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

open bydata

Bavarian Open Data Portal

Colourfull panoramic cityscape central part of Wurzburg city. Top view from the Marienberg Fortress (Festung Marienberg), which is the symbol of city. Region of Franconia, northern Bavaria, Germany.
© iStock / Jana_Janina

Problem / Task

Many Bavarian cities and public institutions already provide parts of their administrative data as open data through their own platforms – be it government data, traffic data or geodata. After all, the publication of administrative data creates transparency for the public and enables interested parties to utilise this data for research, innovative business models or non-profit projects.

However, the diversity of so many different platforms and portals comes with disadvantages: the data sets on the various platforms can hardly be linked - and they are often not connected to national or EU-wide open data portals and are therefore difficult to track down. At the same time, data made available on these platforms does not always comply with current data standards nor does it have the appropriate licences. Some of the platforms are also difficult to access for less digitally adept users, especially when it involves the publication of high-quality data.

Solution / Implementation

With “open bydata”, the data agency byte – Bayerische Agentur für Digitales, the Bavarian State Ministry for Digital Affairs, together with the Datenkompetenzzentrum für Städte und Regionen (DKSR) and Fraunhofer FOKUS, provide now a platform as the central point of contact for Bavarian open data. The portal already offers companies and non-profit organisations as well as scientists the opportunity to quickly and easily locate, link and reuse high-quality open data from all over Bavaria.

Currently, “open bydata” contains the open data sets of the open data portals of Munich, Würzburg, Augsburg, the district of Cham as well as the geoportal of the GDI-BY (Geoinfradatenstruktur Bayern) and the research data catalogue of the Technical University of Munich. For example, users can access information on around 40,000 trees in the city of Würzburg through the portal, view data on open areas of photovoltaic systems or call up 3D models of Bavarian castles and buildings.

All data is also automatically forwarded to the federal data portal GovData and the European platform data.europa.de and is therefore accessible throughout Europe. At the same time, the portal offers support for anyone who wants to provide their data as open data: Information on the appropriate licences for data and quality criteria for high-quality data is supplemented by assistance for the effective use of metadata.

Fraunhofer FOKUS developed and technically implemented the portal together with the Datenkompetenzzentrum für Städte und Regionen (DKSR). Thanks to its many years of experience in designing national and international data portals, Fraunhofer FOKUS is responsible for the development of the portal and the connection to existing data portals in Bavaria. The platform is based on the “piveau®” software, an open source solution for open data platforms developed by Fraunhofer FOKUS.

The portal is currently still under construction: In the future, further data sets will be published and the data will be interlinked to allow complex analyses and queries. The experience of users as well as suggestions from the Bavarian open data community are being incorporated into the ongoing process.

Integrated open data presences for Bavarian municipalities

Bavarian administrative bodies – for example Bavarian municipalities – can already use an independent presence on open bydata. Augsburg was the first local authority to utilise this offer and has published data under “augsburg.bydata”, which can be freely used, shared and edited. Augsburg's own presence within the Bavarian data portal includes all published data sets, suggests particularly high-quality and interesting data sets, and also offers further information and contact options for ideas and projects with open data from Augsburg. Fraunhofer FOKUS will continue to closely support the further integration of open data from Bavarian municipalities in the future.