OC Transpo Backs Away From Open Data
5 Comments
Recent Posts
Ofcom Did the Work Canada Plans to Skip: What the UK’s Age Verification Report Reveals About the Bill C-34 Social Media Ban 
The Age Verification Bill That Won’t Die: How Bill S-209 Complicates the Government’s Bill C-34 Online Safety Plan 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 280: A Fall Update on Where Things Stand on Canadian Digital Policy Reforms 
The Wrong Ban: The Heritage Committee Backed a Targeted Ad Ban for Kids and Stopped Short of a Social Media Ban, Yet the Government Chose the Reverse 
Regulator First, Rules Later: Bill C-34 Debate Shows the Government Wants a Digital Safety Commission Before It Figures Out What It Will Do
No surprise there. Open GPS data would allow anyone to write software that shows how crappy their service is.
Not just that
Graham. Lets not forget the complaints about how expensive the OC Transpo service is to the taxpayer and the riders. They are looking for ways to generate revenues from non-tax sources, in particular if they can avoid raising fares.
This morning the Ottawa Police Service was talking about, on the news, a funding crunch that could mean the layoffs of staff in 2013 and beyond. They too are looking for ways to generate operating funds not through taxation… one thing they are looking at is criminal record checks.
The new mayor has promised a 2.5% maximum tax increase. Many departments are going to be looking for ways to generate non-tax revenues.
RE: Anon-k
This isn’t a viable way Anon. All it does is open the door for a competitor to make a superior source of GPS data.
One would think that OC Transpo could simply break down and set up spin-off merchandising deals by this point as a source of non-tax revenue.
But we can have that discussion over at the unofficial OC Transpo Livejournal community blog.
@Eric L.
I don’t follow your comment. There is two sets of data here. The first is route data, meaning the locations of stops and the schedules. The second is the actual performance against the schedule data. This latter comes from the GPS receivers on the buses themselves.