Blinkenlights Stereoscope (2008), City Hall, Toronto

Binary data is often represented by two states: on and off. The Blikenlights Strereoscope installation at City Hall this year during Nuit Blanche, made data very public.  If you attended, you may have noticed the installations’ connection to open, malleable and user-contributed data.  As stated on the project website, “Project Blinkenlights invites the public to be a part of the installation by opening up a variety of ways to interact with and provide content.”  In terms of a practical application of open data, the issue returned to city hall through the issue of open transit data, discussed at the Web 2.0 Summit on November 26, 2008.

Wikipedia defines that open data is “a philosophy and practice requiring that certain data are freely available to everyone, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control.”  The challenge to open up the city’s transit data (i.e., schedules, routes and timetables) to be used in Google Transit was posed by Mark Surman of the Mozilla Foundation during his talk at the summit.  Mayor Miller stated in response to Surman that the process to get Toronto online with Google Transit is underway and we can hope to see results next year.  Surman summarizes this exchange via a blog entry accompanying an archive of his talk.

Many questions about opening up transit data are still outstanding in relation to the draft RTP or final RTP in relation to trip planning and fare cards:

Trip planning:

• If Toronto opens up data their data for Google Transit, will the other regions and transit agencies in the GTHA be encouraged to do the same? (Note: Hamilton’s HSR system is already online at Google Transit)
• Do Metrolinx’s plans for an integrated trip planner take into account Google Transit, mashups or citizen initiatives?
• What information is needed by citizen and community-based groups like myttc.ca to continue to innovate and build from the community level up?

Fare cards: intense data collection is also a real possibility with fare cards when they are implemented across our region.

• What data will be collected through fare cards?
• Where will this data be stored, who will access it and for what purposes?
• Will any of the aggregated data from fare cards be opened up?