Ratemystreet is launched: How walking friendly is your street?

Date: 9/6/2010

TRL has launched the Ratemystreet website, an easy-to-use tool utilising Google maps and Google Streetview, enabling people around the globe to rate their street, using a five star rating system. Unlike other websites, Ratemystreet is unique in that it focuses on a street's walkability.

Ratemystreet is a complimentary tool to TRL's successful PERS (Pedestrian Environment Review System) software, an expert tool co-developed with Transport for London, which combines both qualitative and quantitative data to assess the UK's streets. Ratemystreet now allows for the direct sampling of local peoples' views on the quality of their streets and encourages their participation in the assessment and planning of walkable streets.

Users can rate how walkable a street is using the following categories:

• Crossing the street
• Pavement width
• Trip hazards
• Finding your way
• Safety from crime
• Safety from traffic
• Clean and attractive
• Disabled peoples' access

They can also add reviews and recommendations about the walkability of each street. The system is open-source which means anyone can add a rating and relies upon self-organisation to ensure that the overall rating for a street is representative, once enough people have rated it.

With no log on details required, Ratemystreet is an ideal public consultation tool allowing users to register their views quickly and easily. The tool has been built in such a way that it can be tailored to each customer's unique application, creating an individual look and feel or matched to corporate branding to enhance engagement with the target audience.

Participants' information is collated in a server side database for easy onward analysis and for inclusion in any report. The data collection parameters (for star ratings) can be tailored to specific projects.

Ratemystreet sits alongside TRL's street auditing capability in pedestrian, cycling and freight environments and a beta version of the website is available now at www.ratemystreet.co.uk.

Anyone interested in knowing more about Ratemystreet and how it can help them further should contact TRL Software, details below.

TRL Software
Telephone 01344 770758
Email software@trl.co.uk
Website www.trl.co.uk/software

Issued by TRL's Communication Team.
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