Hodos Media announced today that it has entered into exclusive negotiations with game production company Mudlark to acquire its innovative public transport game Chromaroma. Hodos Media will work with Mudlark to bring Chromaroma to new cities and help the ITS community benefit from its potential.
Chromaroma: a game platform designed to work with intelligent transport systems
Already online in London with thousands of players, Chromaroma is a gamified approach to transport. It has huge potential as an effective way to encourage the use of public transport — changing transport behaviour to become more efficient and sustainable.
Chromaroma’s game tracks your use of the public transport network, setting challenges and awarding points. Chromaroma provides a platform for gamifying transport in almost any city.
Chromaroma in London is built on data from the widely-used ‘Oyster’ smartcard system and the Barclays city bike rental network. This data lets the game monitor journeys passively, needing no extra equipment and not requiring the player to actively log their trips. This means any interested traveller can play, and no specific device or expensive smartphone is needed, just a travel smartcard and web access. Hodos Media can offer Chromaroma to any city that has a smart ticketing solution. The huge market boosts potential revenue and the potential to measure/influence travel more than any other third-party system.
Gary Bridgeman, CEO of Hodos Media, said “we spotted the potential of Chromaroma to really engage the traveller and bring multiple benefits to the public transport provider. With the acquisition of Chromaroma we have a market ready product that can be used to change the way you travel tomorrow.”
Charles Hunter, MD of Mudlark, said “Chromaroma is a trailblazer in transport games, demonstrating how to share people’s travel data back with them in a playable way. We can see really exciting potential in developing it further with Hodos Media. Their expertise in intelligent transport systems will give it fantastic capacity and reach.”
Bringing together utility and fun
Chromaroma isn’t just a game. It can act as a platform for cities and transport agencies to engage with travellers, understanding and influencing how they travel. James Burgess, Vice President of Product Development at Hodos Media, said “Chromaroma can be used to deliver multiple games to keep the traveller engaged. It is easy to imagine Chromaroma being an important part of the travel management plan around a big event. Challenges and rewards could be used to draw travellers away from busy stations or dangerous incidents. It has unique potential to put the fun into personalised urban travel information.”
Optimising the transport network and service offering
Players give Chromaroma permission to store and use anonymised data. With a huge pool of potential players, game servers could become an excellent data source for statistical modelling of the transport network. Gary Bridgeman explained “Using in-game rewards and incentives can be an inexpensive way to user-test any changes and analyse how the traveller uses the network”.
Global competitions
As a cloud-based platform, Chromaroma can expand into any city in any location. Gary Bridgeman said “The game can be run as easily in Tokyo as in London. I would love to see global competitions between cities. Are Londoners more competitive commuters than Parisians?”
For more information contact:
chromaroma@hodosmedia.com
Further information for journalists
- About Hodos Media
- About Mudlark
- Chromaroma images
About Hodos Media
New company Hodos Media has launched in the UK. Hodos Media develops and publishes intelligent transport systems applications, using game-like approaches to engage the user. Goods and people can move around more sustainably and efficiently if everyone plays the game.
Hodos Media launches with ‘proof of market’ funding from the UK’s Technology Strategy Board for developing a new approach to eco-driving training for Heavy Goods Vehicle drivers.
About Mudlark
The Mudlark Production Company is a design and production studio that has pioneered data-driven games and applications with products such as Chromaroma, the Birmingham Civic Dashboard and Plunger.
Chromaroma images
Visualisations of Chromaroma’s data give an insight into the game mechanics and also into the transport network they inhabit.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wearemudlark/5099563216/in/photostream/