CivicAccess

Open511 - An open data format for road events

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Stéphane Guidoin

Open511 - An open data format for road events

Hi there,

After Tracey's last email, I guess I don't have much choice to explain a
little more what ZoneCone will become given we have some interesting
developments! I've been procrastinating this mail for a while, but now
is the time.

Following GeoConnections' last call for project, we submitted with
OpenNorth a proposal to develop a national standard/API for road events
(construction, road closure, accidents, weather conditions, etc.) as
well as an open data app to create, manage and publish data using this
format. The idea was a consequence of the issues I found while
developing ZoneCone: lack of data, lack of standardization which come
with high cost of development to use the data. Added to that,
discussions with governments officials (mainly at cities level) showed
that this data was in general difficult to manage internally.

On the other hand, projects like Open311 and GTFS demonstrated how
standardization could come with an interesting ecosystem and simply put,
an incredible easy of use. One of the key issue for road events if that
it's split though multiple jurisdictions: cities, provinces/states and
even fed gov in some cases, plus the utilities and some private
companies who operates some of the road infrastructure. So the idea is
to reproduce the same idea, for another field and with a strong focus on
multi-jurisdiction support (one of the weaknesses of Open311). Following
the logic of GeoConnexions, we will try to get this format approved as a
standard by a body or another (OGC, OASIS, W3C, etc - If by chance some
of you has experience in submitting a format proposal to a
standardization body, I'll be happy to hear from you)

The project was proposed with several collaborators: Cities of Montréal
and Ottawa, Transportation Ministry of B.C, University of Montréal, City
of Repentigny, International Institute of Logistics of Montréal, Eaves
Consulting and InstantGeo. The project is planned to last for 18 months
but we expect to have have a first draft of the format/API for this
fall, and we'd also like to have one the collaborator to implement it.

I'll probably post some news from time to time, but don't hesitate to
ask questions on the mailing list or to contact me.

---

Besides the technical issues that await us, I see 2 questions of
interest for this kind of initiative:
- If format standardization is an important stone for the use and
integration of open data, how/who should engage in such a path? All the
examples that come to my mind are ad hoc format that were developed by
people/organization who needed it. Few have been recognized by
standardization body. But if we continue like that, it will become
difficult to follow what's going on, and some important dataset will
remain non standardized.
- Is it simply conceivable to hope for standardization of the data given
the variety of data set and the high number of actors ?

---

In conclusion, I'd like to underline the fact this project is more or
less one of the child of CivicAccess: it's the
always-here-even-when-cloistered Tracey who sent the call for project
and told me it could be of interest for ZoneCone. Then several people of
the list supported me either for ZoneCone or for Open511: James
McKinney/OpenNorth, Michael Lenczner, Jonathan Brun, David Eaves and
Karl Dubost.

Cheers

Steph

john whelan

Re: Open511 - An open data format for road events

Standards can take five years or more to get approval. GTFS works because Google and the bus companies had a commercial interest in creating it. It was sequentially given a benediction.

I can't see who would benefit from this enough to spend money on it. A lot of GTFS is generated by the software the bus companies use to manage their routes. Are there some big players in the information you are dealing with, is there a compelling business case?

I've some experience with some standard bodies and my first recommendation would be get something working first or can you adapt something. If you're floating around Ottawa we could talk.

Cheerio John

On 21 May 2012 20:54, Stéphane Guidoin <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi there,

After Tracey's last email, I guess I don't have much choice to explain a
little more what ZoneCone will become given we have some interesting
developments! I've been procrastinating this mail for a while, but now
is the time.

Following GeoConnections' last call for project, we submitted with
OpenNorth a proposal to develop a national standard/API for road events
(construction, road closure, accidents, weather conditions, etc.) as
well as an open data app to create, manage and publish data using this
format. The idea was a consequence of the issues I found while
developing ZoneCone: lack of data, lack of standardization which come
with high cost of development to use the data. Added to that,
discussions with governments officials (mainly at cities level) showed
that this data was in general difficult to manage internally.

On the other hand, projects like Open311 and GTFS demonstrated how
standardization could come with an interesting ecosystem and simply put,
an incredible easy of use. One of the key issue for road events if that
it's split though multiple jurisdictions: cities, provinces/states and
even fed gov in some cases, plus the utilities and some private
companies who operates some of the road infrastructure. So the idea is
to reproduce the same idea, for another field and with a strong focus on
multi-jurisdiction support (one of the weaknesses of Open311). Following
the logic of GeoConnexions, we will try to get this format approved as a
standard by a body or another (OGC, OASIS, W3C, etc - If by chance some
of you has experience in submitting a format proposal to a
standardization body, I'll be happy to hear from you)

The project was proposed with several collaborators: Cities of Montréal
and Ottawa, Transportation Ministry of B.C, University of Montréal, City
of Repentigny, International Institute of Logistics of Montréal, Eaves
Consulting and InstantGeo. The project is planned to last for 18 months
but we expect to have have a first draft of the format/API for this
fall, and we'd also like to have one the collaborator to implement it.

