Using the BBC Feeds: Whetting the Appetite

Dan Z — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:48:42 +0000

I spent a few hours yesterday setting up a script that periodically grabs the BBC Road Travel XML data, parses it into a database, then grabs the current weather conditions for any new incidents (for the local area), and stores that alongside each incident. Hopefully in a week-or-two there’ll be enough data to produce some interesting graphs, such as number of incidents vs. weather conditions, or number of incidents vs. time of day.

In the meantime, just out of interest, I’ve quickly grabbed the BBC 7 Day Listings data, and grep’ed it for some different genres of output that the BBC is pushing to its audience in the next week. As a committed atheist with a scientific background, it’s a bit dis-heartening to see this kind of balance of output from the BBC:

With about half of British people now having no religious beliefs, and I expect a slightly higher percentage having some belief in Science, I wonder how long this situation can last before the public demands a more even balance.

*** Dan

Michael Fish knows why you were late…

Dan Z — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:50:01 +0000

Claire and I are keen to use the large and varied data sources of the BBC to provide unique, beneficial services to the end-user. One way we think we can do this is by combining and comparing (‘mashing up’) the multiple sources, where relevant, to produce extra insight.

One of the avenues we’re keen to explore is how travel and weather data can be combined: how weather can affect travel/driving conditions, and therefore how a weather forecast could predict potential problems.

An obvious example of this is extreme weather: snow, heavy rain and high winds will have a noticable impact on driving conditions. But, given the beautiful conditions recently, I’ve also been wondering how sun may also be potentially included on this list of conditions that could cause problems.

As a very quick (and un-scientific) test, I’ve been checking the BBC’s road alerts XML feed this afternoon (for about the last hour, since 3pm). Specifically, I’ve been looking for the number of incidents that are ‘westbound’ (facing the setting sun) rather than ‘eastbound’. There’s little statistical significance, but the number of westbound incidents have been consistently 10-15% higher.

I’d like to take this experiment a little further. If I have time, I’ll set up some scripts next week that pull-in and record the BBC’s weather and travel feeds, and log the data to a simple database. At the end of the week, I’ll then be able to compare and contrast various types of road incidents against the weather conditions at the time (be it rain, sun, or something else), and the time of day. Hopefully it should make for interesting analysis, and if it proves slightly significant, could be something we consider using at a more regional level as part of our work with the BBC.

*** Dan

PS For those of you tuning in to find out about the next Cardiff Web Scene meet-up, we’re finalising a venue, and should have more information early next week! Stay tuned…

Box UK: BBC Innovation Labs Blog » weather

Using the BBC Feeds: Whetting the Appetite

Michael Fish knows why you were late…