… Analysing London

Using information from council websites, I made some maps to show the varying numbers and types of toilet across London, from public toilets and community toilet schemes to other publicly accessible toilets (in Stations etc..). That was yesterday’s blog post.

It revealed as much about the levels of information on council websites as much as it did about the number of toilets. With that in mind, I’m going to milk the data a little more, to see what else it can reveal.

Population

I downloaded a pretty cool dataset called ‘London Borough Profiles’ from the GLA’s London Datastore (though I only ended up using the population data)

Firstly, here’s a map of population by borough.

(Link to actual map)

I’m quite surprised. I knew Wandsworth (where I live) has 300 000 residents, but I didn’t know that this was nearly twice as many as neighbouring Hammersmith & Fulham.

Clearly Wandsworth should have more toilets than Hammersmith & Fulham..

..but how many toilets is enough? 

… Council Websites (London)

I’ve made a graphical map of public toilets in London by using the information given on council websites.

This is a screenshot, because I can't embed for toffee.

You can view the actual map (it’s ‘clickable!’) here. It has labels to show which council is which. You can also Download the Data (.xls)

It says as much about council websites as it does about toilets.

For example, the 4 ‘white’ areas show councils with ‘No Toilets’. That’s because they don’t have a public toilet webpage. They may have squillions of toilets, but like the proverbial tree in the forest – if a public toilet isn’t listed on the council website, does it really exist?

… The Great British Public Toilet Map, v.1

We made a first version of The Great British Public Toilet Map.

Click on the map to go to the website.

It’s not really a toilet map.

It will be, when there’s more data (initially for London – this link tells you why). At the moment, it’s more a way of seeing the data that’s available, and asking for more.

… The Australian Public Toilet Map

Would you believe I’ve barely ever mentioned the Australian Public Toilet Map www.toiletmap.gov.au, despite it being my secret weapon in presentations about the idea of making a UK map of our public toilets.

It began in the early 2000′s, commissioned by the Department of Health & Ageing as part of their National Continence Management Strategy (the fact that these two things exist is a marvel in itself)

It says: “The National Public Toilet Map (the Toilet Map) shows the location of more than 14,000 public and private public toilet facilities across Australia. Details of toilet facilities can also be found along major travel routes and for shorter journeys as well. Useful information is provided about each toilet, such as location, opening hours, availability of baby change rooms, accessibility for people with disabilities and the details of other nearby toilets.”

… more from Ordnance Survey

I’ve just had another reply from Ordnance Survey, which I think, due to its clarity, draws a line under something – namely councils publishing the OS public toilet point data as OpenData, even though the council know where their toilets are, and, indeed, put them there in the first place.

(unless you choose a different interpretation of the licence, which is none of my business.).

I’ve published their response first, as it’s more interesting. My email that they’re responding to is afterwards, and a little grumpier than I care for.

… Ordnance Survey

I don’t know how actors do it.

Having to play emotional scenes where you cry-on-demand must be incredibly challenging. I don’t know anything that is soooo upsetting that it would squeeze real tears from my eyes just by thinking about it.

That is, until I started looking at Ordnance Survey Licensing Agreements.

(This is a screenshot of Ordnance Survey’s ‘open’ maps for public use. It’s a screenshot because there aren’t simple instructions to embed it in a free WordPress blog. What’s more, the ‘public use’ maps aren’t relevant to this post, and (still) don’t show the public toilets. But it Looks Pretty.)

This trauma began a month ago when, in my innocence, I tried emailing some more ‘open councils’ from the OpenlyLocal.com Scoreboard. These new councils had just published a few bits of spending-related data, but no school locations, no library locations, no ‘dataset of the location of the 120 000 lampposts in Lesser Hampton’, and certainly no toilets.

[Context: In order to make The Great British Public Toilet Map I'd like councils to publish information on where their toilets are as 'Open Data', meaning the type of file that anyone can download ('open') and that's compatible with computer-programming ('data').

To you and me it would look like this...

OpenData .csv file for (doomed) Manchester Public Toilets

...which might not look that exciting, but magical computer programs could join together all 300-odd local council datasets and display it on one map!

This would make it easier for people to find out where public toilets are (and if they're open and what facilities are provided) without having to check 300-odd council websites]

So, I asked these new ‘open’ councils if they’d considered publishing open data for public toilets and sent my email to the attention of their web/data enthusiast (who doesn’t have one of those?!)

In return I got lots of replies from very nice GIS managers explaining that this was not possible. Or, more to the point, not legal.

Eek.

But why?

Idea #8: Map your Community Toilet Scheme

Cut Out and Keep! © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA

So you’ve decided to close your public toilets (approximate saving £18000).

Boo!

