Following the great success of MegaBITS' precursor, the BITS Project, which won a REGIOSTARS Award, Interreg Germany interviewed Prof. Dr. Jorge Marx Gómez and Project Assistant Johannes Schering from the BITS partner, the University of Oldenburg.
Ronald Jorna, project manager of the BITS project and Wim Dijkstra, Senior Advisor of the Provincie Overijssel, receiving the Regiostars Award for the BITS Project.
© European Union / Jonathan Pourchet
The interview provides insights into the implementation of BITS in Oldenburg and highlights the positive contributions of the project.
As part of the BITS project, the Department of Business Information Systems (VLBA) at the University of Oldenburg was responsible for analysing extensive bicycle data collected across the North Sea region. The department also contributed to the research aspect through university training and publications.
As Project Assistant Johannes Schering stated: “Our project team took on the task of bringing together the various data and visualizing it in a way that is appropriate for stakeholders.
“As part of the student project of the same name, the Bicycle Data dashboard was created, which integrates heterogeneous bicycle traffic data and displays it dynamically in the form of graphics and maps. A central aspect of the Department of Business Information Systems (VLBA) is the close involvement of students in the development process, where they participate in a practical way as an integral part of their education. In addition, some project results have been published in scientific journals (ScienceDirect) and published as a book chapter.
Another focus of our software project was the provision of open data: interested third parties, such as researchers or software companies, can reuse our research data. For example, smartphone apps could be developed based on the processed data to make cycling safer or more comfortable. The data sets are available in our Open Data Portal available for download and were also published in CycleDataHub, which was also developed within the framework of BITS and is hosted by the Province of Antwerp.”
“Recently the city has been able to implement several "smart" measures that attracted national attention. For example, cyclists on the Quellenweg cycle path will receive more green lights when it rains.”
BITS facilitated interdisciplinary and cross-border exchange with leading players in cycling promotion, helping the research to advance and regions to become more bike-friendly. As Prof. Dr. Jorge Marx Gómez mentioned in the interview: “As part of the Interreg project, pioneers and latecomers alike are given the opportunity to exchange ideas and approaches, learn from one another and work together to advance cycling.”
Read the full article in German here (use the auto-translate feature of the Google Chrome browser to translate).