Overview
Ben Abelshausen is a co-founder of ANYWAYS, a role he has held since September 2016, and is based in Lille. Since December 2012 he has also been the owner of Itinero BVBA. His stated areas of expertise are route planning software, cycling, OpenStreetMap, product management and software as a service.
Between February 2014 and February 2016 he worked at Eurostation as a mobility IT and design expert, and before that he spent several months as a GIS developer at Digitaal Vlaanderen. From July 2008 to November 2012 he was a consultant at Ignotec, having previously worked as a .NET developer at Qframe from 2006 to 2008 and, in two earlier periods in 2004 and 2006, at AMBelgium NV.
He studied informatics at KU Leuven, completing a master's degree between 2000 and 2005, and went on to a master's in computer science at Ghent University from 2007 to 2012.
Career history
In the news
- State Of The Map this weekend was one of the best ever for me. I assumed this trip would be mostly for fun and seeing old friends but I got a lot out of it for ANYWAYS: - New route planning ideas to work on (and to give up on) - Very technical stuff like scaling Postgres databases - New projects on roadworks and temporary changes I learned about - Public transport routing and data management - Demand modelling based on OSM That last one is the main driver behind our next big new feature, and it was completely unexpected to be able to
- Today and this weekend I am at State Of The Map in Paris! #sotm is always a great event for me with long time friends, a lot of familiar faces and always new interesting people to meet. The first few talks are finished and already I have some new ideas in my head. In the next few days there will be a few great talks for ANYWAYS about OSM data for transport modelling and my personal favorite topic, route planning. If you are interested in any of these topics and at #sotm too, always up for a conversation. My first State Of The Map
- A sneak preview of what we are building at ANYWAYS right now. Most projects start with data. We have got much better at that part over the last year. You can now bring your own counts into ANYWAYS, but there is still some manual work involved. We think it can still be easier, and give a more realistic result at the same time. The idea: all you have to do is upload your counts and sanity check the result. For this we have built a layer of realistic routes from an agent-based model, covering different modes and purposes. Those routes
- Now that we have the 40,000 counters in ANYWAYS, what if the counts you need aren't in there? 🤔 You could already manually input your own but now you can also upload them in bulk. Say you have volumes from an existing model, or a pile of counts on a network you've already built. Upload them, and we'll match them onto everyone's favorite network: OpenStreetMap! Your counts then show up in the counters editor, right next to the open-data ones. Click one and it becomes a counter, seeded with the number you counted. A link to our docs
- In ANYWAYS we now have data from 40,000 traffic counters available👇 We have integrated data for Flanders (AWV), the Netherlands (NDW), Germany (BASt) and the UK (National Highways). Data is available as AADT, plus morning and evening peak (weekdays), per year and per vehicle type. Pick a value and it becomes a counter at that location, which is then used to estimate an origin-destination matrix. Ireland (TII), Denmark (Vejdirektoratet) and Sweden (Trafikverket) are in the works. A link to our docs is in the comments if you want
- We had another great Geomob Belgium in Brussels yesterday 🇧🇪 Huge thanks to The Sister Cafe for hosting us, and to our sponsors ANYWAYS and Nazka Mapps for making the evening possible 🙏 A short recap of the four talks: 🔹 Alexandre Jaillon (Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)) - GIS Support to MSF Operations Alex gave us a very interesting peek inside MSF operations and how GIS plays a critical role there. The Missing Maps project was also presented as an integral part of all this. 🔹 Manuel Claeys Bouuaert - Topotijdreis.be Manuel
- Tomorrow Geomob Belgium in Brussels! 👇 👇 👇 It took a bit more work than usual but we have a great line-up of speakers **and** there is still time to register
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