Tag Archives for open transport data
Meer concreet: Vervotte beantwoordt iRail
http://www.dekamer.be/doc/CCRI/pdf/53/ic039.pdf
Samenvatting antwoord Vervotte:
1. De rechtstreekse aanleiding van de cease and desist brief was een klacht van een klant waarbij de klant een kwaliteitsprobleem met iRail expliciet en onterecht toeschreef aan de NMBS.
2. De NMBS is verplicht om haar belangen inzake intellectuele rechten te verdedigen. Ik heb wel aan de NMBS gevraagd om zich wat soepeler op te stellen, als het gaat over het ter beschikking stellen van databanken die gebruikt worden voor gratis consulteerbare, informatieve applicaties op het internet.
3. De NMBS geeft er momenteel de voorkeur aan om in dialoog te treden en op zoek te gaan naar een minnelijke schikking. Dat impliceert natuurlijk onderling respect van de betrokken partijen.
4. De NMBS heeft contacten gehad met enkele grote bedrijven waarmee strategische partnerschappen kunnen worden afgesloten. De NMBS zal de contacten tussen andere softwarebedrijven en iRail niet beletten, als de samenwerking gebeurt onder de voorwaarden die tussen de NMBS en iRail of andere bedrijven kunnen worden afgesproken en gerespecteerd.
5. Om de rezigers degelijk te informeren en om te beantwoorden aan de doelstelling van het beheerscontract gebruikt de NMBS de software HAFAS, die ontwikkeld werd door dat gespecialiseerde bedrijf.
Mijn bedenkingen bij de antwoorden van minister Vervotte
Belgian public transport company teams up with Google
News! De Lijn, a Flemish bus company, is about to share its data with Google. This means you will be able to look up your trip on Google Maps and Google will return you the possibility of going by public … Continue reading
Meeting the NMBS
After listening to Michaël Vanloubbeeck on their Internet strategy, he asked us straight away what we thought about their mobile web application. There are three points we thought worth mentioning:
1. The number of clicks before you can see the right data is about 4 times too much. I only want to click once.
2. There is no autocompletion on the station names.
3. There is no button to switch destination and departure station
On top of that we noted that for big phones like most android, maemo/meego, bada and iphone phones, the site was too small. It was a great mobile website optimized for small screens and fast connections. We concluded that they, in comparison to iRail, have a totally different focus. Both approaches are needed however and we need to cooperate on this. The NMBS however responded that their mobile website is aimed to target all phones and anyone, which we can’t agree on. Discussion still open.
The second discussion is one that we started. We are still having difficulties with Stibbe. Stibbe is a respected law firm in Belgium who apparently has been hired by the NMBS to try to close us down. They’re quite aggressive in their approach by sending scary letters that our lawyer (if you read this, thanks for your free support, we appreciate it a lot!) seems to handle a lot better than we do. They didn’t have a clue about that however. They ensured us however that they will *try* to stop these actions and let us work as we were doing. So the logical question for us is: “Can we hereby officially use your data?”; Yet this seemed to be more complicated as we thought. The real discussion had been started. Continue reading
iRail meet-up: Report
Ironically we started a little later as planned due to unforeseen traffic-jams for Yeri and Christophe. Nevertheless we did a great job and I want to start off by thanking all the participants and of course the hackerspace of Ghent.
Read the full story on what we decided and check out some pictures at http://bonsansnom.wordpress.com/2010/09/19/irail-meet-up-report/ Continue reading
iRail meet-up – Friday 17 sept
On Friday the 17th of September we are meeting up with all people interested in open data to specify the iRail API. Whether you’re a graphical artist, a low-level coder, a mobile app developer, openness enthusiast, journalist, etc… you’re more than welcome.
Read more for location and program. Continue reading