I'll probably post some news from time to time, but don't hesitate to
ask questions on the mailing list or to contact me.

---

Besides the technical issues that await us, I see 2 questions of
interest for this kind of initiative:
- If format standardization is an important stone for the use and
integration of open data, how/who should engage in such a path? All the
examples that come to my mind are ad hoc format that were developed by
people/organization who needed it. Few have been recognized by
standardization body. But if we continue like that, it will become
difficult to follow what's going on, and some important dataset will
remain non standardized.
- Is it simply conceivable to hope for standardization of the data given
the variety of data set and the high number of actors ?

---

In conclusion, I'd like to underline the fact this project is more or
less one of the child of CivicAccess: it's the
always-here-even-when-cloistered Tracey who sent the call for project
and told me it could be of interest for ZoneCone. Then several people of
the list supported me either for ZoneCone or for Open511: James
McKinney/OpenNorth, Michael Lenczner, Jonathan Brun, David Eaves and
Karl Dubost.

Cheers

Steph

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

Michael Lenczner-2

Re: Open511 - An open data format for road events

In reply to this post by Stéphane Guidoin

On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 8:54 PM, Stéphane Guidoin
<[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Hi there,
>
> After Tracey's last email, I guess I don't have much choice to explain a
> little more what ZoneCone will become given we have some interesting
> developments! I've been procrastinating this mail for a while, but now
> is the time.
<snip>

>
> ---
>
> In conclusion, I'd like to underline the fact this project is more or
> less one of the child of CivicAccess: it's the
> always-here-even-when-cloistered Tracey who sent the call for project
> and told me it could be of interest for ZoneCone. Then several people of
> the list supported me either for ZoneCone or for Open511: James
> McKinney/OpenNorth, Michael Lenczner, Jonathan Brun, David Eaves and
> Karl Dubost.
>

Yay us! (us as in CivicAccess)

Congrats, Steph.

> Cheers
>
> Steph
>
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

Glen Newton

Re: Open511 - An open data format for road events

In reply to this post by Stéphane Guidoin

Hi Steph,

This is brilliant work! Congrats!

Standards: I was the NRC W3C advisory committee rep for 2000-2010, and
have submitted four submissions for the NRC (& partners):
http://www.w3.org/Submission/

External enthusiasm and community building can draw in a W3C member
who can make the submission.
Hmm, I may be able to find someone at the NRC's Centre for Surface
Transportation Technology http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/ibp/cstt.html
to take this up...
I don't know anyone there but I know the present NRC rep and they
might be convinced to take this up...

I'd love to participate in this capacity. :-)

Thanks,
Glen

On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 8:54 PM, Stéphane Guidoin
<[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> Hi there,
>
> After Tracey's last email, I guess I don't have much choice to explain a
> little more what ZoneCone will become given we have some interesting
> developments! I've been procrastinating this mail for a while, but now
> is the time.
>
> Following GeoConnections' last call for project, we submitted with
> OpenNorth a proposal to develop a national standard/API for road events
> (construction, road closure, accidents, weather conditions, etc.) as
> well as an open data app to create, manage and publish data using this
> format. The idea was a consequence of the issues I found while
> developing ZoneCone: lack of data, lack of standardization which come
> with high cost of development to use the data. Added to that,
> discussions with governments officials (mainly at cities level) showed
> that this data was in general difficult to manage internally.
>
> On the other hand, projects like Open311 and GTFS demonstrated how
> standardization could come with an interesting ecosystem and simply put,
> an incredible easy of use. One of the key issue for road events if that
> it's split though multiple jurisdictions: cities, provinces/states and
> even fed gov in some cases, plus the utilities and some private
> companies who operates some of the road infrastructure. So the idea is
> to reproduce the same idea, for another field and with a strong focus on
> multi-jurisdiction support (one of the weaknesses of Open311). Following
> the logic of GeoConnexions, we will try to get this format approved as a
> standard by a body or another (OGC, OASIS, W3C, etc - If by chance some
> of you has experience in submitting a format proposal to a
> standardization body, I'll be happy to hear from you)
>
> The project was proposed with several collaborators: Cities of Montréal
> and Ottawa, Transportation Ministry of B.C, University of Montréal, City
> of Repentigny, International Institute of Logistics of Montréal, Eaves
> Consulting and InstantGeo. The project is planned to last for 18 months
> but we expect to have have a first draft of the format/API for this
> fall, and we'd also like to have one the collaborator to implement it.
>
> I'll probably post some news from time to time, but don't hesitate to
> ask questions on the mailing list or to contact me.
>
> ---
>
> Besides the technical issues that await us, I see 2 questions of
> interest for this kind of initiative:
> - If format standardization is an important stone for the use and
> integration of open data, how/who should engage in such a path? All the
> examples that come to my mind are ad hoc format that were developed by
> people/organization who needed it. Few have been recognized by
> standardization body. But if we continue like that, it will become
> difficult to follow what's going on, and some important dataset will
> remain non standardized.
> - Is it simply conceivable to hope for standardization of the data given
> the variety of data set and the high number of actors ?
>
> ---
>
> In conclusion, I'd like to underline the fact this project is more or
> less one of the child of CivicAccess: it's the
> always-here-even-when-cloistered Tracey who sent the call for project
> and told me it could be of interest for ZoneCone. Then several people of
> the list supported me either for ZoneCone or for Open511: James
> McKinney/OpenNorth, Michael Lenczner, Jonathan Brun, David Eaves and
> Karl Dubost.
>
> Cheers
>
> Steph
>
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

