Mobility & Field Engagement
Record the observation where it happened.
A walk audit produces its best observations in the field and its worst notes afterwards. Tortoise 40 lets the observation be entered standing on the corner, on the phone already in the auditor's hand.
The clipboard problem
- 01
Notes written later, from memory
The clipboard comes back, the notes are typed up on Thursday, and the corner nobody can name is described as "near the apartments".
- 02
A form with no place on it
Paper has no location. Even a careful description has to be matched to a street by hand before it can go on a map, and that matching is where the record loses its precision.
- 03
One walk by one group
The audit is a single route on a single morning. The people who use it every day are rarely asked, so their knowledge never enters the record.
Four products, one record.
Each part of the platform does one job in the sequence, and the record stays in the same project throughout.
A map activity over the audit area with one shared category list, so every observation made by every auditor arrives in the same shape.
The same activity stays open to residents after the walk, so the route is described by more than the group that audited it.
Groups field observations with public comments into themes, with the wording that produced each one.
Audit sheets, route maps and the final exhibit prepared for the walk and for the report that follows it.
An audit that is already a dataset
Four stages, with one honest limit stated at the start.
- 01
Set the route and the categories first
Crossing, sidewalk gap, lighting, access, sight line. The list is agreed before anyone walks, because a category invented on the day cannot be compared with the others.
- 02
Walk it with the page open
Each observation is entered on the phone at the location, with the category chosen from the shared list and the words used in the field kept as written.
- 03
Place the mark, and say that is what it is
The comment is placed where the auditor taps on the published map. It is a positioned mark on the map, not a satellite or GPS fix, and the record does not claim otherwise.
- 04
Open the route to the people who use it
The same categories stay open to residents after the audit closes, so the daily experience of the route is collected beside the audit's own.
- 05
Read it back by place and category
Observations arrive grouped by where they were made and what they were about, with the field wording intact and the position available for the analysis.
The same record, drawn.
A figure of the workflow above, labeled as an illustration rather than a screenshot.
- 1Starttrailhead or corner
- 2Gapno sidewalk
- 3Crossingno signal
- 4Enddestination
Next
Auditing a route this season?
We will set the categories with you and show the walk as it records itself.