Help test a new app that could save lives (and win an iPad!)
How often has a pleasurable day at a major event ended with frustration because roads are blocked and tube stations are impossibly crowded? One of the benefits of a new app being tested at the Lord Mayor’s Show in the City of London on 12 November, could make your return journey less stressful.
Monday 07 November 2011
The new iPhone app, however, has been designed with more serious intent in mind, to save lives following a major disaster. Since the researchers cannot set up a disaster to test the app, it is being trialed during major events such as the Lord Mayor’s Show in London and the first successful trial took place during Notte Bianca in Malta on 1st October 2011. The app has been developed by experts at the University of Passau and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). The app will show the density of a crowd, but give no information about individuals. In fact the researchers have gone to great lengths to anonymise all data. The data will help organisers to advise and guide app users on congested routes and suggest alternative routes when travelling to and from an event. If there is an emergency during the event, app users will again receive relevant advice and information.
There will however be many practical benefits for the app user during the Lord Mayor’s Show, which is expected to attract over half a million people. Spectators lining the streets to watch the historical procession will be encouraged to download the app free via the Lord Mayor’s Show website. The up-to-date information will include travel news, a show schedule, as well as information about the floats and the City’s historical buildings.
Eve Mitleton-Kelly Director of LSE’s Complexity Research Group and her team, have been researching the social and practical aspects of the technology; she explained: “This app will help with crowd safety at major events and could help save lives if there was an emergency. However to make it work, we need as many people as possible to download the app and to tell their friends. The data will be totally anonymous and the app will only be active on the day of the Show and only within the event location. As researchers we take ethical issues of data protection very seriously. The app will provide users with some very useful information on the day; they will also have the opportunity to enter a prize draw to win an iPad.”
The app is part of a research project, called Socionical, funded by the European Commission to discover new ways of how technology can help society.
