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canada & electric cars

May 3, 2008 in canada, federal government, infrastructure by Hugh | Permalink

From the economist, with the emphasis added:

IN THESE times of high petrol prices and worries about climate change, you might think that any country would be proud to enjoy a lead in manufacturing electric cars. Not Canada, it seems. Two Canadian companies, ZENN Motor Company and Dynasty Electric Car, make small electric cars designed for city use; a third, which will use new battery technology developed by Exxon Mobil, plans to launch a model later this year.

But almost all these “low-speed vehicles” (or LSVs) are exported to the United States because Canada refuses to allow their use on public roads. Transport Canada, the regulatory agency, questions their safety. It doubts they would stand up in a collision with a delivery truck or a sport utility vehicle. Officials say they crash-tested one which didn’t fare well, though they refuse to release the data. The agency wants LSVs confined to “controlled areas”, such as university campuses, military bases, parks and Canada’s few gated communities. Its advice has carried weight with the provinces, which make the rules of the road

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INDU Submissions – Open access to data and research!

April 23, 2008 in Access, canada, federal government, government, infrastructure, open access, R&D by Tracey | Permalink

I was reading some of the web accessible INDU submissions by Canadian groups and individuals posted on Michael Geist’s Blog, and a common theme is open & free access to data and scientific research! Very Niiiiice!

You can access them and M. Geist’s here: Industry Committee on Canada’s Science and Technology Strategy

INDU Brief – Study on Canadian Science and Technology

April 18, 2008 in Access, canada, federal government, government, infrastructure, open access, R&D by Tracey | Permalink

I submitted a brief to the Study on Canadian Science and Technology of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.

I include items on data access, preservation, dissemination, the lack of a data and information infrastructure or vision, the lack of a Science Foundation for Canada and a small mention of community wireless networks.  I also briefly discuss the importance of public participation on these issues.

The Socio-Economic Impact of the Spatial Data Infrastructure of Catalonia

April 4, 2008 in academia, geo, infrastructure, international, policy, resources by Tracey | Permalink

The Socio-Economic Impact of the Spatial Data Infrastructure of Catalonia

Pilar Garcia Almirall, Montse Moix Bergadà, Pau Queraltó Ros
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
Centre of Land Policy and Valuations

M. Craglia (Editor)
European Commission
Joint Research Centre
Institute for Environment and Sustainability

This study gathered information and data from:

a sample of 20 local authorities participating in the Catalan SDI (IDEC) together with 3 control local authorities not participating in the SDI, and 15 end-user organisations, of which 12 are private companies operating in the Geographic Information (GI) sector, and 3 are large institutional users of GI. The findings of the interviews were presented in two separate workshops to the participating local authorities and end-user organisations, to validate the findings and discuss the outcomes.

Here are some of the findings:

  • main benefits of the IDEC accrue at the level of local public administration through internal efficiency benefits (time saved in internal queries by technical staff, time saved in attending queries by the public, time saved in internal processes) and effectiveness benefits (time saved by the public and by companies in dealing with public administration).
  • Extrapolating the detailed findings from 20 local authorities to the 100 that participate in the IDEC, the study estimated that the internal efficiency benefits account for over 500 hours per month. Using an hourly rate of €30 for technical staff in local government, these savings exceed €2.6 million per year.
  • Effectiveness savings are just as large at another 500 hours per month. Even considering only the efficiency benefits for 2006 (i.e. ignoring those that may have accrued in 2004-05, as well as the effectiveness benefits), the study indicates that the total investment to set up the IDEC and develop it over a four year period (2002-05) is recovered in just over 6 months.
  • Wider socio-economic benefits have also been identified but not quantified. In particular, the study indicates that web-based spatial services allow smaller local authorities to narrow the digital divide with larger ones in the provision of services to citizens and companies.

The study is methodologically heavy toward quantification of cost savings with some information pertaining to access to information and civicness associated to an increase in access to data.  It is mild on the latter, primarily because this is hardest and most subjective of measures.  But then again so is justice, equality and the good life.  I appreciate the quantification of costs, it makes the bean counters happy, I would however like to see more civicness measures and philosophical reasons for more access. I think that would lead to the creation of civic access measures.

btw – I have been a big fan of the editor of this report for years.

Studies on the Value of Data and Information (Mostly GI & Scientific)

March 26, 2008 in academia, Access, geo, infrastructure, international, open access, policy, resources by Tracey | Permalink

1. The Value of Spatial Information (Exec. Sum, Full Report) a ACIL Tasman report commissioned by the Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information (CRCSI).

2. the 1999 Oxera Report (Oxford Ecomomic Research Associates Ltd.) commissioned by the UK Ordnance Survey.

