Last November, our ESR GEO-C researcher Diego Pajarito participated in a Short Term Scientific Mission in Malta aimed to create a crowdsourced map of urban bicycle trips using a gamified mobile application in Malta. During the mission, nineteen urban cyclists contributed by recording their bicycle trips while they tested an experimental mobile application. Researchers obtained two main datasets, first a GIS-compatible file with bicycle trips in Malta, and second, a compilation of cyclists’ profiles, use of mobile devices and their motivation for using the bicycle as a mean of transportation.

The main outcome of the STSM was the crowdsourced map of urban cycling in Malta, made out of more than 17 thousand location points corresponding to more than 250 bicycle trips recorded with the gamified mobile application. The mission also collected data about cycling profiles, use of mobile phones, mobile games as well as the preferences for collaboration-based rewards of participants. 

Results contributed to the Cost Action in Citizen Science, the Ph.D. thesis on “Mobiles Services for Green Living”, and the Joint Doctorate in Geo-informatics; by the use a mobile platform to connect members of the urban cycling community in Malta and generate a unified geospatial dataset useful for identifying the cycling patterns of urban cyclists as well as for feeding future analysis and research.

The map showed the preferred roads used by cyclists in Malta, mainly associated with flat areas in the seashore, and the different patterns followed by them when cycling through hilly areas. It also showed how participants reached their home or workplaces by bicycle, no matter if they were located out of the urban areas or in different cities. The map and the data used to create it are freely available for participants and researchers from the University of Malta. Therefore future outcomes are expected since the community is active and willing to share and analyse the map.