TRICS® News
Issue 46 - April 2013

Bookings being taken for 2013 TRICS® User Meeting

We are pleased to announce that bookings for this year's TRICS® User Meeting in Brighton are now being taken, and that, as in previous years, there is a free delegate place available per user member organisation office.

This year's event is taking place in Brighton, on Tuesday 18th June. The location is The Old Market arts and performance venue, which is located not far from the centre and seafront, and booking forms will shortly be circulating to all TRICS® licence-holding sites. This is always a popular event, so we do recommend that you claim your free spaces soon as they are available on a first come, first served basis.

In recent weeks we have put together and agreed a programme of presentations for the day, and this year's User Meeting will be full of very interesting topics including the following:

  • An update on the TRICS® 7 system re-design project, as program development for this will be well underway at the time of the User Meeting, plus a review of system enhancements recently introduced into TRICS® 6 (including a new Travel Plan Monitoring Report Generator facility).
  • A mixed-topic presentation covering an audit of research into UK and New Zealand trip generation correlations, the introduction of a new TRICS® Knowledge Base, and the potential for the introduction of a new policy-level trip generation module.
  • A look at TRICS® from the perspective of a developer, an angle that we have not covered before at any of our events.
  • Updates on the 2013 TRICS® Good Practice Guide and our expanding data collection programme across the UK and Ireland.

The final session of the day provides attendees with two options. For relatively new users of TRICS® there will be a system demonstration covering the main features and operations, with the alternative option being an open discussion forum on the future development of the system and its associated sub-projects. As usual, there will also be plenty of opportunities to network with members of the TRICS® Community throughout the day, over coffee breaks and a buffet lunch, and exchange your thoughts and ideas for the future of the TRICS® project. So if you would like to attend this event please contact a member of the TRICS® team or click here to download booking form.

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TRICS® 2013(a)v6.11.2 goes live

The latest update of TRICS®, version 2013(a)v6.11.2, went live at the end of March, and we are pleased to say that this update contains a large amount of new survey data plus a batch of significant system enhancements. The TRICS® team has worked hard in recent months to ensure that surveys undertaken in the autumn of 2012 were input and put through our comprehensive validation procedures in time for the Spring update, with this data covering a wide variety of regions and land use types. We continue to be committed to delivering consistently high quality data on a regular basis, to ensure that TRICS® remains the UK's national standard of trip generation analysis.

The system enhancements were the final batch that were scheduled to be introduced following the 2012 TRICS® User Survey, and reflect our continuing commitment to an interactive, user-led approach to system development, something that will continue through the ongoing development of TRICS® 7. The main headlines of the enhancements introduced into TRICS® 2013(a)v6.11.2 are as follows:

  • A new "calculation reference" has been introduced that allows users to audit the trip rate results and filtering selections of other organisations (once you have been supplied with a unique reference code).
  • The "Leisure Centre" and "Swimming Pool" land use categories have been merged.
  • Users are now required to specify reasons for the manual deselection of sites in a selected set, in line with our Good Practice guidance.
  • "Hover" information is now available for individual sites when viewing a Rank Order Scatterplot chart, enhancing the system's user-friendliness.
  • Car, Motorcycle and Light Goods Vehicle traffic counts will now be input for all new data entering the system following this release, with these being available in future updates.

The March update is the final update to include significant system enhancements prior to the scheduled release of TRICS® 7.1 at the end of this year.

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TRICS® 7 System Re-design Commences

Throughout February 2013, a consultation exercise of some 40 TRICS® users took place via an on-line survey, covering all elements of the TRICS® 7 system re-design. This major project is a complete overhaul of the TRICS® user interface, designed to provide all of our members with an enhanced day-to-day user experience, and maximising the efficiency and the user-friendliness of the system, incorporating the most up-to-date programming and development techniques.

We received some extremely helpful feedback through this process, with the results of the consultation examined in detail prior to a revised specification for the development of TRICS® 7.1 being finalised. We are pleased to announce that this final specification has now been agreed, and work is now scheduled to commence shortly on the physical programming, a process which is expected to take a few months. The next milestone in the implementation process will be the completion of an "Alpha" version of the re-design this Summer, which will then be subject to rigorous testing prior to the final, full-issue version of TRICS® 7.1 going live this December. Be sure to book your place at the 2013 TRICS® User Meeting (see above) to find out more about this exciting project.

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TRICS® is now on Twitter!

You may be interested to hear that TRICS® has now become part of the worldwide tweeting community, and can now be followed on Twitter under the username of @trics89. We are already starting to attract a following, and our aim is to provide our user community and anyone else interested in our ongoing project with a stream of regular short and sweet updates on all things to do with TRICS®. Whether it's information on new system developments, TRICS® 7, our data collection programme, user meetings and conferences, research projects, and just about anything else, you can now follow us and hear of day to day developments.

Of course, we would like to hear your feedback on the kind of things you'd be interested in us tweeting about, so please don't hesitate to contact anyone in the TRICS® team should you have any ideas.

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TRICS® Training Sessions available

TRICS® training sessions are available to all users. These sessions consist of a full system demonstration plus an interactive workshop session, which allows attendees to fully test the system. These sessions continue to receive good feedback and have been popular with our members at universities, councils and consultancies.

For information on training sessions, please contact Ian Coles.

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Quarterly payment option available

We are pleased to confirm the continued availability of a quarterly payment option for all of our members. We understand that cash-flow can be an issue in the current economic conditions, and this option allows user organisations to spread the cost of their annual licences across four quarterly payments, rather than having to pay for their licence in one go. For those wishing to take up this offer, four invoices will be forwarded instead of one, at three-monthly intervals. This does not affect user expiry dates in any way, and all you need to do to set up this option is contact a member of the TRICS® team when your licence is due for renewal.

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Free 1 month trial of TRICS® available

A free 1-month trial of the latest full version of TRICS® is available to all organisations upon request. Throughout the free trial period full technical support is available at no cost, and there is no obligation once the period has expired.

Many organisations have already found this trial useful. Anyone interested in the free trial should contact the TRICS® team.

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DIRECTORY
Hampshire County Council

Kevin Travers
Consortium Chair
T: 01962 846856
E: kevin.travers@hampshire.gov.uk

JMP Consultants Ltd
Lynn Basford
TRICS® Director
T: 020 3714 4358
E: lynn.basford@jmp.co.uk

Ian Coles
TRICS® Project Manager
T: 020 3714 4381
E: ian.coles@jmp.co.uk

Siddika Begum
TRICS® Co-Ordinator
T: 020 3714 4383
E: siddika.begum@jmp.co.uk

Owen Edwards
TRICS® Co-Ordinator
T: 020 3714 4384
E: owen.edwards@jmp.co.uk

Helpdesk
To log a TRICS® Helpdesk request, please select “Help” when using TRICS® followed by “Helpdesk”.