You can download the update as a .pptx by clicking on the ‘download button’ on this page. You can also read the update as text, below.

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Open data at Waka Kotahi – update, July ‘21

INCREASE transparency, REDUCE OIA / data requests, and improve ENGAGEMENT, PROBLEM-SOLVING and INNOVATION

Strategic direction

LIFT open data performance and relevanceFOSTER strong relationshipsIMPROVE decision-makingREDUCE harmENABLE and EMPOWER communities and sectors / industries, allowing FIT-FOR-PURPOSE solutions to challenges at local, regional, national and supranational scales

NZ Government is a signatory to the International Open Data Charter and New Zealand Data and Information Management principles, which follow from the (NZ) Declaration on Open and Transparent Government. Additionally, the Transport Evidence Base Strategy highlights improved access to data – and open data – as a key priority.

What we did (high-level)

Funding and transport – dashboard and open data An interactive dashboard allowing users to interrogate and analyse funding and performance open data for a range of transport-related activities. https://www.nzta.govt.nz/planning-and-investment/learning-and-resources/transport-data/funding-and-transport-dashboard-and-open-data/

More up-to-date crash (CAS) data Previously, there was a 5 month buffer between our internal CAS data and our CAS open data. We have reduced this buffer to 1 month, due to user demand and improved systems. https://opendata-nzta.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/crash-analysis-system-cas-data-1/explore

Federation to data.govt.nz The automatic federation from our open data portal to data.govt.nz was experiencing issues, meaning our listings on data.govt.nz’s catalogue were out of date. This issue has been resolved. https://catalogue.data.govt.nz/organization/new-zealand-transport-agency

Foundation work We did a lot of behind-the-scenes work to access, interrogate and begin to automate various databases – this work will help to improve and speed up future open data releases.

DataHack v1.0 Our inaugural DataHack event was a great success, bring people across multiple teams and locations to generate new insights as well as experiment with new ways of working. Stay tuned as we continue to grow this event!

This month’s fun fact: 5x increase in expenditure on walking and cycling pathways over last 7 years

What's up next (high-level)

Driver licence open data (open data release)

Video: exploring the funding and transport dashboard

Prioritisation and road-mapping of open data releases over next 6-12 months, in response to internal and external demand (planning)

Internal open data policy, to be published openly for re-use by other organisations (maturity uplift)

Sector-wide open data framework and high-level principles, along with agreed actions (maturity uplift)

Photo by James Lee on Unsplash.