Ireland’s first city dashboard, and one of the most comprehensive internationally, was launched by researchers at Maynooth University today (Sept 19, 2014) in Dublin.
Researchers at Maynooth University, working in partnership with Dublin City Council, have launched a new interactive website full of information about Dublin -- www.dublindashboard.ie.
The Dublin Dashboard provides citizens, researchers, planners, policy makers and companies with real-time information, time-series data, and interactive maps about all aspects of the city.
The dashboard allows users to gain detailed, up-to-date intelligence that helps them better understand how the city is performing, aids everyday decision making, and fosters evidence-informed analysis. For example, you can learn about how the city economy is performing at a glance, visualise crime levels, and monitor traffic flows in real time.
Owen Keegan, Chief Executive for Dublin City Council officially launched the Dublin Dashboard in their Wood Quay Venue.
“The Dublin Dashboard is a great example of a local authority and a university working together for the benefit of citizens. The real value for city leaders is how the dashboard will help Dublin to monitor performance.
“A massive wealth of data is being made available, including real-time data, about the economy, transport, planning, housing, health, population, the environment, and emergency services. We are committed to further developing and improving the range of city data and information available on the platform.”
To empower people living and working in Dublin
The dashboard is made up of a number of modules that can be easily used to explore hundreds of graphs, maps and apps concerning how Dublin is performing over time and in relation to other locales, what is happening in the city right now, the location of all kinds of facilities, and how to report on particular issues.
The dashboard has been developed by The Programmable City project and the All-Island Research Observatory at Maynooth University and is funded by the European Research Council and Science Foundation Ireland.
Professor Rob Kitchin, the project principal investigator, welcomed Dublin City Council’s support in making data available for the Dashboard. “The aim of the site is to empower people living and working in Dublin by providing them with easy to access intelligence about the city,” he said. “For example, users can jump onto the system before they leave for work to see how the traffic is flowing or see what spaces are available in different car parks. Prospective house buyers can explore the characteristics of an area and how close different amenities are.”
Dr Gavin McArdle, the lead developer for the Dashboard, explained that the site is based on a principle of openness. “We wanted to create an open platform where anyone can take the data we use and build their own apps, or to connect their own apps back into the site to add new functionality,” he said. “Our approach has sought to avoid re-inventing the wheel, so if a good app already exists we just link to that rather than creating our own version.”
The data underpinning the website is drawn from a number of data providers -- including Dublin City Council, Dublinked, Central Statistics Office, Eurostat, and government departments, and links to a variety of existing applications. The underlying data is freely available so others can undertake their own analysis and build their own applications and visualisations.
There are plans in place to add new real-time datasets, including maps of social media, and new interactive mapping modules.
Caption: Prof. Rob Kitchin - Principal Investigator Maynooth University, Bernard Mahon - VP Research Maynooth University, Eoin Keegan, head of DCC, and Dr Gavin McArdle - Lead Developer Maynooth University.