Boost for London’s Software Developer Community and SMEs as TfL lifts all restrictions on commercial reuse of its data
Today’s announcement by TfL that they have lifted all restrictions on the commercial reuse of their data will come as good news to the developer community. There is no doubt that this will provide a welcome economic boost to London’s SMEs and individual developers.
And according to Chris MacLeod, Director of Group Marketing at TfL, it’s just the beginning: “I hope that our announcement will result in new relationships between the open data community and TfL/London’s Datastore. We know from international experience that the majority of smartphone apps built on public data are focused around the reuse of public transport data.”
From TfL’s point of view, it is important that they can harness innovation in the developer community to provide improved information that will benefit all Londoners. For an economic perspective for London, it’s great that TfL have recognised the need for developers to recover their costs and gain a financial return from their investment in time, energy and talent.
The move has been welcomed in the technology sector. Talking to us about today’s announcement Mike Butcher, Editor of TechCrunch Europe, said: “I’m delighted to see this latest release of data. It’s moves like this on behalf of the Mayor’s office that are helping to make London a showcase for how private sector technology startups and developers can start to leverage data to create products which benefit both the wider community and create jobs.”
Today’s announcement on licensing coincides with the release of several new data sets both on the TfL developer page and feeds to live tube travel news, tube departure boards, tube station and tube line status on London’s Datastore.
The London Datastore currently hosts the following travel-related data sets:
Linking to the TfL developer page:
Static files on GLA servers:
London Underground Signals Passed at Danger
We are currently working on further data sets to be released by 30th June. These include:
Bus Stops
Bus Routes
RODS Data (Rolling Origin and Destination Survey Data).
Data on bus timetables and schedules will follow.
We welcome your feedback so let us know your priority datasets and don’t forget to follow @ldn_data to keep up with alerts of further datasets to follow.
Anthony Browne
Mayoral Policy Director for Economic Development