Feasibility of enhanced open city data management platform with crowd sourcing
Lead Participant:
CAMBRIDGE ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH CONSULTANTS LIMITED
Abstract
Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants (CERC) and Algebra propose the creation of an innovative open city data platform with crowd sourcing as their response to the Future City Solutions SBRI competition Challenge 2 'Data'.
It is an opportune time for the development of such a system. Historically cities have owned rich datasets; however the data have been ‘hidden’ in isolated silos so the value of the data has been unavailable to the public and often also to the city authorities. Increasingly cities are opening their data and empowering businesses and the public to create additional value from these assets. However, it is only very recently that cities are becoming ‘superconnected’ with fast broadband, dense WiFi and smart phone networks allowing the data platforms to realise their full potential and allowing fast input of new data by the public. Combining city data with crowd-sourced data shares the burden of data curation with the public, increases feedback and communication between city authorities and the citizen, and provides new channels for authorities, elected representatives and the public to communicate on the key issues confronting modern cities.
The proposed system will use innovative interactive map presentations and combine public data with crowd-sourced data, integrating data across various themes including health, energy, environment and transport. Open APIs will be the basis for a thriving ecosystem of third-party apps and services based on phones, websites, smart devices, and social media, leveraging direct access to data through the APIs. Phase 1 will examine the feasibility and practicalities of such a system. Phase 2 will develop the enhanced platform, install a prototype for a test-bed city, and create pilot apps and services that will demonstrate the possibilities of the platform and foster the app ecosystem, in particular showing innovative data presentation through maps. These pilot solutions will be shaped with the partner city, analysing decisions to be made by the partner city that can be supported with innovative data use as well as different user needs (managers, assessors, citizens, app developers). The pilot solutions will build on existing tools created by the applicant organisations, such as the London airTEXT health and air quality forecasts (developed by CERC) and Q-Cumber, an innovative combination of crowd-sourcing, social networking and environmental tools, combining data from heterogeneous sources into a user-friendly query framework (developed by Algebra).
The project partners CERC and Algebra are SMEs with wide experience of working with cities to maximize their data in the themes of environment, health, industry and energy, and are very well-placed to work with city authorities in this project. Q-Cumber has been adopted for crowd-sourcing by several cities in Italy and is rapidly expanding. CERC has excellent contacts with the ‘test-bed’ cities for the data challenge, in particular Cambridge and London.
It is an opportune time for the development of such a system. Historically cities have owned rich datasets; however the data have been ‘hidden’ in isolated silos so the value of the data has been unavailable to the public and often also to the city authorities. Increasingly cities are opening their data and empowering businesses and the public to create additional value from these assets. However, it is only very recently that cities are becoming ‘superconnected’ with fast broadband, dense WiFi and smart phone networks allowing the data platforms to realise their full potential and allowing fast input of new data by the public. Combining city data with crowd-sourced data shares the burden of data curation with the public, increases feedback and communication between city authorities and the citizen, and provides new channels for authorities, elected representatives and the public to communicate on the key issues confronting modern cities.
The proposed system will use innovative interactive map presentations and combine public data with crowd-sourced data, integrating data across various themes including health, energy, environment and transport. Open APIs will be the basis for a thriving ecosystem of third-party apps and services based on phones, websites, smart devices, and social media, leveraging direct access to data through the APIs. Phase 1 will examine the feasibility and practicalities of such a system. Phase 2 will develop the enhanced platform, install a prototype for a test-bed city, and create pilot apps and services that will demonstrate the possibilities of the platform and foster the app ecosystem, in particular showing innovative data presentation through maps. These pilot solutions will be shaped with the partner city, analysing decisions to be made by the partner city that can be supported with innovative data use as well as different user needs (managers, assessors, citizens, app developers). The pilot solutions will build on existing tools created by the applicant organisations, such as the London airTEXT health and air quality forecasts (developed by CERC) and Q-Cumber, an innovative combination of crowd-sourcing, social networking and environmental tools, combining data from heterogeneous sources into a user-friendly query framework (developed by Algebra).
The project partners CERC and Algebra are SMEs with wide experience of working with cities to maximize their data in the themes of environment, health, industry and energy, and are very well-placed to work with city authorities in this project. Q-Cumber has been adopted for crowd-sourcing by several cities in Italy and is rapidly expanding. CERC has excellent contacts with the ‘test-bed’ cities for the data challenge, in particular Cambridge and London.
Lead Participant | Project Cost | Grant Offer |
|---|---|---|
| CAMBRIDGE ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH CONSULTANTS LIMITED | £81,530 | £ 81,530 |
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