We’re proud at the Programmable City project to be launching the Dublin Dashboard, one of the first major outputs from the project.  Below is a short video overview, part of the press release, and our slides from the launch.

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.  It allows users to gain a better understand how the city is performing, to undertake evidence-informed analysis, and to improve their everyday decision making.  For example, you can learn about how the city economy is performing at a glance, visualise crime levels by garda station and district, and monitor traffic flows and car parking spaces in real time.

Owen Keegan, Chief Executive for Dublin City Council officially launched the Dublin Dashboard.  “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.”

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 in conjunction with the All-Island Research Observatory at Maynooth University and Dublin City Council, 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.

Our slides from the launch are below.

Visit the Dublin Dashboard