Olomouc launches open-data portal

Opening its data to the public is a must-do for any smart city

Olomouc becomes yet another European city to make its data available to citizens. As the local authorities announced on Tuesday, the Czech administration has launched a special portal where anyone can collect useful information prepared by the respective services.

Data.olomouc.eu has ten map applications and five datasets available so far, showing real estate prices and transport data, among others. The open data can be freely used by anyone at any time without technical and legislative restrictions. It is available for download and in a machine-readable and open format.

Why do cities need to open their data?

"There are countless benefits to providing data to the general public for any use. One of the main ones is to increase the transparency of public administration, because citizens can monitor its functioning. This also has economic potential, because it creates additional possibilities for new business opportunities" explained Deputy Mayor of Olomouc responsible for Smart City Matouš Pelikán, quoted by the municipal portal.

He also explained that the portal is also at the beginning of its development and there are more applications and datasets to be included in the future from various departments of the municipality. Based on open data, new applications can be created that make life easier for residents.

"Specific uses increase the value of the data. The best use for data is usually found by someone other than its author. Examples of such data can be municipal budgets, election results, address points, meteorological data, mapped benches in the city and many others," explained for his part Tomáš Burian from the Smart City department of the Olomouc.

The launch of the open-data portal was initiated by the chairman of the commission for Smart City and information technology, Luděk Janák. The was established thanks to the Olomouc Plans the Future project supported by the Operational Program Employment.