KeepMoving

Which is the odd one out:

2008-09-22T07:29:00.000-07:00

Stumped?

Well, the answer is ... KeepMoving.

Yes, there are the facile answers like, "It's a website, the other people are people" or, "I know the celebrities, the other thing I'm entirely ignorant of".

Well, the correct answer is KeepMoving. According to yesterday's Sunday Express's Trendometer, The Mighty Boosh, Kate Moss and Billie Piper are on their way out, KeepMoving is on its way in.

Expensive licensing issues prevent us from showing you the clipping, so if you're one of those fortunate enough not to read the Express you'll have to trust us.

KeepMobile

2008-09-04T07:45:00.000-07:00

We've got a few queries on the KeepMoving discussion board about whether there're mobile pages.

Well, yes. Yes there are. keepmoving.co.uk/mobile.

You get the traffic info, our always-exciting CCTV

We just need to do some browser-sniffing so your phone takes you there automatically when you go to the regular KeepMoving site.

Britain From Above

2008-08-10T08:21:00.000-07:00

Starting today, the BBC's Andrew Marr presents a major new series, "Britain From Above", and data from KeepMoving has been used to drive some of the impressive animations.

The series is an epic journey revealing the secrets, patterns and hidden rhythms of our lives from a striking new perspective. Andrew Marr reveals how each and every one of us is interconnecting, making Britain what it is today.

Britain looks very different from the skies; from a bird's eye view of the nation, its workings, cities, landscapes and peoples are revealed and re-discovered in new and extraordinary ways.

KeepMoving provided data to 422 South, the visual effects company working with Lion TV, who produced the series of programmes for the BBC.

At the request of the programme makers, KeepMoving provided samples of GPS Floating Vehicle Data (GFVD), anonymously and passively collected from freight vehicles traversing the UK road network. GFVD is just one of the types of data collected, analysed and published by ITIS' TrafficScience software platform.

If you're in the UK, you can see the traces of freight vehicles in the animation during this clip.

Interesting Times

2008-07-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

Anybody reading the Times this week may have noticed KeepMoving was the 'Site of the Week'. This is a true accolade. Look! Even Viggo Mortensen (best known as Aragorn in Lord of the Rings) is saluting our achievement.

So, on this slow balmy Summer's day, we've been toying with the idea of expanding the scale of our operation to include all of Middle Earth. Here's the development mock-up:

Dearest Petrol

2008-07-23T02:54:00.001-07:00

This morning we've rolled out the eagerly-anticipated changes to our site. Now you can find the cheapest petrol on any road, or journey you chose to make. It's awfully handy, and we talk a little about it here.

These are only the first things we're going to do with all our petrol price information. We'll be doing a number of subsequent releases integrating the content further with our traffic information, making it even handier.

On of the first things we'll try and address with the current features is the "cheapest/dearest" terminology. Y'see, we've had a few debates around the office as to what the antonym (opposite) of 'cheapest' is. Priciest? Uncheapest? Expensiviest? We've settled on 'dearest', though we're a little worried it makes us sound a bit affected.

Anyway, any suggestions, let us know. Whether it's for new features or our lexical wranglings.

Went Ape!

2008-07-18T02:09:00.000-07:00

It's not all gruelling development work here at KeepMoving. Sometimes we emerge into the sunshine and have team away days.

We had one such day at Go Ape! in Delamere Forest Park, climbing trees and swinging down ziplines. It was rather fun, and for no other reason than we think we're very photogenic people (well, for geeks), here's some photos.

Petrol Prices

2008-07-16T02:55:00.000-07:00

You're driving to London. Should you fill up before you leave to avoid the service stations' high prices? Maybe the petrol will be cheaper in London? With the rocketing price of petrol, you'll want to fill up your tank for as little as possible.

We're collecting data from almost 10,000 petrol stations across the UK. We're currently integrating it into KeepMoving so you can see where's best to buy it.

We're launching it in just under two weeks. It's going to be rather useful, and we're quite excited in our own little traffic geek way.