--
-
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/
-

Stéphane Guidoin

Re: Open511 - An open data format for road events

In reply to this post by john whelan

Thanks John,

Yes, the target is to get something working and adopted by one or several jurisdiction and then search for an official seal.

Is there a business case? That's a tough one. What could be a business case for open data and for a data format? To me, yes, there is a case: as I said, road event data is highly spreaded among actors and from the discussions I had, there is a lot of work lost to continually transcript some data from a place to another.

As you said, there are some big players but also lots of ad hoc systems with no real external link. So obvisouly adoption won't be easy. But many of officials we discussed with saw the need for a kind of standard.

Obviously, there's also a case for an open data perspective in order integrate this data in existing or new tools that are used for trip planning for example.

Steph

Le 12-05-21 21:47, john whelan a écrit :

Standards can take five years or more to get approval. GTFS works because Google and the bus companies had a commercial interest in creating it. It was sequentially given a benediction.

I can't see who would benefit from this enough to spend money on it. A lot of GTFS is generated by the software the bus companies use to manage their routes. Are there some big players in the information you are dealing with, is there a compelling business case?

I've some experience with some standard bodies and my first recommendation would be get something working first or can you adapt something. If you're floating around Ottawa we could talk.

Cheerio John

On 21 May 2012 20:54, Stéphane Guidoin <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi there,

After Tracey's last email, I guess I don't have much choice to explain a
little more what ZoneCone will become given we have some interesting
developments! I've been procrastinating this mail for a while, but now
is the time.

Following GeoConnections' last call for project, we submitted with
OpenNorth a proposal to develop a national standard/API for road events
(construction, road closure, accidents, weather conditions, etc.) as
well as an open data app to create, manage and publish data using this
format. The idea was a consequence of the issues I found while
developing ZoneCone: lack of data, lack of standardization which come
with high cost of development to use the data. Added to that,
discussions with governments officials (mainly at cities level) showed
that this data was in general difficult to manage internally.

On the other hand, projects like Open311 and GTFS demonstrated how
standardization could come with an interesting ecosystem and simply put,
an incredible easy of use. One of the key issue for road events if that
it's split though multiple jurisdictions: cities, provinces/states and
even fed gov in some cases, plus the utilities and some private
companies who operates some of the road infrastructure. So the idea is
to reproduce the same idea, for another field and with a strong focus on
multi-jurisdiction support (one of the weaknesses of Open311). Following
the logic of GeoConnexions, we will try to get this format approved as a
standard by a body or another (OGC, OASIS, W3C, etc - If by chance some
of you has experience in submitting a format proposal to a
standardization body, I'll be happy to hear from you)

The project was proposed with several collaborators: Cities of Montréal
and Ottawa, Transportation Ministry of B.C, University of Montréal, City
of Repentigny, International Institute of Logistics of Montréal, Eaves
Consulting and InstantGeo. The project is planned to last for 18 months
but we expect to have have a first draft of the format/API for this
fall, and we'd also like to have one the collaborator to implement it.

I'll probably post some news from time to time, but don't hesitate to
ask questions on the mailing list or to contact me.

---

Besides the technical issues that await us, I see 2 questions of
interest for this kind of initiative:
- If format standardization is an important stone for the use and
integration of open data, how/who should engage in such a path? All the
examples that come to my mind are ad hoc format that were developed by
people/organization who needed it. Few have been recognized by
standardization body. But if we continue like that, it will become
difficult to follow what's going on, and some important dataset will
remain non standardized.
- Is it simply conceivable to hope for standardization of the data given
the variety of data set and the high number of actors ?

---

In conclusion, I'd like to underline the fact this project is more or
less one of the child of CivicAccess: it's the
always-here-even-when-cloistered Tracey who sent the call for project
and told me it could be of interest for ZoneCone. Then several people of
the list supported me either for ZoneCone or for Open511: James
McKinney/OpenNorth, Michael Lenczner, Jonathan Brun, David Eaves and
Karl Dubost.

Cheers

Steph

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss