This document summarizes the author's experience working with open data to develop an app called UrbanRural. The app helps users find and learn about local heritage buildings. Developing it required consolidating protected structures data from different county plans, which had the information buried in maps and appendices. The author also worked with the NaPTAN public transport database, which had coordinate formatting inconsistencies. Overall, the experience highlighted challenges of working with open data from various sources in different formats.

1. UrbanRural
My Experience of
working with the Data
Colin Broderick

2. Introduction
Who am I?
UrbanRural?
Consuming the NaPTAN Export (challenging!).
The Challenges and Joys of working with Open DATA

3. Who am I?
Spatial Planner, Map Nerd and Open DATA dabbler

4. UrbanRural - what is
it?
An app to help you find your local heritage.

5. UrbanRural - what’s
the problem?
Who here has ever had to look through a development
plan?
Protected Structures and Built Heritage are buried in the
maps and in a table in the appendix

6. UrbanRural - what’s
the problem?
RPS, Dublin City Development Plan 2011 - 2017

7. UrbanRural - what’s
the problem?
Swords Map, Fingal County Development Plan 2011 - 2017

8. UrbanRural - what’s
the problem?
Interactive Mapping - South Dublin County Development Plan
2011 - 2017

9. So you find the
building - what next?
The End

10. UrbanRural - let’s
solve this!
Educate people about their local built heritage.
Help promote the built heritage of Ireland (Fingal).
Help improve peoples understanding of protected
structures.

11. UrbanRural - The
DATA
Fingal Protected structure list (csv)
Fingal NIAH Survey
Google Maps (api)
Google Places (api)

12. UrbanRural - What’s it
look like?

13. UrbanRural - What’s it
look like?

14. Map
&
Searc
h

15. RPS
Detail
s

16. NIAH
Detail
s

17. And it works on your
phone

18. RPS DATA - The
Problems
Even within DubLinked no one is releasing the same data.
Formats are Different - Fingal does csv’s with extra
information.
The rest of the counties are shapefiles with no extra data
appended

19. NaPTAN
What is NaPTAN I hear you say?
It’s “a database system for uniquely identifying all the points
of access to public transport in the UK” (DTF, UK)
It stands for the National Public Transport Access Nodes
It sets the standards of how the information should be
exchanged (xml & csv)
Its main use is in making Journey Planners

20. Why was I interested
in this?

21. What does it look
like?

22. Mean a whole lot to
you?
So what’s the best
thing to do? Map it!

23. Final Product

24. Not all plain sailing
Not all of co-ordinates are using the same projection so its
looks a bit like this.
I don’t have access to MS Access or ArcGIS
QGIS to the rescue on my dads laptop, able to extract the
data in the proper format and made a bunch of csv files.

25. The world covered in measles

26. Suggestions
That the NTA release this data in the other release format
of a suite of csv files.
Maybe DubLinked could take the lead in defining the
standards for data sharing in terms of
file formats
information

27. Hope this was
interesting for you!
Thank you!
Thank you!
Thank you!
@rusty1052