Freeing government data: some progress in the UK
The Show Us a Better Way competition is progress even in its name
The Power of Information Taskforce understands communications priorities:
Today, government bodies consider their own websites to be a higher priority than technical infrastructures that open up their data for others to use. We argue that this understanding is a mistake. It would be preferable for government to understand providing reusable data, rather than providing websites, as the core of its online publishing responsibility.
— Richard Allan, Task Force Chair
The Show Us a Better Way project is a laudable attempt to open up UK government data sources — and it’s good to see a number of government agencies joining in too.
Two bits of previously locked-up government data you can now get your hands on:
The Postcode Address File — this behemoth maps UK postcodes to addresses, including address aliases, Welsh language equivalents and sub-addresses for buildings with more than one. Instructions on how to get a sample are on the Show Us a Better Way website, though amusingly the only way of getting the sample data is on a CD in the post. So much for progress.
Transport Direct data — I've only just requested access to this so haven't had a chance to look around, but the content looks promising in principle: ‘Location of bus stops, stations etc and descriptions of the locations; The National Car Park Register; Journey planning information; A carbon calculator; The National Public Transport Data Repository feed’
It’ll be interesting to see how the competition goes (there’s £20,000 up for grabs) — and I’ll be particularly keen to see how many iPhone apps emerge which make use of this data.
Tagged
Blog, carbon calculator, data, government, government data, iPhone, journey planning, National Car Park Register, PAF, Postcode Address File, Power of Information Taskforce, Richard Allan, Royal Mail, Transport Direct, travel
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About Peter Parkes
I’m an entrepreneurial twenty three year old, part of the team at we are social, a conversation agency based in London.
On this site, I blog mainly about communication, design, technology and the arts, and their impact on society. I also write the Skype blog.
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Crikey, for a moment I thought you meant that Royal Mail had opened up access to our postcode data… I nearly spat carbonated beverage all over my monitor :)
It has, pretty much, on the condition that you use it for the competition. Go ahead and ask them :)
A real benefit for me of starting to free this data will be people making much more user-friendly than it currently is. For my sins (and yes my job at the time did have its dull moments) I once spent a month grappling with the behemoth that is the PAF databases.
Government data that isn’t freely available is designed and organised only for the purpose it has traditionally been used for in government. Only by freeing it will it become clear exactly all the purposes for which it can be used. To this end the competition’s a great idea…