Open Data at the SNCF
This is a great video on Open Data at SNCF. On the 21st of October the SNCF is doing an internal hackathon on which two iRail members are invited as mentor. More data on the SNCF can be found at http://data.sncf.com.
SNCB, we would love to do these projects in Belgium as well!
On strike…
In Belgium we do not believe any of the possible given reasons to go on strike in these times are valid. We are deeply disappointed in the syndicates who otherwise have a very important role in society.
Finally Open Data, for one day
It goes without saying, the NMBS/SNCB (don’t mix them up with Infrabel or NMBS/SNCB Holding) and iRail haven’t been the best friends over the past 4 years. But we do not really worry about it: they are even fighting with Infrabel, the railway operator, over who owns the data*, and even the biggest organizations and research groups in Belgium scrape the data from their website.
Bad news! The 3d of October, the railway people are on strike. As usual with these strikes no one understands exactly why, and if we dare to ask why, the commuters are too selfish.
But, we have good news as well. Thanks to the fact of the strike, we can now publish a dataset of 1 full day. We have created a GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification) which contains all the schedules for October the third. We are accepted through all the tests and we got published at the official GTFS Data Exchange website.
And we have a call for participation! If you are a developer, a graphic designer, an artist, a producer, an author, basically anything, wouldn’t you like to participate in our 3d of October take-over iRail.be contest? Make a website, send us the code, get published on iRail.be on the 3d of October!
* For your interest, transport data is not copyrightable. Therefore, there is no such thing as a transport data owner. The railway companies should realize that they are responsible for getting people from one place to another and the other way around. This includes providing people with the correct data, something SNCB/NMBS has always refused to do.
Open Knowledge Foundation Belgium
If you need another reason to open another bottle of champagne: as of the 21st of September, OKFN Belgium has upgraded from a local group to an official OKFN chapter. Since the foundation of the legal structure in February this year, OKFN Belgium didn’t only had some community events (a general meeting and some Apps For X events) and a lot of board meetings, but they have also started 4 working groups.
Our community, iRail, is leading the official Open Transport working group in Belgium and open transport data is one of the main priorities of the Open Knowledge foundation Belgium. It’s needless to say that iRail and OKFN Belgium will be working together tightly in the future.
This means iRail is also getting involved in international projects, together with Open Train Times, OpenOV, opentransilien, the international open transport group, forum virium, trafiklab, and many others. One of the first things on our list is creating an Open Transport Data Handbook. The Handbook will summarize the experiences from existing companies in opening their data and provide answers to frequently asked questions. If you think you’re perfect for helping out on this, send me a note!
In the mean time we have been working together with OKFN already, for instance to organize Apps For Flanders. There are more Apps For X events coming up and the chance that we will play our part is big.
Pieter
#okfest news
Hi All!
The Open Knowledge Foundation, the Finnish Institute in London and the Aalto University Media Factory organised the world’s first #okfest, also known as ‘Open Knowledge Festival‘. The Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture in Helsinki is the place to be for all interested in open data, open source, open design, open democracy, … . It is obvious iRail and OKFN Belgium could not be not taking part in this.
Tuesday and Wednesday iRail participated in the Open Transport track, inside the Open Cities topic stream. Pieter, Stefan from OpenOV and I gave our talks and Miet gave a very interesting workshop about next-level prototyping using paper. While others might have had trouble staying awake during some talks, we learnt how to step out of our comfort zone to create innovative user experiences for our future applications. Thanks, Miet!
On a little less open knowledge related note: the FabLab, a high-tech manufacturing lab inside the university campus, was just astonishing. Miet, Xavier, Stefan and I were running around like little children with new toys. We got the chance to use the € 30k laser cutter for our own designs, assembled a cnc machine and Stefan got a cc licensed Raspberry Pi casing as a present. Man, I will never forget about the FabLab!
During the week, Miet, Xavier and I got friended with 2 local students: Laura & Daniel. They were kind enough to show us around. One night we made a walk in some less touristic parts of the city during which we might accidentally have been spotted inside some bars. Laura & Daniel also taught us Finnish history, geography and vocabulary. Inviting them for a future visit to Belgium was the least we could do!
Last but not least: there was some buzz on Twitter about some OKProm and the world’s first miss and mister open data election. This is an initiative by the seven flatmates in Ruoholahti. The Prom itself is happening this evening so follow @okprom for the latest news!
Thanks for reading, please comment and see you soon!
Update: The results are in! Look who’s miss and mister open data!