12 Nov 2015
Loughborough to help launch new weather and travel app
Image: Pixabay
A new weather and travel app, funded by Innovate UK, is to be worked on by Loughborough University, Peterborough Environment City Trust, Meniscus, and Anglia Ruskin University.
The Hyperlocal Rainfall app, as it is known, will help people to make informed decisions about travel around Peterborough, by providing up-to-the-minute and hyper-localised weather forecasts, enabling users to walk and cycle more by being one step ahead of the weather.
The project will use a combination of real-time radar-based rainfall data and wind speed and direction data, in addition to historic rainfall information, to deliver predictions, made available to residents via a free mobile phone app.
Tracy Ross, Research Fellow, Loughborough Design School, said: “The unpredictable British weather is often stated as a reason why people don’t use active travel modes, but little research has tried to tackle this problem in a practical way. In this project, our role is to help design this app so that it best fits how people make their travel choices and increases the chances of them taking the more active option.”