How do you take the enormous amount of critical information gathered every day by city agencies and make it actually useful to citizens? … . Enter the annual NYC Big Apps competition – a call to software developers who can mine this data and find ingenious ways to put it at the fingertips, or keyboard clicks, of the average New Yorker.
Here are two goodies:
Scott Kolber and his team took top honors at NYC Big Apps 2011 for an app that will help New Yorkers get around their city even faster, combining up-to-date MTA information, DOT’s real time traffic speed data, garage locations, and gas prices with user-sourced word-on-the-street.
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If you’re trying to find affordable parking in Manhattan, this app feels your pain. Using the Department of Transportation’s parking regulations dataset, Benjamin Sann created a tool that allows you to keep your options open: you can drive around looking for free parking, but also reserve a space in a garage, just in case. Little surprise, then, that it won the Investor’s Choice award.
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