PSI Sectorial Meeting on Transport Data

Location, date

The Sectorial Workshop will be held on Monday 17 September 2012 in Helsinki, in conjunction with the Open Knowledge Festival (OKFestival) that will be held from 18-21 September 2012 in Helsinki.  The Sectorial Workshop  is organized under the responsibility of the ePSI Platform and the sessions on 18 and 19 September are organized under the responsibility of the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF).

Background

Transportation is a major metropolitan and in fact global issue, which has a direct impact on economic strength, environmental sustainability, and social equity. Transport data are largely produced and/or gathered by public sector organisations or semi-private entities and have value for many groups of stakeholders and society.

Accordingly, transport data represents one of the most valuable sources of Public Sector Information (PSI). The evolution of Web 2.0 technologies and the increasing dissemination of smartphones have enabled developers to create a variety of new apps and services which re-use transport data. As a result, the demand for high quality transport data, which is in a machine-readable format and is openly licensed to allow for re-use in commercial and non-commercial products and services, is rapidly rising.

Whilst many transport data producers have yet to respond properly to the growing demand for transport data from citizens and developers, there are also success-stories where data providers have opened up transport data, leading to the creation of new and innovative applications and thus societal benefit and economic growth.

 

Aims

In this context it is of eminent importance to allow the free flow of these practices and create cross-fertilization between countries and sectors. Accordingly, the aims of the Sectorial Workshop are:

  1. bring in dialogue the EC (dealing with transport) with national Open Data policy makers and stakeholders.
  2. to get on board (semi) public sector board transport data holders, demonstrating the richness of sources and the impact Open Data may have on their organisations and subsequent value chain.
  3. bring new emerging re-users to the table as well as existing players.
  4. identify transport data specific issues, that are hampering the free flow of the Open Data across Europe; these are data specific and market specific.
  5. draw up and widely disseminate the conclusions and recommendations of this group and feed them in to the OKFestival in the days to come.

 

Target groups sought

  1. European Commission (DG CONNECT, DG MOVE)
  2. national decision makers in government
  3. data holders, like public transport agencies, as well as data holders which are private sector, but carry out public task activities (often hybrid organisations)
  4. the emerging open transport data re-user community
  5. academics

 

Format of the day and agenda

The Sectorial Workshop will have a highly interactive character pulling together around 20 - 25 key stakeholders from the target groups mentioned above. The program starts in the afternoon 13.00, allowing people to arrive in the morning, and finishes around 17.30.

 

13.00 – 13.15     Welcome and introduction

13.15 – 13.30     Tour de table

13.30 – 14.00     Moderated keynote addresses by opinion leaders in Transport Data domain

14.00 – 15.45     subgroup sessions part 1

15.45 – 16.00     coffee break

16.00 – 16.45     subgroup sessions part 2

16.45 – 17.30     plenary reporting back, finalisation Helsinki Transport Data Declaration

 

After a keynote speech from one of the opinion leaders, we will break up in smaller groups, to have moderated discussions on the sub issues - most likely at least covering:

  1. value chain characteristics
  2. sourcing paradigms and standards
  3. fears constraints addressing fears of PSB data holders
  4. public private partnerships and success stories

 

At the final plenary we will aim to finalize the ‘Helsinki Transport Data Declaration’, based on the conclusions from the sub sessions, to be distributed and further discussed the next days.

 

For those staying on, an evening after dinner will be organized.

 

Logistical information

The event is held at Sitra Finnish Innovation Fund Building Itämerentori 2, 00180 Helsinki, in the Atlas meeting room. See: http://www.sitra.fi/en/contact/contact-details

 

For accommodation see: http://okfestival.org/accommodation/