Open-City Mobility Futures Design Hackathon for NYC's Open Data Week

The Open-City Mobility Futures challenge will bring together diverse voices from the mobility ecosystem to provide attendees with a full understanding of the impacts of the work planned during the Canarsie Tunnel Repairs. The challenge will explore the impacts the repairs will cause to the city and its residents.

To help participants tangibly explore challenges and potential solutions, we will draw on open data sets, for example on vehicle circulation around North Brooklyn affected area (Waze) combined with public transport (MTA) usage to identify potential alternative routes that can inform product and service innovation and influence city planning for better decision making. The data sets will be from relevant local agencies including the Departments of Transport, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, the Taxi and Limousine Commission and also associate data sets from Health and City Planning. Additionally, we will incorporate open data sets from private organizations like Waze and Strava. Data sets will be set into context by presentations from experts on planned work and interrelated consequences caused by the L train disruption which is estimated to affect over 250,000 people daily.

According to a recent study, there are five key determinants that will be particularly affected by the L-train shutdown:

1. Environmental Stressors: Air Quality, Noise, and Overcrowding
2. Mobility: Walkability, Wayfinding, Transportation Hazards, and Disability Access
3. Health Related Behaviors: Physical Activity, Diet and Sleep
4. Employment and Livelihood: Job Accessibility and Security, and Occupational Stress
5. Family and Community Structure: Family Dynamics, Civic Engagement, and Leisure

Forum for the Future (Forum) has already captured the interest of multiple organizations that are collaborators in this work, laying the groundwork for effectively achieving the below objectives. Among these partner organizations are:

• The New York City Department of Transportation, whose Deputy Commissioner Michael Replogle will be a keynote speaker
• Grand Central Tech Hub will host the event,
• Collectively, a user experience design partner,
• and a number of other organizations that would be able to provide valuable datasets and expertise including Waze, NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission, Department of City Planning, and the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management.

Forum will use the learnings from our work at the Mobility Scale Lab – a collaborative work that developed recommendations for transit agencies interested in actively working with the community and the open data ecosystem on social and environmental issues - to guide delivery and design for Open-City Mobility Futures.

At Forum we know that emergent technology has a role to play in a sustainable future and in catalyzing transformational change for positive impact in society, environment and the economy.

Open Data is a vehicle to discover new insights in a distributed and equitable way, and can act as an enabler to drive change and more sustainable outcomes in the urban mobility landscape and beyond. The L train challenge represents an ideal scenario to practically test learnings and refine our approach to use open data for environmental, social and economic benefits that are mindful of future changes.

OBJECTIVES

• to develop tangible examples of how technology -Open Data- can be an enabler of long-term
• sustainable mobility and codify this process
• to test the recommendations in the research project Mobility Scale Lab with practitioners
• to strengthen relationships with key stakeholders and leading specialists in NYC
• to show leadership on urban technology and innovation for sustainable mobility

The day will be divided into three main stages: "Be Aware", "Be Inspired" and "Be Disruptive".

"Be Aware"

This is a reality check about NYC mobility's social, economic and environmental challenges associated to the L train disruption. The objective of this stage is to build awareness about priority issues and increase attendees' understanding of the interconnectedness between mobility and other urban needs.

"Be Inspired"

We will offer open data case studies and signals of change that are shaping mobility today and review major future trends associated with mobility. This stage will stimulate lateral thinking, prepare attendees for idea generation and encourage them to think beyond the present paradigm.

"Be Disruptive"

In teams of 5-6, participants will select a challenge, review relevant data sets, start to ideate, select ideas and build a rapid prototype for their pitch at the end of the day. The projects could be anything from a data visualization, an app, a 3D object, or a website.

Throughout the day, we will have experts mentoring and judging the final ideas. To close the event, we will share next steps and initial thoughts on how to move these ideas forward together. We envision publishing the conceptual ideas on Forum for the Future's Futures Centre, a global platform for sustainable solutions, and the Open Data Week NYC website.

Forum will lead facilitation and provide a set of tools including a strategic design canvas, personas, future trends, and sustainable mobility frameworks across the event to make the ideation process easier.

The final participant count will depend on venue, resources, and partners. We plan on having at least 50 attendees from diverse backgrounds including designers, programmers, engineers, data scientists, marketers, commuters, students, and experts in mobility and sustainability.

If you would like to learn more about this and partner with us please contact Rodrigo Bautista at r.bautista@forumforthefuture.org