Hey there,
Usually I read the content of the list more than anything, but today I'll change my habits and write a little.
This morning with MontrealOuvert guys, I launched ZoneCone.ca which is intended to notify people of existing roadworks in Montréal and on the provincial roads. (sorry, for the moment it's only in French... support of the English is part of my loooong todo list)
As said in the title, it's using almost-open data like many other open data projects since the data sources are not intended to be used this way. For the city of Montréal, they provide a Google Maps (
http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=7097,79001583&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL) that I retro engineered to get a XML/VGML file. For the provincial roads, the ministry publish some GPS data (
http://www.quebec511.gouv.qc.ca/en/etat_reseau/gps.asp) but with very limited description; Thus I had to do a reconcil some other data coming from their website to have both a position and a description. All in all, the data is useful but far from perfect.
It took me about 200-300 hours to achieve the current state. Of this, about 1/3 could have been avoided if the data was really designed as an open and structured data set and the results would be much more accurate.
As some of you may know, the current state of roads is a major issue here in Montréal as many construction have difficulties to deal with the gravity. The purpose of ZoneCone is to show that open data could help to cope with major infrastructure renewal and mobility issues. It's juste a proof of concept but I really think there are lots of things to be done in this fields with open data.
Comments are welcome!
Steph
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