Transferability and
Implementation Issues
of Open Access Data
Prof Nick Hounsell
University of Southampton UK
Open data
• “Open data is data that can be freely used, re-used and redistributed by anyone – subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and sharealike” (Open data handbook, 2012)
• Benefits:
- Providing a public service
- Involvement of 3rd party in information provision
- More stakeholders and users
UK DfT’s open data strategy
“The Department for Transport will work with
partners and the open data community to
release a wide range of transport data for use
and re-use and will engage with developers
and data owners to ensure a broad take-up of
the data released and to identify ways in which
the data can be made more useful and usable
by improving its quality and standardising its
formats”.
https://www.data.gov/open-gov/
Remember – the data is yours!!
•
As taxpayers, you paid for the systems providing the
data in the first place!
What data?
Almost anything which has a value! Both static
and real-time e.g.
•
Location of bus stops, bus routes, facilities for the
less abled……
•
Real-time public transport performance……..
•
Traffic flows, speeds, congestion…..
•
Air quality
………..
•
Parking availability………
Processing Options for the City
1. Provide the data ‘raw’
2. Provide ‘information’ based on the data
3. Develop/provide the apps themselves
How do you access it?
•
Typically through the internet on any number
of portable devices!
•
The usefulness of an app (or not!) soon
spreads through social media!
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/info-for/open-data-users/
Toronto, Canada
• Launched in 2009
• offers unfiltered access
• Various data (including traffic data) available to the public via www.toronto.ca/open including real-time bus arrival times
• Various apps developed giving information about public
transport and cycle facilities • carried out ‘due diligence’
around privacy following established procedures
Ottawa, Canada
• Launched in 2010
(http://ottawa.ca/en/mobile-apps-and-open-data)
• The users are assumed to agree to the Terms of Use
• Run ‘Open Data contest’
(http://www.apps4ottawa.ca/en) to encourage development of apps • Various apps developed include:
public transport and cycle facilities for mobile as well as web
applications
• Running competitions or
challenges encourage private parties to develop apps and help develop profiles
Vienna, Austria
The TIDE Project
• Transport Innovation Deployment for Europe is a three year FP7 project that
started in September 2012
• Enhance the broad take-up of 15 innovative urban transport and mobility
Reducing the risk when starting something new
• Most European cities want to be innovative, but not all want to be the first to
implement a new measure.
– Financial: will we be able to afford the measure?
– Political: will the measure be accepted, and will citizens vote in favour of it? – Effectiveness: will the measure solve the problems it is meant to solve?
– Implementation: will we be able to introduce the measure smoothly, without
Transferability analysis
(1) Mission statement/objectives and scoping
(2) Clarification of the impacts of the measure (3) Identification of up-scaling/down-scaling need
(4) Identification of the main components and characteristics
(5) Identification of the level of importance of characteristics
(6) Assessment of the characteristic in the context of adopter city
(7) Conclusions
Key factors
• Robust data
- good quality data from reliable sources
• Market demand
- City size and its transport network as well as data quality
- ‘Pump prime’ to initiate
• Interaction with apps developers
- co-operation and encouragement!
• Policy
- Often driven by an open data policy/requirement, though there may also be a business case!
Contact:
Ivo Cré
Email: [email protected]
Prof Nick Hounsell
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 0044 - 23 8059 2192
Web: http://www.trg.soton.ac.uk
