Liberty Bell - Walkability and Cyclability Citizen Engagement Platform

We need to understand the issues experienced by people of all ages, genders and abilities as they move around a city in order to address them and to encourage more people to embrace active travel in their daily lives.

Liberty Bell is a platform that simplifies the gathering of quantitative and qualitative data about the movement of people through public spaces - on foot, on a bicycle, on a scooter, using public transport. The platform uses connected bicycle bells and pedestrian wristbands to allow research participants to log, map and describe their experiences as they walk and cycle, including daily diary entries on participants' mobility experiences.

Current services include Walkability Audits for Age-Friendly Communities, City Cyclability Audits, Safe Routes to School Assessment, Evaluations of Active Travel Infrastructure, Citizen Engagement Participatory Mapping, and bespoke Research Projects.

2017 Winner Colorado Department of Transportation International RoadX Bicycle and Pedestrian Challenge

2017 Winner Smart Dublin Cycling Challenge Phase 2

2016 Winner Smart Dublin Cycling Challenge Phase 1

  • Lack of qualitative data about active travel limits the municipality’s ability to identify perceptions across diverse populations.
  • It is important to be able to audit a neighbourhood across all demographics - whether public spaces are age-friendly, gender friendly, or accessible by people of all abilities and all backgrounds.
  • Liberty Bell pinpoints and maps the exact spots where people are having problems as they move through their communities. Current data gathering tools are resource intensive, inefficient and not cost-effective.
  • Liberty Bell uses easy-to-use pedestrian wristbands for walkability audits, that are useful to assess a community for how age-friendly it is from a mobility point of view.
  • The perception of safety while bicycling, is a major reason why people choose not to bicycle in their communities. Liberty Bell captures often undetected or under-reported data, the ‘near-miss’ incidents or priority issues for those moving on foot, on bicycles or scooters, or using public transport.

Active Travel & Mobility

  • Low-cost community engagement tool to gather quantitative and qualitative data about the bicycling and walking environment

  • Easy to use interfaces for age-friendly participation - from younger to older members of the community.

  • Targeted resources to problem areas. Decisions are evidence-based, making best use of public funds.

  • Exact mapped spot location directs the service request.

  • Customised Interface to meet a research project requirements - what information needs to be collected.

As Dublin Cycling Officer I see huge potential for the use of the Liberty Bell in gathering information that will help Dublin City Council understand and improve the cycling environment in our city. The pilot trial demonstrated a real enthusiasm among cyclists for using the bell as a creative and safe way of recording information on their routes and experiences as they cycle through the city.
Sarah Scannell, Dublin City Council. Cycling & Walking Promotion Officer

 

Dublin City Council is are excited by the potential for the application of the Liberty Bell auditing tool across many sectors. From school children auditing their routes to school on foot or by bike to Local Authority Staff auditing the physical environment, we see many ways in which Liberty Bell can be used to modernise auditing techniques and to collect valuable data.
Edel Kelly, Senior Executive Transport Planner, Dublin City Council

 

Fluidedge’s experience in software design methodologies has allowed them to deliver a really beneficial, innovative, exciting new product which will help city planners gain insights into how bicyclists experience our city.
Jamie Cudden, Smart City Program Manager at Dublin City Council

 

Safe Routes to School

  • Liberty Bell is a useful tool for carrying out Safe Routes to School audits.

  • It can be used for Cyclability, Walkability and Scootability Audits.

  • Only anonymised data used.

  • Smaller bicycle bells more suited to kid bicycles are available.

You might have heard or met us here

Transport Innovation for Sustainable Development
5th Nov 2019
Hibernia Conference Centre, Dublin Castle

Liberty Bell will be attending the presentation and informal discussion on the upcoming 2020 ITF Summit on Transport Innovation for Sustainable Development, which will be held under the Presidency of Ireland. Hosted by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and International Transport Forum.

 

2019 Cycling and Society Symposium
2nd Sep 2019 to 3rd Sep 2019
University of Chester, England

The Cycling and Society Symposium is linked to the Cycling and Society Research Group whose members span many disciplines and approaches to the study of cycling. We are really looking forward to presenting a research project using Liberty Bell this year. Chaired by Prof Peter Cox, this year's theme is entitled “Cycling, Society and Social Justice” and will be hosted by the Department of Social and Political Science at the University of Chester.

 

Velo-city 2019 Dublin
25th Jun 2019 to 28th Jun 2019
Convention Centre Dublin

The theme of Velo-City 2019 Dublin is 'Cycling for the Ages'. The Velo-City conference is the world’s largest conference in the area of cycling, cycling infrastructure, bicycle innovations, bicycle safety, and the social and cultural changes driven by cycling on a global scale. Get in touch with us at ring@libertybell.ie to meet up at the conference!

 

Women on Wheels Research Project Presentation
10th Jun 2019
Dublin Cycling Campaign, Central Hotel, Dublin

Women on Wheels is a group within Dublin Cycling Campaign which is researching women’s experience of cycling in Dublin, thanks to a grant from the Community Foundation. The research team used Liberty Bell platform for volunteer participants to log experiences as they cycle and the platform allowed participants to fill in a daily diary about their decision making process in relation to their choice of whether and where to cycle or not.

 

RTE Radio Item on Research Project using Liberty Bell
9th Jun 2019
RTE, Donnybrook Dublin

RTE radio coverage of the Women on Wheels research project which used the Liberty Bell platform for their data collection. Women outline barriers to commuting by bike. The Dublin Cycling Campaign carried out research and spoke to a number of female cyclists about their experiences, to find out why women represent such a low proportion of those travelling on two wheels.

 

Women on Wheels Set up Workshop
14th Apr 2019
Waterways Ireland, Grand Canal Dock, Dublin

Workshop for Liberty Bell set up for each of the volunteer 20 women participating in the Women on Wheels research project. The platform will allow the research team to gather data about participants' cycling experience and the decision-making process into whether and where they choose to cycle. The data collection period will last for 2 weeks and lead to in-depth interviews which aim to reflect on the 'safety work' that women who cycle do - from avoiding certain routes at night, to how we select locations to lock our bikes, to avoiding cycling at all.

 

The 46th European Transport Conference
12th Oct 2018
Dublin Castle, Dublin, Ireland

Annual Conference of the Association for European Transport

 

World Health Organisation International Healthy Cities Conference
1st Oct 2018 to 4th Oct 2018
The Waterfront, Belfast, Northern Ireland

Under the theme of Changing Cities to Change the World, Liberty Bell is delighted to be presenting at the World Health Organisation conference in Belfast on International Healthy Cities. The conference celebrates Thirty Years of the Healthy Cities Movement!

 

2018 Cycling and Society Symposium
6th Sep 2018 to 7th Sep 2018
University of the West of England, Bristol Frenchay Campus, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol, England

Joint Cycling and Society Symposium and the European Cyclists’ for Cycling (ECF) Scientists for Cycling colloquium.

 

Velo-City 2018
12th Jun 2018 to 15th Jun 2018
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Liberty Bell are thrilled to be speaking at Velo-City 2018! Velo-city 2018, in South America for the first time, will focus on the main theme Access to Life, linked to the overall goal of cycling inclusion.

 

Contact

Liberty Bell is brought to you by Fluidedge Innovation.

Guinness Enterprise Centre, Taylors Lane, Dublin 8, Ireland

Tel: +353 1 4100628 Email: innovation@fluidedge.com

Follow the Liberty Bell story @fluidedge