Open source data and geographic information systems

From the second half of the 2000s the idea that certain data have to be open for public use gained popularity. From the point of view of society and state relationship the data processed by various state organizations are of special interest.

On May 7, 2012 the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 601 "About the main directions of public system administration improvement " was signed: within implementation of "Г" subparagraph of point 2 the government bodies and local governments post information on their activity online in the form of open data in a machine-readable format.

Geographic information systems are a convenient way of open information organization because they allow to visualize considerable data files. Their development is a universal trend: regional systems accumulate considerable volumes of information, thus the filling differs over the countries.

On the portal of open data of Moscow city more than 250 data sets are placed, one fifth of which belongs to education, including other large categories as health care, physical culture and sport, and also roads and transport.

On a portal of Rome 519 data sets are placed, 190 of which are connected with elections. Open data are used in several mobile devices applications: PHARMAWIZARD (search, acquisition, comparison of medical preparations), ILAZIO (cultural objects), ROMEVIEW (Rome and museums of Rome), ROMECLOUD (public life).

On the web-site of Beijing the number of data sets exceeds 280, the social sphere prevails among them. On the basis of the loaded data four applications were created, two of which are connected with transport sphere, one — with health care and one — with sights of the city.

On the web-site of Paris there are only 119 data sets which are mostly presented by culture, elections and environment. On the site there are also sets filling of which is offered to participate in: the card of the city availability, cycle parking and movement by bicycle, traffic in real time, movement of big groups of people. Among the French cities Nantes is the leader by data placement — 549 sets among which reports of various establishments, transport and mobility, health are most widely represented. On the basis of these data 30 applications are created, 16 of which treat transport and transport services (parking, traffic, routes) and 4 - bicycle infrastructure. Unusual applications include objects for dogs and cats owners (parks where walks with pets are allowed, pet-shops, veterinarians), and also the app which has to stimulate new ways of open data use.

In general, the most widely presented data are reports of institutions (budgets, expenditure), results of elections, data on objects location, more rare — data on the state of environment, traffic in real time. Most often applications use information on traffic and arrangement of any objects.

The data mentioned above are published on the specialized city websites. Thus, the list of open data is wider, and use options are more various.