- 2500 with more than 1 hour to spare
- 300-500 concert goers continued the night near Youngstorget, a bar area in downtown Oslo
- This increased the liveliness of Youngstorget area well onto the next day, a Wednesday
- During the Bon Iver concert, activity around Youngstorget was lower than usual
Oslo October 30th - The first snow of winter grinds (some) traffic to a halt
The first snow is always a shock to the city system, but what really happens to traffic and to what kind of traffic.
We look at the median door to door travel times for commuters into Oslo before the snow fell, and compared it to the 30th of October.
Findings:
- Median travel time increase 11 minutes for the whole of Oslo
- 10% of commuters delayed with more than 25 minutes (early results indicate that these are the ones that took the car, but we haven’t looked more closely at that yet)
- 25% largely unaffected (early results indicate that these are the ones that took the train, but we haven’t looked more closely at that yet)
Cities are products, and we are just now starting to understand what makes them tick like clockwork - or break completely down. Contact us to learn more.
