SOCIAL: SFTA biking iphone app

[Adrian Cotter]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/17/BA141AK16V.DTL

If you see bicyclists wobbling through the city streets with an iPhone
in hand, don't assume they're playing Bejeweled or IMing their virtual
pals while they pedal.

They may be using Cycle Tracks, the San Francisco County
Transportation Authority's new - and first - application for the Apple
iPhone.

Once bike riders install the app, they tap the "start recording"
button, which begins tracking their trips and displaying them on a
city map. When they're done pedaling, they hit the "save" button, and
the details of their journeys are sent to the authority, as well as
saved in the user's iPhone. The app uses GPS to track riders' routes.

The authority plans to feed the data into the state-of-the-art
computer model it uses to predict future traffic patterns. The goal is
to figure out where bicyclists ride, why they choose those routes and
how development decisions or transportation changes might affect them,
said Billy Charlton, the authority's deputy director for technology
services.

As an incentive to get more cyclists to download and use Cycle Tracks,
the authority is holding a drawing for 10 $50 iTunes gift cards.
Anyone who downloads the app and uses it at least once will
automatically be entered.

For those secretive (or paranoid) cyclists who want to help out but
might not want certain trips tracked, the authority offers some
assurances. All trips are dumped into the database anonymously, they
say, and someone who ends up pedaling somewhere they don't want anyone
to know about can always hit the cancel button, and the evidence will
be erased.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/17/BA141AK16V.DTL