March 28, 2024

BLAZING A TRAIL

Creston native the 'brains' behind Des Moines data bike project

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DES MOINES – The Des Moines Metropolitan Planning Organization is taking on an ambitious mission to grade the condition of central Iowa’s expansive recreational trail system.

The MPO is blazing a trail in the United States with its use of a data bike to collect information about the trail system.

Leading the way on the project is Creston native Marcus Coenen, who MPO Communications Manager Gunnar Olson called the “big brains” behind the project.

Data on road conditions in the metro is collected using large trucks with sensors, but that equipment is too large to work on the trail system.

MPO Executive Director R. Todd Ashby recognized the lack of data in regards to the trail system and challenged his team to find a way to collect that data.

Around that time, Coenen, an associate transportation planner for MPO, attended a conference and was able put the wheels in motion for the data bike project.

Coenen learned about Rival Solutions, a Canadian company that had developed a smartphone app that measures the roughness of a road and translates that roughness into a score. Coenen combined that app with an E-bike to come up with a solution.

“The company originally started working with mining firms up north in Canada and helping them identify where to do maintenance on haul roads so they can do maintenance quickly to not interrupt the flow of goods,” Coenen said. “They calibrated the app for different vehicles. They’ve done a project in Quebec using their app, so we were able to use what they had already learned and adapt it for our needs.”

While Coenen was able to learn from the Quebec project, the data bike is still an innovative approach.

The MPO’s data bike is the first project of its kind in the United States, and it’s never been done with an E-bike.

“It’s a really cool project to work on just because it hasn’t been done anywhere,” said Coenen, a 2007 Creston High School graduate and the son of Gary and Barb Coenen. “We get to set the bar and get feedback. It’s always fun being a trend-setter.”

“We don’t think this specific combination has been done before,” Olson added. “I would say a lot of this stuff we’re doing is very early adoption of emerging technologies.”

How it works

The project uses a cargo bike with the capacity for carrying extra weight. It is also an electric-assist bicycle, meaning as the rider pedals, an electric engine gauges pull and push, allowing the rider to travel further, longer, with less effort and maintain a constant speed.

Currently, the team has determined a target speed of 12 mph. That speed may change as the team examines data.

“The significance for our project with that is we want a constant rate of speed in order to have as consistent data collection as possible,” Olson said. “We may decide a different target speed may work better.”

As the bike travels over the trail, the iPhone app uses a gyroscope to record vibrations caused by imperfections in the pavement.

It is also equipped with a GoPro camera that takes photos of the trail surface as the bike travels over the trail.

The photos from the GoPro camera are georeferenced back to that segment of trail so the MPO can pull up a specific location on a trail to view a photo of why the trail might have a lower rating that another segment.

“It creates this tool where you can identify problem spots, examine the trail at your desk and then make the decision whether or not you need to go out in the field to do more examination,” Coenen said.

A 360-degree camera was added to the bike after conversations between the MPO and its partner organization Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation.

Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation wanted to do a Google Street View version of central Iowa’s trail system, allowing cyclists to view interesting points along the trail before going out for a ride.

By adding the 360-degree camera, the MPO is able to collect photos to contribute to that project.

Google’s Street View team saw headlines about the data bike and reached out to the MPO to offer support and advice on how to pair the data bike with Google Street View.

After a couple of days of initial testing to make sure the app worked properly and cameras were functioning, Coenen started data collection Wednesday.

After two days of data collection, Coenen said he’d captured a little more than 5 percent of the roughly 600 miles of central Iowa’s trail system he hopes to canvas. Among the trails that will be surveyed by the data bike are the Great Western, Neal Smith, Gay Lea Wilson and Raccoon River Valley trails.

“We have a ways to go, but we made a good dent in just two days,” Coenen said. “Our priority is the regional paved trails, then we’ll try to get to more neighborhood trails when we get done with the regional trails.”

Coenen, who was responsible for piecing together the different components of the bike, is now in charge of data processing once the bike returns each day from collecting data and images.

The goal

Olson said the data bike project has two main goals – to collect data on the trail systems and to explore the functionalities of the data bike and determine how else it can be used.

“We have this extensive trail network that is going to start to age,” Olson said. “We need to shift dollars from new to maintenance. Maintenance is very expensive. One of the long-term goals here is to equip our local governments with really good information so they can make strategic long-term budgeting decisions to maintain the trail systems that are a great asset for Des Moines.

“We’re getting a lot of people asking us questions because not a lot of people are doing things like this,” Olson said. “Are there different functionalities with this tool? Could it be used elsewhere in the state? Are there ways we can share this technology with others so they can get data for their trail networks?”

The Des Moines MPO has already been contacted by MPOs in other cities and city planners from Toronto and Minneapolis to inquire about the project.