The Engaging Citizen Science Conference of 2022 took place on the 25th and 26th of April in the beautiful city of Aarhus, Denmark. And what a pleasure it has been!

Both participants and speakers shared one common goal: sharing knowledge, ideas and best practices with the citizen science community. A striving community full of researchers, facilitators, practitioners and of course citizens themselves, showcasing how citizen science cán be. What’s not to love?!

That this conference was interdisciplinary in scope is only an understatement. The beauty of citizen engagement is the horizontal line it draws across different areas of research. This was clear in the content of the many interesting presentations, workshops, demos and roundtable discussions. From noise pollution research to air quality research and, of course: mobility research. We at Maplix were present for the latter, and gave an inspiring demo about the need and methods of involving citizens in mobility planning.

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Giving citizens a voice in mobility planning with Maplix Engage

On the 25th of April, our very own co-founders gave a live demo of the Maplix Engage and Maplix Maps tools to a bunch of enthusiastic citizen science experts. Always a pleasure to be surrounded by like-minded people.

Not only did we demonstrate how the Maplix tools feed into the demand-driven and bottom-up evolution in mobility planning in general, but we also clearly showed how it can and has to be used as a data collection and data sharing methodology in mobility planning across Europe.

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To present the Maplix tools with all its functionalities, a fictitious case study in the city of Aarhus was set up in Maplix Engage, accompanied with a relevant local objective and approach. Using our tools, we gathered a bunch of (spatial) data on where the participants of the conference came from, how they travelled to Aarhus, where they slept and how they had experienced the city so far. Participants could easily participate via tablets that were provided or on their own smartphone via a QR code.

This way, participants of the demo session had the opportunity to put themselves in the shoes of local citizens and contribute to a local mobility project in Aarhus. The results gathered during the sessions were shown live and in real-time on an interactive map in Maplix Maps projected on a screen. Engaging, interesting but above all: fun!

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Grateful for the opportunity, the encounters, the beautiful city and the particularly inspiring sessions.

Hope to see you next time, Aarhus!

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