What’s New

23rd September 2020 Heart of Gold

Behind the scenes

In this sprint we have been hard at work making behind-the-scenes changes in preparation for some exciting new features.

We look forward to revealing these features (including larger networks and public transport) soon!

9th September 2020 Ohio

Improvements to OSM models

File downloads for OSM models have been reduced in size to improve network loading time.

Links and nodes now have unique IDs.

Some cycle paths were appearing in the road network, and some footpaths in the cycle network. These have now been removed.

Some links in the OSM models were missing the nodes at one end. These have been added.

Bug Fixes

The credit for some of the data sources in the map layers were missing. They have now been added.

The Cycleways layer now contains the same paths as those used to create the mesh density layer.

26th August 2020 Dakota

New layers for cycling

Under Active Travel we have introduced new map layers for Cycle Mesh Density, Propensity to Cycle and Cycleways. Cycle Mesh Density can be viewed as Output Areas, Propensity to Cycle can be viewed as Lower Layer Super Output Areas and both can be viewed as buildings or Cycleways.

Cycleways show routes on the map that are available to cyclists including shared use. Cyclepaths only show routes that are dedicated to cycling.

Download chart data as a CSV file

You can now download the underlying chart data as a CSV file. CSV files are compatible with Excel and similar spreadsheet software. The new Download data button is available on the Network page and the Routes page. On the Routes page the download contains the data for the selected metric.

Bug Fixes

The map credit for OS map tiles was missing for one of the variants, it has now been reinstated

Behind the scenes

The map on the Demand, Output and Compare pages has been migrated to the newer codebase as part of our ongoing work to make our front-end more compact and efficient.

We have also significantly reduced the map animation when pages load for all migrated pages. This means page load should be less jarring.

12th August 2020 Indiana

OpenStreetMap data with cycle and walking routes

Cadence now supports models built from OpenStreetMap (OSM) data. We have a working test model for Exmouth where you can analyse the network and take advantage of our routes tool. The routes tool allows you to view the time and distance of journeys and see how closing roads affects journeys for different user classes.

Importantly, as part of using OpenStreetMap data, Cadence now supports cycle and walking paths allowing you to model these routes and see the impact of changes helping plan for active travel in towns and cities. This isn't possible with a SATURN model alone.

OSM data with cycle and walking routes showing journey times. © OpenStreetMap contributors

For comparison: SATURN model without cycle and walking routes

Britain-wide road accident heatmap

A new layer showing a heatmap of road collisions across the whole of Great Britain is now available. The data is taken from the DfT's STATS19 dataset and includes collisions since 2005.

The layer can be found in the Road Safety section of the map overlays panel.

OSM data with cycle and walking routes showing journey times. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0

Zoom showing detailed collision data for Manchester.

Behind the scenes

The map on the audit page has been migrated to the newer codebase as part of our ongoing work to make our front-end more compact and efficient.

We have optimized how networks are loaded. This should improve performance for models that include a buffer network.