November 1st, 2011
Montreal moves on Open Data
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
For just over a year, Montréal Ouvert has been pressuring the city to provide data to citizens that is readable by a computer program, centralized in a permanent location, and licenced in a way that allows other to use it. They envision that this data can be incorporated into interactive websites, social media, and iPhone applications that will in turn make it more accessible and useful to citizens.
Last October 27th, the city launched its first platform for open data. Montréal Ouvert is happy with the announcement and have highlighted the contribution of the elected officials and city employees who moved relatively quickly to make data accessible.
"It has a good licence, though not perfect, and they have released some interesting data sets," says Jonathan Brun, co-founder of Montréal Ouvert, "The real test will be to see if they continue to roll out data sets over the next 6 months, something they have promised to do. "
At its launch, the site includes the following data sets:
- 2006 directory of statistics for the agglomeration of Montreal
- Photographic archives (110 photos)
- Boundaries of the borough territories
- Location of fire stations, police stations, emergency centres, air conditioned public spaces, and water access points
- Distribution of votes, electoral stations and repartition of ridings by address for the 2009 municipal election
- Info-travaux: traffic obstructions related to work on roads, sewers and acqueducts
- Location and schedules of skating rinks
- Location of winter ports and leisure sites
- Ski conditions in nature parks
- Number of trips on bike paths
- City support for festivals and cultural events
Please keep us posted of any new tools that come out from this data set. We are always excited to learn about new ways that Montrealers are interacting with the city, and Montréal Ouvert is eager to show the city the added value that Open data can bring citizens.
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