Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems
Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems

(Inter-)Kommunale DatenWerke (KDW)

Evaluation and implementation of a municipal data sharing platform

A medium close up of a mature blonde woman who has just payed for her parking at the parking meter. She is about to go and meet her friends in Garmisch in the south of Germany. She is carrying her rucksack with her brolly in ready for all weathers.
© istock / SolStock

Task / Problem Definition:

Municipal utilities cover almost all tasks of public welfare with their services. The data collected by them is the basis for innovation and sustainability. The emphasis lies on almost: In the course of digitization, there is a growing need for a low-threshold infrastructure that can network and process the data of municipal actors for a holistic and efficient examination and management of municipal tasks. Until now, the legal, technical and organizational structures for this have been lacking. In the project “(Inter-)Kommunale Datenwerke” (KDW) ((Inter-)municipal DataWorks), funded by the mFund of the Federal Ministry of Digital Affairs and Transport (BMDV), a data sharing platform is now being created for the technically and legally secure exchange of data between various municipal actors.

Solution Approach / Implementation:

Based on a concrete use case in the field of mobility, the project group - consisting of the Data Competence Center Cities and Regions DKSR, municipal utilities of Mainz, PMG Parken in Mainz as well as Fraunhofer FOKUS - develops a secure virtual space for intra- and inter-municipal exchange of (partially) restrictive data of different organizations. The goal is to develop an easy-to-use platform that simultaneously ensures the greatest possible legal security for data owners.

Fraunhofer FOKUS supports the development of the municipal data rooms with its in-house developed data management ecosystem piveau®. Specifically, Fraunhofer FOKUS is using piveau in such a way that private data rooms can be created and linked to DKSR's Urban Data Platform as well. This makes organizational and statistical data from the administration as well as real-time data from mobility providers or from sensors detectable and applicable for analyses.

As a proof of concept based on an open-source software, Kommunales DatenWerk is intended to give municipal stakeholders access to data that could not previously be collected and thus also to new applications. A key aspect of the project is the transferability of the platform from municipality to municipality. By providing the legal framework for municipal data exchange, the project is intended to serve as a pioneer for other data works in the future - as a trustworthy data sharing solution for municipalities of the future.