I know your face

2008-07-11T02:57:00.000-07:00

We designed a lot of the site's functionality back in December last year. Back in those dim, distant days we only had 3,000 members. We've now grown to over 20,000, and we're trying to keep up with the changing ways that the site is being used.

We always welcome suggestions, and he had a particularly good one last week from Alun Andrews:

When looking at the contacts tab it shows a lot of icons for members 'who are sharing your routes'. I think it would be useful to exclude all the site members who do not want to share their details from the page.

This was a great idea, and even better, it was simple enough to implement. Now when you click the Contacts tab, you'll see a wealth of users with their own custom avatars, rather than the sea of anonymous users you had previous.

If you've got a great suggestion for how to improve the site, let us know.

Biker Hordes

2008-06-09T00:45:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday's fuel protests caused a stir here at the KeepMoving office.

Hundreds of bikers rode in convoy down the motorway, massively disrupting traffic during the morning rush hour.

But what we loved about it was how we could follow their progress down the motorways on our CCTV page. We read about their travel plans, selected the relevant roads, and watched the event unfold on our computer screens. Here's a selection of our favourite images...

Road Timetable

2008-05-22T02:32:00.000-07:00

My Mum called me the other day. She's considering moving house and wanted to know where she could move to while still being within an hour's drive of her current workplace.

She had simply taken a large fold-out map of England, worked out the average distance she could cover in one hour at rush hour, and drawn a circle of that radius centered on her workplace. It's a straightforward method, if a little crude.

But then she remembered that I worked for a traffic information company, and asked if I knew a better way.

I did. We're currently developing a tool which displays how far you can get from a certain starting point in a given time, factoring in the wealth of road and traffic information we amass.

Here's a shot.

Bigger version, click here.

When we've perfected this it'll be one piece of software with a lot of interesting uses:

- You're considering which schools you can drive to in 20 minutes at 8:30am.

- You're looking for new jobs and you want to see which employers are within half an hour's commute.

- You want to see which country pubs you can get to quickly.

We're only in alpha stages at the moment. It takes the traffic computers a lot of time to do all the calculations, so releasing this to our members isn't an option yet. When it's in beta we'll let you know.

Keep your eyes peeled.

Chris

Top gear at Top Gear

2008-03-18T08:04:00.000-07:00

Watching the Top Gear presenters tearing round racetracks and exotic countryside is good therapy for us traffic-nuts whose day jobs it is to report the slow crawl of the daily commute.

We at KeepMoving have a long history with Top Gear. It started back when the show had a slightly-awkward magazine format. Those days, we sat and watched it. Later on they starting contacting us to get statistics for their traffic-based segments. And this week we proudly present a joint competition.

Enter the KeepMoving Top Gear competition here!

Yes, now you stand a chance of winning a shiny new iPhone if you answer a series of nine questions.

Sounds simple? Fancy an iPhone? Then enter! (We have.)

Old vs. new routing

2008-03-10T06:12:00.001-07:00

Recently we rolled out our new route specific traffic feature on Vodafone 2222. The new feature detects your location and then prompts you to enter the first part of any UK postcode - it then provides you with a journey time and details of any traffic problems on your journey.

This new feature replaced the old route specific feature, where callers would hear details for the route which they had previously set up on the KeepMoving website. The rationale for this was that take-up for the old feature was rather low and the new one would have far broader appeal, which has proven to be the case.

We were very confident that the new feature would also appeal to users of the old one - we added a feature which remembers your previous destinations and then suggests them back to you, based on the time of day of the call.

However, we have registered 6 emails from callers who feel rather passionately about this change. As an interim solution, callers can dial 09003 444999, which is charged at 60p per minute - this has the old feature.

But what do you think? Let us know by posting your comments below or click our online poll to the right of this message.

The KeepMoving Team.

Let's get things started...

2008-03-07T08:50:00.000-08:00

Hello and welcome to KeepMoving.

The purpose of this blog is to keep you up to date with all our latest developments on the KeepMoving website and on our telephone traffic service.

All of the team will be chipping in with their contributions from time to time and we'd love to hear any feedback you might have about our services.

Thanks for visiting! Alex