The present situation and problems of French public data opening

Since 2011, the French public data opening has been steadily developed, whether from the number of institutions involved in public data open, the amount of open data set, or from the Open Data development application projects, France has become the global public data open the field of one of the leading countries. But at the same time, there are still many problems in the opening of public data in different parts of France.

The present situation of public data opening

National Public Data Open portal

In 2011, the French government set up the public data Open Office "Etalab", and launched a nationwide public data open platform data.gouv.fr.

Data.gouv.fr initially collected data published by the French National Bureau of Statistics, updated and standardized management, its functions are increasingly perfect, providing a wide range of services for public institutions, including: September 2013 release of the public data open and sharing manual, teaching and exchange of data open experience; Local organizations, associations, media and other institutions of public data sets, to encourage open data innovation, incentive data development enterprises.

From the specific data, as of the end of June, data.gouv.fr has 13,000 data sets, more than 300 participating agencies, registered users more than 3,000.

An example of open urban public data

Rennes is the first major city in France to practise public data, and has opened up 1500 public institutions in terms of transportation, geography and other data.

There are several features of public data opening in Rennes: The participation of the departments, including municipal government, district governments, transportation network operators and other institutions are involved in the Open data, rich format of the dataset, create a professional forum for users and developers to communicate, all data free;

Currently, developers have launched more than 20 applications based on public open data in Rennes.

An example of open public institutions data

The French National Railroad (SNCF), with its innovative partner network (developers, designers, data specialists) for the daily life of the new service for the purpose of the developer launched a data opening.

The national Railway Company's data opening has several characteristics: The information is rich, including the train timetable, the train station equipment situation, the train full rate situation and so on, the data real-time update, created the developer Exchange platform, has opened two API interfaces, all data is free.

Developers have launched a number of applications based on national railroad data, such as Tranquilien, which is mainly used to inquire about the full rate of trains, Mobili is mainly used to check the best bus interchange routes.

Developer examples

Navidis is a professional software solutions company that uses Open data to launch a navty program based on geo-services, which employs 3D virtual technology and a wide range of information, covering brand preference information, carpool information, and second-hand market information.

Navidis also uses Open data to participate in a number of government projects, including digital cities, cloud computing, and smart grids.

Problems

Table Open Data Questions questionnaire findings

Information is not detailed enough to create added value

Take the traffic data provided by the Saone-et-loire, Dep. De La government as an example. The provincial council opened a traffic data column on the provincial council's Open data portal, but only announced the location of the provincial bus station.

Such a small amount of information is just as chicken for developers, but if provincial councils can open more detailed information, such as bus timetables, bus-carrying capacity, full occupancy rates, fares, and so on, developers will be able to create a lot of added value for these open data.

DataSet types vary widely between regions, and data sets are not uniform in format

Data set types and formats are unified to facilitate the automation of data collection, consolidation, analysis, and processing.

The Open Data portal in Rennes uses a total of 16 dataset formats, and even the same type of data, such as financial data, geographic data, and so on, takes a different format. This creates a lot of extra work for developers.

Data acquisition costs are too high

The first is higher economic costs. According to the report of the Etalab Office, 96 types of data opened by the 13 departments of the central government of France are to be paid for, and the charging patterns adopted by the ministries vary according to the actual situation.

Second, the opportunity cost is higher. There is a lot of uncertainty about whether developers can create added value for open data and whether the application of development is in line with business expectations.

Therefore, open data charges will hamper the development of data innovation.

Solution Discussion

(i) Creation of a national-level regulatory body responsible for coordinating the opening of data in various places, developing and maintaining open data standards, including: Open data types, data granularity, dataset formats, recommended API standards, etc.

(ii) Selection of data interchange formats based on XML technology. XML format has many advantages, such as openness, support of many kinds of coding, scalability, and strong interoperability.

(c) Abolishing the system of public data charging without affecting the balance of economic benefits of public institutions.

French Software Editors Alliance Open Data Report

Compiling: Center for international Economic and Technical cooperation, Ministry of Industry and Information technology Zhang Jing

(Responsible editor: Mengyishan)