Highlights of parallel meetings

1
Highlights of parallel meetings

• Maarten van Bemmelen
• Stuart Reid
• Marc Stemerding

2
This presentation

• Content (Stuart)
• System development (Marc)
• Exploitation (Maarten)

3
Content

• Interface
• Information
• Information exchange
• Quality

4
Content - Interface

• Great importance of the interface in leading
  users to the information behind the site
• The front end of the site should lead by topic
  area (health, environment) not lead with cycling
• The site should be generally objective, not
  appear as an advocacy site
• Different types of user should be led to
  different areas of the site, eg politicians
  should go first to briefings, officers to
  technical docs.

5
Content - Information

• More topics to be covered, particularly
  non-engineering, eg promotion and process
  funding
• Depth preferred to breadth
• Great importance of benchmarking via the site
• A strong interest in case-study information
• A model of very limited interest

6
Content - Information Exchange

• Willingness to participate by posting information
• BUT no consensus on degree of access
• Moderation necessary
• Unlikelihood of negative information being posted
  by users
• Need to stimulate offline communication
• Need to stimulate other language users to
  contribute documents

7
Content - Quality

• Desire for quality labelling
• No of hits per document suggested
• A core list welcomed
• Interest in user reviews, but need for moderation
• Authorship and ownership clearly visible
• Desire for ongoing verification of information
  posted, but large implication for resources
• Caveat emptor

8
System development

• User registration, web logs, market information
• Starter kit
• Language
• Website functionalities

9
User registration, web logs, market information

• Some scepticism, reluctance (SPAM!)
• People want to see something attractive first,
  before registration
• People must know what to get (benefits) by
  registering, what not (spam), and how their data
  are used
• For consultants, to learn from other experts is
  of more value than market information
• Suggestion pay for upload/download function
• Suggestion quality labelling for users

10
Starter kit

• Rather no sketch model
• Benchmarking, city-to-city comparison
• Information pack a qualified set of documents
• personalised set of handbooks and case studies
• FAQs as a starter kit

11
Language

• Italian may be very important (market, source)
• also for the French
• Danish (source)
• Danes translate in English
• We are leaving out countries that are the worst
  of (south, east)
• Suggestion translate some 50 concepts in more
  languages
• Suggestion information in the portal in more
  languages
• Suggestion search for documentation outside
  Europe (Asia)

12
Functions

• Suggestion latest news as a e-magazine
• personalised selection of topics
• Suggestion top 10 of successful (improving)
  cities
• Connect to a benchmark tool?
• Progress reports (cities show their progress)
• Suggestion make Velo.Info more personal
• editorial, weekly column
• jokes and cartoons

13
Exploitation

• European market for cycling expertise
• What is Velo.Info?
• Paid services
• Sponsoring/advertising

14
European market for cycling expertise

• Cities hire local/national consultants
• A consultant from another country can not do the
  work alone, need to take local context into
  account
• Cities at the moment do not have a good overview
  of which consultant from abroad has the right
  expertise
• Be careful about European Competition Laws
  (tendering regulation)
• Suggestion Velo.Info can provide a list of
  recommended consultants
• Suggestion Form regional teams of
  consultants/experts
• Suggestion Focus on training programmes of local
  consultants

15
What is Velo.Info?

• Velo.Info has to prove itself before starting to
  ask for payments of services
• 18 months is a relatively short time to do so
• Velo.Info should be independent
• Suggestion Provide transparency (who is on the
  board?)
• Suggestion Provide clear products
• Suggestion Learn from the U.S. experience
• Suggestion Marketing velo.info is very important
  for its success

16
Paid services

• Suggested paid services
• Placing cvs by experts
• Pay for publications/book ordered through
  velo.info
• Advertising
• Training programmes
• Technical bulletin
• Overview of cities that are starting/planning
  cycling projects
• Translation services
• Benchmarking facilities
• Paying for registration
• Make clear what you get
• Cities might be willing to pay for registration
  but for a limited amount of time

17
Sponsoring

• Do not forget other sources of funding
• Other industrial sectors that are looking for
  sustainable image
• Public funding

18
MacDonalds should first provide a proper
cycle-thru functionality