The keys to the kingdom
spatial · transport · cities learning
I started a new job last week- here I am working on transport and GIS!
As it turns out, both transport and GIS are awesome. But how do you get up to speed really, really quickly?
You ask for help.
Asking for help
In return, I was given the keys to the kingdom - people to follow, blog posts to explore, books to read, offers of help. This community is amazing.
The resources were too good not to share and following Steph Locke’s geospatial lead on this, here’s the summary. I’ve also added a few I found on my own.
Great people to follow
One of the ways I get a good overall view of a topic is by following great people on Twitter. Having a feed that offers me a little new information every day means I’m learning continuously - with context.
The people recommended to me for following include:
Reka S, who was at this year’s Seattle Unconference and by report an all-round super star.
Oliver Obrien, who tweets about cities
Michael Sumner, #rstats GIS nice guy who was the first person I ever asked about GIS stuff and came through in spades for a complete twitter stranger. It was my first introduction to what this community can be like.
Belinda Maher, Aussie transport maven.
Packages to explore
gtfsr, a package for doing things with gtfs data. Also, for the record, I found out that gtfs is a type of transport data and does not stand for “go the @#$% to sleep” in this context (language warning on this link!).
stplanr, by Robin Lovelace and Richard Ellison. A package full of useful transport functions and ideas.
RNetlogo for Agent Based Modelling.
Not an R package: The Multi-Agent Transport Simulation MATSim. As far as I can ascertain there is no R wrapper for this Java-based piece of open source magic. We may need to do something about that…
Books to read
Spatial Microsimulation in R by Robin Lovelace. I got through five chapters or so of this already and it’s an excellent starter’s guide.
Geocomputation in R by Lovelace, Nowosad and Muenchow. Forthcoming, but looks fantastic.
Agent-Based Models of Geographical Systems by Heppenstall, Crooks, See and Batty, editors.
Forecasting Urban Travel by Boyce and Williams. This one is not free, but I have a feeling I’m going to get acquainted with it in the future.
Modelling Transport by Ortuzar and Willumsen, ditto.
Handbook of Choice Modelling, again not free. But then the funding to produce these kinds of works has to come from somewhere, right?
Blogs and articles
Todd Schneider on the NYC subway countdown clock
Visualising GTFS data in R by DataFeelings
Not R, but some great Open Cities projects and blogs.
Talks to watch
Papers largely trapped behind paywalls (sorry!)
These are mostly about choice modelling, which is where I have alot of interest at the moment. A short pay-walled bibliography if you will.
People to thank
I got an amazing list of resources to learn in a very short period of time, because of the help and assistance of the R Community. Thankyou so much to you all!