THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL BICYCLE DATABASE PROJECT: A BASIS FOR EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION Marcus Wigan * Monash University Honorary Fellow, Centre for GIS, Department of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University. Clayton, Victoria 3158 Australia Email: mwigan@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au Nariida Smith ** CSIRO Principal Research Scientist, Division of Building Construction and Engineering, CSIRO, North Ryde, Nsw 2113 Email: narrida.smith@syd.dbce.csiro.au INTRODUCTION TO THE ANBI PROJECT Travel and mobility are of fundamental importance to the whole community. Bicycles provide a means of movement that has many benefits, and are also accessible to a substantial proportion of the community that are not able to drive cars. There are increasing pressures to examine travel modes that can provide a practical alternative to motorised transport. Greenhouse gas emission agreements, rising traffic congestion, a greater community concern for health and the need to provide access to opportunities for the whole community are all contributing to this interest. Bicycle travel can clearly play a part in all these areas, but the information needs to be assembled for policy development and evaluation. The most difficult task is to locate and assess the many very different types of data sources that can be brought to bear on cycling issues - and to find a way of picking out the most relevant and useful resources from such a list. The US National Bicycle Strategy found that a bicycle document clearinghouse was badly needed to provide a single point of reference and distribution of bicycle related materials in the USA (Zeeger et al., 1994). This was subsequently established. However, it was charged neither with developing a directory nor to add any critiques of available bicycle data resources: but rather to distribute existing documents and materials, primarily from government sources. At the April 1992 Australian Transport Advisory Council (ATAC) meeting, Transport Ministers requested officials to draft a National Bicycle Strategy (NBS). The main theme of the strategy, endorsed by ATAC in October 1992, was to facilitate cycling as a legitimate mode of personal mobility through integration with the transport system. Ministers also agreed that an action plan to develop the NBS would be developed, and that this would include a National database of information about bicycle use and data resources on cycling matters to assist strategic planning for bicycles and to facilitate research into bicycle use and safety. In February 1994, the Federal Department of Transport, on behalf of the National Bicycle Strategy Group of Officials representing Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments, commissioned the Institute of Transport Studies at the University of Sydney to put together an Australian National Bicycle Information-base (ANBI) as part of the National Bicycle Strategy. The objectives of the project were to collate the different types of information related to bicycle planning, policy and usage, and to assess possible performance indicators to be used for the National Bicycle Strategy. Design, assessment and assembly of the ANBI information base were the central tasks of the project, which also included work on performance measurement (Wigan & Smith, 1995b). The objective was to create a computerbased index to the available data and information resources. ANBI covers both an information base and a reference collection. * lately Professor of Transport Management at the Institute of Transport Studies at the University of Sydney during the ANBI project ** lately Associate Professor at the University of Sydney
The project was completed in 1995, having produced appropriate software and substantial initial databases. It is in the nature of such projects that they will never be "finished" as fresh information will continue to appear, and data that could not previously be located will come forward as awareness of the ANBI framework spreads. ANBI may now be used and built upon as a common resource framework assisting bicycle users, planners and implementors of bicycle programs. This will ensure that less duplication occurs in data collection, that many groups will gain access to a wider range of relevant information and available resources can be concentrated on any significant information gaps that may emerge. WHAT DOES ANBI CONTAIN? The two major components of ANBI are a large bibliographic database of references and summaries about the contents of the documents included, and a searchable information resource containing information summarising and assessing a wide variety of information sources about bicycles and cyclists, which can be searched in many different ways. These databases are held in computer-readable format, and are accessed through a bibliographic program called Endnote from Niles and Associates and a database program callers FileMakerPro from Claris Corporation. There are versions of both programs for Apple Macs and IBM-compatible PCs, and the information bases can be read by either type of computer without any changes being necessary using the same reference manual (Wigan & Smith, 1995c). ANBI is available on a CDRom (Wigan, 1995) and as a series of floppy discs in Mac or PC format. Both information bases are open, and users can add their own data resources, commentaries, contacts, interviews or other notes, and thus to build on the foundation provided by using ANBI as a live and active framework for assembling information about bicycles and cycling. Fig.1 The ANBI information base of data resource descriptions, specifications & commentaries The ANBI information base stored in FileMakerPro format contains summary details about many different types of data resources, published and unpublished, and also a contact database of people involved in cycling strategy, safety and planning. New data resources progressively appear, but the people who know about them, can provide advice on the contents or even copies of the documents or the databases themselves, tend to move on from place to place. The person to contact who knows about a given data resource is an invaluable asset, as all transport data has a habit of slipping away as documentation becomes separated from the data (Wigan, 1985), the labels on discs and tapes fall off, and the magnetic media are lost or scrubbed for other uses as awareness of the content fades away. Consequently ANBI contains a contact datatabase linked to the descriptions of the data resources, and
also a contact tracking system to encourage active use of the ANBI resource as a whole. Fig. 2 The ANBI searchable information base of references, comments and abstracts WHAT DOES ANBI LOOK LIKE? Figures 1 & 2 illustrate the front page of ANBI data directory database and a typical display of a search of the reference resource. The screen has a range of buttons, each of which cover a page or more of further information. The front page in Fig. 1 also has many items of critical information visible as well as these buttons. The entire database can be searched in a number of ways using different conditions in all the visible fields, in addition to the general search. There is room for a great deal of information under each button, and, for example, the Study button covers a new full page containing a description of the study involved, and further buttons to a page containing all the available documents that describe it further. Similarly, the Records button covers an entry which may be 32kb long, specifying the items covered in the survey and the coding scheme and values adopted. Not only does this allow the full coverage of the survey to be assessed (and searched) at once, but also allows the full SPSS (or other) complete machine readable record containing these descriptions to be pasted in, copied out and used at once when the data discs are available (Figure 3). Many of the buttons cover issues such as the format and pricing (if any) of the data, links to the contact person, comments on the limitations of the data and the uses that have been made of it. However, one of the more useful buttons for those scanning the system is the Data button, where a selection from the data contained in the dataset is discussed. A graphical display (or a recorded verbal note) is often also provided (Figure 4). A number of these graphical teasers are new, and have not yet been published elsewhere. While these graphical illustrations are appealing, they were not a core part of the ANBI metadatabase: they were greatly appreciated by the test users.
