Third wave open data in the Netherlands: Identifying and overcoming the barriers towards open geographical data of public undertakings

Abstract

The creation of open data has seen a series of waves in which every growing resources of data are becoming accessible to a growing number of users from a diversifying number of public entities. The European Commission anticipates this movement by setting a new scope to the re-use of Public Sector Information Directive. Instead of exclusively focussing on Public Sector Information (PSI), the new scope of its successor, the Open Data Directive (ODD), includes data from public undertakings as well. In order for public undertakings to comply with this future legislation research into the current openness of public undertakings and the barriers to open data is key. This research presents three different levels of open data for public undertakings and it shows which barriers they face to achieve more open data. In this case the public undertakings are Port of Rotterdam (PoR) and Schiphol Airport. The results showed that the data policy of PoR matches the level where data is considered not to be open, level 1. The data policy of Schiphol Airport matches the level where data is considered partly open, level 2. For both public undertakings, the barriers that are associated with achieving a higher level of open data are related to institutional, financial, legal, and quality and technical aspects. The Dutch grid operator Liander, which has provided open data since 2014, presented possibilities to overcome these barriers based on own experience. The open data policy of Liander corresponds with the third level of open data as every user can re-use the data of Liander. It can be stated that neither PoR nor Schiphol Airport is ready to comply with the future rules when the ODD requirements become mandatory. Barriers still need to be overcome which start with the internal motivation to provide open data and by aggregating data to satisfy future legal requirements.