PatinerMontreal.ca is a new website build on civic data. The city publishes the state of the outdoor hockey rinks every day in PDF format – not very practical! These PDFs are difficult to navigate and do not include the location of the rinks. Montreal is Hockey. So, James McKinney decided to build a killer civic data app that displays the location, state and condition of all the outdoor hockey rinks in Montreal. Dan Mireault completed the design and we are please to present this interview with James and Dan.

Hi James, how did this project come about?

I heard about Montréal Ouvert in August but was out of town for the first meeting. I met with Jonathan Brun in September about how to get involved, and he proposed the Patiner Montréal project as a way to promote open data in Montreal. I wrote the application in my spare time in the following months.

Where are you getting your data from? How often do you refresh it?

The city provides data on the conditions (here) and locations (here) of rinks. I currently set the conditions data to be refreshed once a day. I may adjust the refresh rate once the city starts updating the data after the rinks open.

If you had a comment about the quality, timeliness or accessibility of the data, what would it be?

The data is not accessible in a machine-readable format. The conditions data is in PDFs, which are difficult to scrape. If the layout of the PDFs were to change, my scripts would fail to correctly scrape the data. The locations data is written in poorly-formatted HTML, making it especially difficult to scrape; thankfully, I only need to scrape that data once. I’ll be able to answer about quality and timeliness once the rinks open!

What should the city be doing differently to encourage people to use the rinks and better inform the public on their state?

As far as online actions go, the city should publish its data in an open format so that citizens can use it to build applications as they see fit. Even if the city had the budget for it, I don’t think the city should be spending money building applications itself; it’s best to make the data available for others to use. Offline, there are a lot of things the city could do, but that’s another story.

Any more features planned for a future release?

There are more potential – especially social – features than I have time for, so you’ll have to wait and see! If you are a developer and want to contribute to the project, the code for the app is on GitHub (here). I’ve made the conditions and locations data available through an API (here), so that others can build their own apps. I know there is an Android app under development that looks very promising! If anyone is looking to get involved, please contact me at james@slashpoundbang.com.

@Dan Mireault Your design uses different shapes and colours, why?

Primarily, to better differentiate the types of rinks and their location. The colour allows the user to quickly see the type of the rink. However, it is not visible to the colour blind. By  also using different shapes we create a visual contrast that all Montrealers can distinguish. Accessibility is an important part of open-data and as such, we made sure to include it in our design.

We recently got a chance to interview Jeff Wallace, the creator of Resto-net.ca, a website based on the health inspections of food establishments in Montreal.

Hi Jeff, how did this project come about?

I was talking with my friend James McKinney about different projects we were working on and he brought up Patinoires ouver tes, another open data project. He offered to put me in touch with Jonathan Brun about other potential open data projects. After a few emails with Jonathan we decided on working with the health inspections data to create Resto-net. It seemed fairly easy to implement and would also have a big impact for users.

Where are you getting your data from? How often do you refresh it?

We are currently gathering data from this Montreal city website. I haven’t quite determined the refresh rate of the site but right now I check for new data twice a month.

If you had a comment about the quality, timeliness or accessibility of the data, what would it be?

To get the data off the above mentioned website, I had to scrape it from the HTML page using some “clever” code. The results in this case are fairly good, but it would have been a lot easier if the data was released in a standardized format such as XML or JSON.

What should the city be doing differently to help ensure restaurants, grocery stores and other venues are clean?

A few ideas to help create more transparency with health inspections is release data in as close to real-time as possible, and to release “general” inspection data (not just infractions) so that users can see the results for both clean and dirty restaurants. Also as mentioned in the previous question, a standardized format would make it much easier to use the data for applications like Resto-net.

Any more features planned for a future release?

James McKinney has done a great job of adding some cool visualizations to the data, and I’m sure there are a few more ways we can explore the data to help people get a better picture. We were also talking about bringing in reviews from other sites so users can compare that data with what we already provide. If anyone out there has an idea they would like to see don’t hesitate to send me an email (jeff@tjwallace.ca). I’m open to all suggestions!

Invitation to Montréal Ouvert 2nd public meeting!

The open data movement is picking up steam in Montréal. Momentum is growing but it must be sustained. Montréal Ouvert invites you to its 2nd public meeting next Thursday (Nov. 25th), from 6-8pm, at L’Espace coopératif de travail (ECTO). Come find out what’s been keeping the Montreal Ouvert team busy and learn about what other stakeholders are up to. We’ll also have time to network and discuss our next steps. So, if you’re working on open data issues, reflecting about open data, or simply want to learn more about it, you should be there. Bring a friend or colleague!

Where?
Espace Coorpératif de Travail (ECTO)
880, Rue Roy Est
Montreal, QC H2L 1E6

When?
Thursday, November 25th
18:00-20:00
Sign-up at our doodle: http://doodle.com/d8xhds66zkuxegwa

Sorry, this entry is only available in French.

For International Open-Data Hackathon 2010. Montreal Ouvert will facilitate a small event for hackers/designers in Montreal around the available city information.

The event will take place December 4th, 10AM – 4PM at Station-C 5369 St. Laurent

Sign-up here (spaces limited): http://doodle.com/rxarp8x7639qevar

More info here: http://www.opendataday.org/wiki/Main_Page