Fig. 3 Typical records entry of a complete SPSS header ready to search and use Fig. 4 Typical graphical illustration of an aspect of the data, to encourage usage of the dataset BUILDING ON AND APPLYING THE ANBI INFORMATION FRAMEWORK The ANBI system is designed to provide a basis for systematic recording of details about different data resources. The areas requiring commentary ensure a good coverage of all the critical items about a given resource, and, most
important, exactly what it covers. The list of codes and other descriptions of what data was collected are often the first to vanish, and play a major part in determining if a specific information resource is going to be useful or not. ANBI can therefore be regarded as a well structured aid to communication between different people involved in cycling. - and also provides a stimulus to ensure that bicycle data is actually kept, documents and made available. One of the surprising things about the project was the very large number of bicycle plans and studies that had been done, had had data collected - and the data had never been requested by the client or kept by the consultant. Some times these were surveys of several thousand people. The Lilydale bikeplan was one of the very few of these where the consultant had personally retained the only remaining copy of the data (Travers Morgan, 1990). Concise commentaries and details as required in the ANBI format (see Fig. 1) not only encourage data to be recorded, but also provides a means by which it can be accessed easily. Not only are the relevant contact people for getting hold of the data included, but also the complete set of questions on the survey form *. The initial ANBI reference base began with over 800 references to cycling matters, Building on this to obtain a cumulative assembly of the many documents that are produced at local levels, which do not always reach the abstracting services, would steadily improve the access to appropriate document for bicycle workers. Special features are built in to make it easier to combine the data added by many different people into a single extended ANBI database (Wigan & Smith, 1995a). ANBI offers a sound start to the process of combining the many different groups working on cycling issues, raising their common information base, and easing their access to technical and other information as required. if the opportunity created by the NBS is taken up, ANBI can offer a framework and starting point to give cycling a better structured and more accessible information resource than is currently available for any other mode of transport. REFERENCES Travers Morgan. (1990). Lilydale Shire Bikeplan (Report 1853): Lilydale Shire Council. Wigan, M. R. (1985). The secondary use of transport survey data. In E.Ampt, A. J. Richardson, & W. Brog (Eds.), New survey techniques in transport, (pp. 131-148). Netherlands: VNU Science Press. Wigan, M. R. (1995). Australian National Bicycle Information Base: CDRom (ISO9660/HFS Gold Master 1995 ISBN 08658 984 1): Institute of Transport Studies, Graduate School of Business, Sydney University. Wigan, M. R., & Smith, N. C. (1995a). National Bicycle Information Base - Copyright and Distribution issues (ANBI Project Report ANBI-95-F2): Institute of Transport Studies, Graduate School of Business, Sydney University. Wigan, M. R., & Smith, N. C. (1995b). National Bicycle Information Base - Performance metrics and Indicators (ANBI Project Report ANBI-95-F1): Institute of Transport Studies, Graduate School of Business, Sydney University. Wigan, M. R., & Smith, N. C. (1995c). User manual for the ANBI computer-based bicycle information resources (ANBI Project Report ANBI-95-M1): Institute of Transport Studies, Graduate School of Business, Sydney University. Zeeger, C., Stutts, J., Hunter, W., Pein, W., Feske, C. D., Cheeney, D., McCarville, P., & Geiger, C. (1994). The National bicycling and walking study: Transp ortation choices for a changing America (Final Report: Publication FHWA-PD-94-023): FHWA, US DoT. * Complete SPSS headers, variables and labels to allow immediate statistical analysis of the data, once obtained, are included in a several of the initial ANBI entries
BioBrief (100 words) 1) Marcus Wigan Dr Marcus Wigan has been involved in nonmotorised transport and vulnerable road user analysis since 1976. He has been active as a professional member of the State Bicycle Committee of Victoria and the US Transportation Research Board Committee on Bicycles. he has been an expert advisor to two Australian Parliaments on bicycle safety, and has chaired Standards Australia committees on helmet and eye protection standards. His publications on bicycle issues include Australian Personal Travel Characteristics, and papers on helmets, valuation of nonmotorised safety expenditures, performance indicators for cycling and bicycle ownership and exposure issues. He is currently a consultant (Oxford Systematics) on transport and policy issues, and is actively involved in GIS for transportation at Monash and most recently has built demand modes for bicycle trail use in Melbourne. 2) Dr Nariida Smith Dr Narrida Smith has...