Month: February 2009

Categories
Data Policy Google Maps

Mapping the Victorian fires – Some important lessons for Europe ?

Nobody can have failed to be moved by the tragedy of the Bush fires which have been devastating Victoria, Australia this weekend. As reported by Official Google Australia Blog the Google Geo team in Sydney worked fast yesterday to get a real-time map of the extent of the fires available online and is has seen extensive use over the last 24 hours.

victoriafires

A crucial part to making this happen beyond the skill and dedication of the Google team in Sydney, has been the system put in place by State of Victoria Country Fire Authority (CFA). This largely volunteer fire brigade have put in place an excellent web based system including a RSS feed of incidents which is used to produce the map.

This is a great example for all public sector providers of information.. provide your information in a form that allows reuse via different channels, not only does this spread the flow of information to as wide an audience as possible, it also reduces the direct traffic to your site during major events.

And for UK readers it is interesting to note that although protected by our familiar friend Copyright, these feeds are available and indeed designed for personal and non-commercial use. 

Written and submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
Data Policy

Just brilliant @uk_trains

Bus park

Blogger at the excellent Mobile Industry Review, Ben Smith has developed one of the most useful services to emerge from the event that will become known to many as #uksnow.

UK trains is a BBC Backstage powered mash-up which sends travel update information from all the UK Train Operating companies to dedicated twitter feeds, so for me to find out if my train to work in running I just need to follow @uktr_southwest.

uktrains

This morning most of the official web sources of public transport information failed under the weight of traffic, which just highlights, as Ben points out the, the value of publishing transport information via as many online channels as possible.

It would be great for example to be able to offer transit information for London of Google Maps as happens in New York or Chicago, perhaps fellow Londoners you might ask Transport for London why this is not possible ?

 

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

Categories
Data Policy Ordnance Survey

Power of Information Taskforce – Homework for the OS

The influential Power of Information task force,  the group working within the Cabinet Office to suggest better ways of using Government Information has published their interim report back to government in a “wiki-like” form to allow comments from the community before final publication.

As any reader of this blog will expect, there is considerable discussion of the potential value and problems associated with  access to geospatial data in the UK. 

The report make a number of recommendations which don’t really appear to be that radical,  and are not a million miles away from suggestions I have made in the past, lets hope the influence of the cabinet office can move policy in Southampton with more success.

Here are the recommendations themselves..

▪ Basic geographic data such as electoral and administrative boundaries, the location of public buildings, etc. should be available free of charge to all.

▪ There should be simple, free access to general mapping and address data for modest levels of use by any user

▪ Voluntary and community organisations pursuing public policy objects should benefit from straightforward standard provisions for ensuring access to geospatial data at all levels of use

▪ Licensing conditions should be simplified and standardised across the board and, for all but the heaviest levels of use, should be on standard terms and conditions and should not depend on the intended use or the intended business model of the user.

▪ The OpenSpace API, similar to but currently a constrained version of Google Maps should become the primary delivery point for the Ordnance Survey’s services

Although not a recommendation in itself, clearly a key point remains the OS view of derived data, and it viral effect on the creation of geospatial data in the UK, the current situation where even the smallest use of OS mapping in locating a new feature on a map results in the OS claiming IP on the whole map cannot continue.

Overall the report itself and the process by which it has been created are a great example of how Government can really make use of “web 2.0” approaches to change how policy is developed, discussed and communicated.

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.