2008 TRICS® User Meetings take place in London and Edinburgh

The 2008 TRICS® User Meetings were the most popular since the annual events began back in 1996. This year they were held in London and Edinburgh, with attendees reflecting the regional diversity of our member organisations.

The London event was held first, at the Museum in Docklands, a unique historical venue in the heart of London’s Docklands regeneration area. This was followed a week later in Edinburgh, at the equally unique venue The Hub, Edinburgh’s highest building and a historic building known for being used as part of the annual Edinburgh Festival.

The London meeting in particular was the most well attended single-day yet, with 116 members of the TRICS® Community present. TRICS® is committed to the capital, with our largest ever London survey programme taking place in 2008, and this commitment was reflected by the many attendees from within the London area.

The meetings commenced with a welcome from TRICS® Consortium Chairman Nick Rabbets, followed by a presentation on TRICS® system developments in 2008. Nick introduced users to a number of new features in the system, including the migration of TRICS® site mapping to the Google Maps website, and explained the new structure of TRICS® development following the arrival of the web version. Users without internet access at any particular time were interested to hear of our new “off-line” downloadable version of the system, which was made live with the launch of TRICS® version 2008(b)v6.2.1 in June.

This presentation was followed by a talk on the 2008 TRICS® Good Practice Guide (now available within the TRICS® Library module), given by Ian Coles, the TRICS® Manager at JMP Consultants Limited. Ian discussed how good practice can be applied in an everyday context, and brought users up to date on the latest guidance with some practical examples.

There followed a presentation on the new Accessibility feature within TRICS®. The feature, which incorporates the use of Google Maps and Census information, was explained in detail, and it was confirmed that it will be available for all new data being input into TRICS® following the release of the June 2008 update.

The latest developments in the Standardised Assessment Methodology (SAM) for the monitoring of travel plans followed, and the way that SAM data is incorporated as a whole new data section within TRICS® sites was explained. It was reported that a growing number of local authorities across the UK are expressing interest in the SAM methodology, and that this is set to increase as the project continues to expand and develop.

The final presentation introduced some recent TRICS® research into residential trip rates and location type, in particular the effect of “out of town” developments. The results of this research should soon be available to TRICS® members.

Lunch followed, which gave the attendees the opportunity to mingle amongst their colleagues in the industry, and to explore the unique venues that were selected for this year’s meetings. The selection of more interesting venues has been a popular trend in recent years, and the TRICS® team certainly aims to continue this for future events.

The final session of the day was the popular interactive TRICS® workshop, which facilitated a demonstration of the system, and a discussion covering a number of user issues and ideas for future development, in a “hands-on” environment. The use of a number of laptop computers for these sessions has proven to be quite popular, with everyone staying on for this productive afternoon period.

A great deal of much valued feedback was received during the day, and will help in the production of our next round of system development and data collection programmes. The dual-venue format is set to continue in 2009, and of course all members of the TRICS® Community will be informed as soon as dates and venues are arranged.