But it’s OK because along with the public library, you’ve found 2 pubs and a café who don’t mind the general public using their loos instead, in exchange for hard cash (approximate expense 3 x £600 =  £1800).

What’s not to love?

One problem is communication. Everyone who’s visited the town knows that the big ugly block in the main square is the public toilet, not least from the smell.

How will they know that they can use these businesses instead? And where they are?

As mentioned in Idea#7: What Community Toilet Scheme? there are 3 solutions: signs, maps and open data (the open data is so that others can make their own maps).

Idea#7 looked at signs.

Idea #8 looks at maps.

It’s a bit… flawed.

… Wandsworth – Part II

What is a public toilet?

I keep talking about local authorities as the providers of public toilets. In reality I’m not quite that naive.

For there are many ‘publicly-accessible toilets’ that do not (or may not) fall under council control, e.g.

• Parks
• Shopping Centres
• Transport Hubs (Train / Underground / Bus / Port)

Here’s a sliding scale of publicly-accessible toilets that I made.

Green is public sector, blue is private sector.

By ‘accessible’ I mean mentally, or legally, more than physically (accessible is often used to describe wheelchair-accessible facilities – that’s a whole other issue). Accessible is clearly not a great word to use – suggestions are welcome… Some of the ordering is a little dubious too…

Further down the scale most of the toilets are not ‘intended’ for the general public. Including these in maps and apps rather disadvantages those people who don’t wish to ask favours or blag it. Not really inclusive design…

My earlier map of the London Borough of Wandsworth toilets showed the council’s Superloos (marked in yellow) and Community Toilet Scheme (blue), but now it has all of the other publicly-accessible toilets too. This has added nearly 20 extra loos, more than some councils have in the first place!

View Larger Map

Where did these extra toilets come from?

… OpenStreetMap

In my endeavors to get open data on public toilets in existence for the benefit of, erm, everyone, I regularly consider the potential of OpenStreetMap.

OpenStreetMap

For anyone who doesn’t know, (and for those that do, feel free to skip my ill-informed explanation..) OpenStreetMap is a map of the country that’s created by members of the public. This began because Ordinance Survey data (along with other maps like those used by Google and SatNavs) was private and expensive and couldn’t be enhanced (or in some cases corrected) by you or me.

They created it by walking around with their personal GPS systems, logging data and adding it to the online map. It struck me as remarkably geeky, not to mention slow progress. Yet when I learnt about it in 2007 due to my MA Industrial Design Engineering project (self-promotion), a skeleton map of Britain was emerging.

Now they seem to be using satellite images provided by Yahoo as well, meaning people no longer have to have a GPS and traipse the streets. Instead you can just go online, log-in, and trace, colour and label the satellite images, thus creating a map. Consequently a huge leap forward has been made in the last few years – it’s looking pretty complete and I’m starting to see it used on websites instead of Google Maps. I’m sure you have to, perhaps without realising it.

… and Public Toilets

One of the things that can be added to the map is a public toilet. The map above, centered on London Bridge, has a few examples (you can click on it then zoom in via the next window. I couldn’t get the map to embed directly). As I’m not remotely proficient in OpenStreetMap it’s hard for me to analyse the quality of this data. I’ve no doubt these toilets exist and are accurately located as that’s the entire ethos of the project.

Idea #6: The Great British Public Toilet Map

***The GREAT BRITISH PUBLIC TOILET MAP is now a real website at http://greatbritishpublictoiletmap.rca.ac.uk***

Not a real website. Yet. (UPDATE Sept 2011: Now a real website! at http://greatbritishpublictoiletmap.rca.ac.uk)

This idea is one of the main outcomes of our Out of Order research project (part of the New Dynamics of Ageing project, TACT3) into improving public toilets for older people.

Where are the toilets?Public toilet provision is incredibly fragmented down to approximately 326 district or borough councils. A complete dataset requires the participation of all of these local authorities in a subject that is often overlooked but which is basic to society; so basic that many open data websites have suggestions for toilet-finder apps, without knowing that there’s no national data. These apps (and other maps) would be useful to everyone, but for many people with specific medical conditions this information is essential to their quality of life.

Currently, the only reliable way to find public toilet information is to visit each council website, which is only practical for residents, much less so for visitors, and without a smartphone this information isn’t available at the time you’d want it most – when out and about.

The Website

The Great British Public Toilet Map gives a national focus to a local problem. The site is based around a map-search. When the public search for a location they’ll receive one of two responses – either information on the nearby toilets if the council provides open toilet data, or a page suggesting how they can contact their local council to request that they participate in the project by releasing open data. A sample letter would be provided explaining the issues.

The idea behind the map is that it shows a useful tangible output to the mysterious world of data. Essentially the site is a campaign tool to enable individuals to engage with their local councils on public toilets.