Ride, the new travel app for Nottingham and Derby, was launched back in December and has already been downloaded more than 9,000 times. Here, Jorgen Pedersen, the project’s technical lead, provides an update on Ride and future plans for its development…

Ride is the transport app developed by both Nottingham and Derby city councils, which provides an integrated platform for all your travel needs.

It’s one of the first of its kind to ever be successfully delivered and provides the opportunity to plan a journey, check for real-time updates, even see buses moving live across your screen, select and pay for tickets, and then ride the bus, train, tram, bike or scooter directly from the app.

We realise that Ride is very much a work in progress, but we’ve tried hard to include as much functionality as we could within the confines of time, budget and information availability. For that reason, we have already planned for a sustained period of continuous improvement.

It’s still very early days, but the response from you – our customers – has been overwhelmingly positive, which is just one of the reasons we have decided to issue this blog. We wanted to let you know your comments are being heard, that we are listening, and we are also updating the app in line with your comments and suggestions.

Please keep those comments coming – we will endeavour to respond to each and every one.

That of course does not mean that we can deliver everything that you have asked, but we will explain why what has been requested isn’t necessarily as easy as it might sound.

One such enquiry was to incorporate Nottsbus services into Ride, which we think is a brilliant idea but a little more complex to deliver than it sounds. Nottsbus largely offers an on-demand service that provides a 30-minute window of arrival – the time is only confirmed a little before your scheduled departure time.

It also requires both up-front booking and payment. From a journey-planning point of view, it’s difficult to provide a multi-leg total journey without knowing when a person will arrive at an interchange point.

On-demand services are also completely self-contained systems, and there will need to be a method for requesting and depositing information to and from this service. For example, if I want to place a booking from within Ride, I need to reach into the Nottsbus app service and enter the date and time, plus pick-up and drop-off details.

Nevertheless, we are looking into this and will keep you informed as to our progress. But please rest assured, we are working diligently to include features and services which can be added in the short, medium and even longer term.

Since Ride’s launch in December, we have:

• Added Skills and the Medilink service into Ride

• Removed the server name from the payment transaction screen

• Started work to fully integrate ticketing and payments for NCT services – this is complex and we’re hoping to have it in place over the next few months

• Looking at overly-complex travel itineraries being created, which happens occasionally. We’re tackling this in two simultaneous phases. Firstly, we’ll look at how we can change the routing algorithm to remove those, and secondly seeking to add a ‘Least Interchange’ function that would automatically preclude those itineraries which, while viable, nobody would realistically take

Other things being looked at:

• We acknowledge that, at present, we have not got much by way of accessibility planning in the app. This is really dear to my heart and is already a work in progress. We’ve designed a solution that should accommodate a travel preference to remove the use of lifts, escalators, stairs, steps or otherwise. This should support people with mobility issues, a parent and pushchair, or even the needs of a service animal.  We have also already collected a huge amount of information about venue and locations, including steps, stairs, textured pavements, entrance and exits, and ticket vending machines. All of these will appear in Ride as we start to deliver new features. I can’t provide a timeline just yet, but can assure that it’s been given a high priority

• Sections of the journey planning which include walking and ‘wheeling’ currently have default speeds. Now, I’m quite a fast walker, while others walk more sedately.  We need to accommodate ‘your’ default when calculating time for walking and wheeling – this has been designed and is our prioritised list

• One great idea we received from a user was the ability to have audio-only announcements from Ride. The rationale for this was that people didn’t want, or need, to always have their phone out, it removed the opportunity for phone snatching, and would also benefit those with visually impairments, particularly if such notifications were dynamic (tell a user exactly how many metres before their turn, stop, step, etc). This has already been logged, and we are actively investigating when this can be developed and introduced

• Another issue that a few people have mentioned is that, at times, Ride doesn’t display the bus operator or the direction of travel. Thank you for this feedback. We’ve made this a priority and designed how and where the user interface needs to change – this will be incorporated into the app within the next few weeks

That’s just an idea of what we’re working on. Please keep your comments and suggestions coming – help us make your Ride app even better.

You can read more about Ride and download the app here