3. U.S. CODATA Reports published by the National Science Foundation (Free to read online)

4. The European Commission GI and GIS – Documents

5. Commercial Exploitation of Europe’s Public Sector Information, PIRA International study of 2000, Summary, Full Report

There is a very good discussion on how to deconstruct and compare the methodologies and results of the two first documents on the GSDI Legal and Economic Working Group Discussion List. This list has some of the top thinkers in the field of data access from an academic, legal, scientific and public institution standpoint. The list includes an archive that is well worth searching if ever looking for resources on this topic and to hear folks debate the details of these and many other data related issues.

Earth Observation Data Policies

March 20, 2008 in Access, canada, geo, infrastructure, policy, R&D by Tracey | Permalink

I discovered a very nice 4 pager primer on access to satellite and radar data prepared by Athena Global. The paper explains that EO data (satellite and radar) policy is the set of public decisions and guidelines about:

• what data will be produced or purchased;
• how it will be managed and by whom;
• who will have access to it (availability, confidentiality);
• how the costs of data will be paid;
• the price charged to users;
• who makes these decisions and through what processes.

The paper also discusses how Canadian EO data is determined by the type of sensor, whether it is framework data or specialized data, by who is asking for or wanting to purchase those data and that data policy has an impact

on data usage, and consequently on the integration of EO information into applications, products and services. In this way data policy shapes the potential promise of space programs in EO.

This is the direct link to the innovation rhetoric we are constantly bombarded with and to the argument that the private sector will flourish in interesting ways if data are made available to it and most importantly the direction of an entire industry. The paper also includes the following which is an excellent way to think about data pricing and its effects:

  • A direct association exists between pricing and its effects on public access and commercialisation of government agency information. Current pricing problems are having a deleterious effect on the affordability of spatial data in Canada, France, and the United Kingdom;
  • A direct association exists between the application of intellectual property rights and the degree of public access and commercialisation of government agency information. The greater the restrictions on access, the less successful dissemination programs will be;
  • Reducing prices and relaxing intellectual property restrictions on government datasets are significant factors improving opportunities for access and commercialization for stakeholders in the geographic information community.

The organization also prepared a brief on ways to think about EO users, and it may be a nice way for CivicAccess.ca to think about when framing debates around citizens and who and what their interests are.  EO users are viewed from the perspective of consumers, patrons and partners while recognizing there are different types of users:

scientific, commercial and operational (government, IOs NGOs, universities, research institutions, companies) that have different characteristics and technical skills, different data needs (long term – short term, information – data) and use data for different types of applications.

The paper explains the EO data use obstacles related to how the data are delivered, cost, lack of knowledge, and so on.  In essence the paper argues to match data supply with data needs.

Data Policy and Engaging EO Users by Athena Global.

Project for Public Spaces

March 6, 2008 in infrastructure, urban planning by Hugh | Permalink

Great:

Project for Public Spaces is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people create and sustain public spaces that build stronger communities. Founded in 1975, PPS embraces the insights of William (Holly) Whyte, a pioneer in understanding the way people use public spaces. Today, PPS has become an internationally recognized center for best-practices, information, and resources about Placemaking.

Here’s a little flick about Havana streets, with PPS’ Ethan Kent:

The film, and many more, was put together by StreetFilms, which is:

…a project of the New York City Street Renaissance (NYCSR), a collection of non-profits geared towards re-imagining the city’s public spaces and making our streets safer for pedestrians, bicycles and non-vehicular modes of transportation. The goal of the NYCSR is to engage the Department of Transportation and the city’s elected officials in a dialogue about how to best improve the quality of life for all New Yorkers.

UNdata

March 5, 2008 in datasets, infrastructure, open access by Tracey | Permalink

Check out the new UNdata – United Nations Data Access System (UNdata)

The new UN data access system (UNdata) will improve the dissemination of statistics by United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) to the widest possible audience. An easy to use data access system was developed that meets UNSD’s vision of providing an integrated information resource with current, relevant and reliable statistics free of charge to the global community.

Subsequent stages of the development of the UN data access system will extend to UN system data as well as to data of national statistical offices – providing the user with a simple single-entry point to global statistics.

UNdata

UNdata

Imagine if we could do that in Canada!

Dreamy Travel-Time Maps

January 25, 2008 in datasets, geo, infrastructure, maps by admin | 1 comment

MySociety has released some very useful and sexy interactive travel-time maps for the UK using public data.

environmental xml

January 21, 2008 in infrastructure by Hugh | Permalink

Environment XML is now live http://www.haque.co.uk/environmentxml/live/ enabling people to tag and share remote realtime environmental data; if you are using Flash, Processing, Arduino, Director or any other application that parses XML then you can both respond to and contribute to environments and devices around the world.

EnvironmentXML proposes a kind of “RSS feed” for tagged environmental data, enabling anyone to release realtime environmental data from a physical object or space in XML format via the internet in such a way that this content becomes part of the input data to spaces/interfaces/objects designed by other people.

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