Social Media and traffic congestion
Those of you that know me will know that I’m based in Edinburgh – and right now the city centre is in tatters due to the ongoing traffic congestion caused by our dearly beloved Tram project. And yes I live on the west of the city and work in Leith, in the east, so that trek across the city can at times be a challenge. The majority of people and press are dead against it, not least due to the amount of businesses disappearing or suffering at the lack of trade due to the inaccessibility of getting into town or at least to particular areas.
I am one of those rare beasts that is in favour of the project – there I’ve said it, start the mud slinging.
Edinburgh without the trams does not have a joined up traffic network – who in their right mind would put the bus station half a mile away up a 1:3 gradient from the train station – too short for a taxi, too far to drag cases… There was a massive hole next to Waverley station for years and yet it became a mini shopping centre instead of moving the bus station… this is not the place to whinge.
Anyway, social media, how can it play a part in this? There are a couple of obvious things: One (admitedly would take big balls from Richard Jeffrey) but write a blog from the front line of construction admiting that yet again they’ve dug up another body and the police forensic team are halting proceedings, or yet again they’ve stumbled upon another secret tunnel that had no previous record of existing and will take the best part of a month to shore up the road to stop subsidence of immediate buildings and the tram track… instead of fighting abuse from all angles, concentrate the vitriol and explain the hold ups – be transparent so we all know why and can ask questions that are answered publicly thereby managing the PR both proactively and reactively.
Another would be the traffic centric social network. Eh?
I was the lead for creating a traffic congestion fighting website for a business park back in 2006 – I know it sounds odd, but get this: Edinburgh Park lives alongside The Gyle shoping centre, it’s home to about 7000 people who work for companies like Aegon, BT and HSBC; the developers were only going to be granted further planning permission if they could come up with a green travel plan that dealt with the horrendous traffic snarl up at the Maybury roundabout (where the park links Edinburgh to the main Glasgow route) and at the other end of the park.
So we created a closed social network – a public website with maps and features and so on but also the same site, if it recognised your email as originating from the park gave you access to all sorts of social tools. The site has web cams to see traffic levels, car sharing, the city car club, bus tracking, cycle and running clubs – surely it is in the interest of both the city and the transport operators to better facilitate communication about traffic – how big a leap is it to provide such a service for every city in the UK or further afield? The Edinburgh Park example has 4000 registrants and is regularly used by up to 300 people a week – what could it do for a city?