The Greater Lyon data platform

 Further to my blog on Lyon a few weeks ago, here is some more information on the  city’s data platform, which is based entirely on free software and has many features to facilitate the use of data.

This data platform offers broad access to metropolitan data. It contributes to the objectives of the Lyon Métropole Intelligent Approach and responds to the economic, social and societal challenges of the metropolitan area. According to the city, open data feeds the creation of digital services, improves the daily living environment and promotes citizen participation.

According to their description: Discovery, visualisation and download services, as well as ‘flows’, standardised APIsc (Application Programming Interface / Programming Interface) for access to geographical data (WMS, WFS, WCS, CSW) are proposed. All users can make a selection of data, then download it by cutting it by territory, for the shapefile format.

The provision of metropolitan data from both the public and the private sector serves several purposes:

  • Enhance the economic potential of the data that is at the heart of digital innovation. By making their data available Greater Lyon and its partners are accelerating the experimentation, development and creation of services on the territory with a goal – to improve the daily life of the inhabitants.
  • Encourage co-construction, citizen participation and greater interaction with the public authorities. The dissemination of data responds to a desire for transparency and a better understanding of public action for the benefit of citizens.
  • Facilitate the exchange of data between the actors of the same territory. The data platform is a tool at the service of the Lyon Métropole and municipalities’ partners which enables them to have reliable information to design, implement and evaluate their actions on the territory.

The availability of metropolitan data reflects Greater Lyon’s desire to continually improve the quality of services offered to citizens while affirming its public policies. This is also reflected in the fact that Lyon was the first city in France to appoint a Chief Data Officer.

The Métropole de Lyon is now building a dissemination strategy that will allow data to be appropriated, while ensuring favourable conditions for entrepreneurship and service creation projects to benefit from new ways of life.

Depending on the type of data, the availability conditions are divided into three types of licences :

  • ree, open use of data – allowing the reproduction, redistribution, adaptation and commercial exploitation of data. This open licence covers most data.
  • provision of data with prior authentication of users. The objective is to guarantee re-use compatible with public policies and the general interest, consistent with the services managed by the Métropole de Lyon or the actors providing a public service on the territory.
  • provision of data with authentication and the possibility of a fee to guarantee a fair competitive ecosystem, ensuring equal access to the market regardless of the economic player. In this case the pricing of high-value-added data (especially real-time data) is conceived as an instrument of support for innovation for structures and projects with a future economic model. The fee system is built to allow private actors to build innovative services with no initial cost linked to the data (no fixed costs to avoid any barrier to launch), while avoiding monopolistic situations that are detrimental to the territorial dynamic (high royalty as soon as market share thresholds are crossed).

Because the openness of the data makes sense on a metropolitan scale, the Greater Lyon Data Platform is open to all the players in the region wishing to make their data available.

This approach of mutualisation makes it possible to find all the data of the Greater Lyon area on the same platform. Data from Greater Lyon and its partners are made available, where possible, in open and standardised formats, to facilitate their interoperability, cross-fertilisation and enrichment. The georeferencing of a large majority of these data, and their access via webservices (API) that guarantee the automatic update, favours the development of durable and quality applications and products.

There is also a strong  focus on mobility solutions, which started with their Optimod  (integrated road information app) and Opticities (multimode public transport) projects.

I am happy to provide further contacts for those interested.

Paul Budde

 

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