[open-government] Who is hacking on transport data?

[Julian Tait]

Hi Daniel,

I have already filled in the survey which gives an overview of the position in Manchester.

There is a particular problem that we are trying to tackle in Manchester and I would like to know if anyone else is facing the same problems. In the late 1980's many of the municipal bus networks within the UK were deregulated to allow competition into the system, this was meant to create efficiencies and shift the cost of public transport to end users. Within Greater Manchester itself, we now have a fragmented bus network that has over 40 independent bus operators in competition with each other, cross city travel is virtually impossible unless you change operators and an opaque fares system.

A few people within Open Data Manchester are trying to make sense of the system and push for making fares data available. TfGM - The regional transport authority, sees lack of transparency in fares data as being a barrier to  making public transport more attractive - generally the cost of a journey is only known when you step on to the bus and ask the driver - and we have been advising the bus operators as to how and why they should be making data available. We are in a bit of a chicken and egg situation at the moment, with bus operators stating that they are willing to release 'some' data so that a proof of concept can be built to demonstrate the value of releasing the data - which means that someone has to build something out of quite complex data with an incomplete dataset, which due to the incomplete nature of the data means that it would have little value to the broader public. It is hoped that there will be some sample data made available in time for the Open Data HackDay on December 3rd so that at least we can look at it and perhaps do some modelling.

I would be grateful to know if anyone else is hacking any fares data at the moment and if there any demonstrator applications existing?

Regards

Julian Tait
Open Data Manchester