OpenSantCugat: A platform for municipalities to provide access to building data

Building-related data managed by municipalities are dispersed among city departments and supra-municipal administrations. The drawbacks of this dispersal are twofold: 1) It hinders the communication between city departments, and 2) It prevents citizens and companies from exploiting public data. We have developed OpenSantCugat, an open platform which integrates the data generated by municipal departments (e.g., building permits, facilities inspections, water consumption) and those provided by public bodies (e.g., energy certificates, cadastre, solar radiation maps) to facilitate data management within and across city departments, and to provide citizens and businesses with access to the public data they might need. The integrated data is provided by means of multi-layered maps, tables and reports, and aggregated at different scales (city, neighbourhood, block and building). The experience with the development of this open data platform confirms that municipalities need such tools to improve their work processes as well as to effectively promote open governance.