Pilot projects of using mobile positioning data for public administration purposes

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Tags: big data; geolocation; availability; public administration

Organisation name Department for Strategic Development and Coordination of Public Administration (Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic)

Contact person: David Sl‡ma

osr@mvcr.cz

As it was mentioned, all three pilot projects were supposed to be test projects, whose aim was testing of possibilities of mobile positioning data in field of setting up the public authorities network and public services. The Ministry of the Interior is considering possibilities how to optimize the network of public services and spatial distribution of services. Mobile positioning data has been identified as an approach that should help with the spatial optimalization. The vast majority of currently available data related to the optimalization of the public administration performance comes from various collections carried out by the Czech Statistical Office. The problem is that a number of important data are collected only as part of a regular census in 10 year intervals. This interval has own limitation because the period of 10 years between two census is too long. Therefore public authorities are not able to describe and react on ongoing social-economic changes.

Individual pilot projects dealt with specific issues that the Czech Republic faces in the field of the public administration. Specifically, there is an issue related to the territorial administrative division of the state in the Liberec region, where an unclear network of public authorities persisted. For the local population, the distribution of public services and the performance of the public administration was very unclear. The project provided clear information about the socio-economic linkages of its local population and prepared background information for the government’s decision about administrative border adjustment in the region.

The results of another pilot project became an input for solving the performance of public administration in the agglomeration of the Czech capital. More specifically, this was the case when one of the small municipality in the agglomeration required the authorization of IDs issuance. However, this agenda in the Czech Republic belongs only to larger municipal category. Crucial aspect of the project was to find out whether the citizens are using the public services in the municipality or they are commuting to the larger center. According to this survey, it wasn«t neccessary to change competencies of the municipal authority.

The last pilot project was part of an extensive analysis that contributed to the elaboration of options for simplification, spatial accessibility and better clarity for citizens and stakeholders in the performance of public administration in the territory.

The supposed follow-up project foresees the financing from the Norwegian Funds. Purchased data sources will cover the entire territory of the Czech Republic and they will also provide information on long-term trends. For these reasons, it is not necessary, for example, to update them annually. The outputs of projects are incorporating into long-term strategies (see the application of outputs within the upcoming concept ÒClient-Oriented Public Administration 2030Ó), in this way it guarantees the interest of public authoroties in continuing projects using data from mobile operators. The use of project outputs in the strategic documents makes a significant contribution to long-term financial sustainability, as the implementation of these strategies and policies is linked to the state budget and their funding is foreseen.

It is planned to make data available for other ministries and other public administration bodies. Knowledge of the daily movement of the population and places of their long-term concentration will allow, for example, to revise existing evacuation plans, in the long term, geolocation data can contribute to increased safety and better protection of the population.

The long-term development of the project is related to the field of accessibility of public administration and the availability of public services as well. The outputs of the implemented project will allow to compare the current coverage of the territory by individual types of offices and various types of public services with the actual occurrence and population movement. The aim is to ensure that public administration services are provided where people are more concentrated. At the same time, we want to ensure the availability of public services in peripheral regions and ensure that no group of people is disadvantaged.

Users of mobile positioning data from mobile operators are more often academic and research institutions than public authorities. However, due to limited personal capacity and relative financial unavailability of mobile positioning data, only partial aspects of population movement are analyzed at academic sites.

Currently, there is an increasing emphasis (not only within the public administration) on sharing experience and know-how within and among public and private sectors. As mentioned above, academic sites or various research institutions are often one of the stakeholders who are interested in mobile positioning data. Since the project implementer already cooperates with them in other thematic projects (e.g. in the field of education), existing networks and contacts can be used for sharing experience and know-how. The representatives of the Ministry of the Interior meet on a regular basis a number of researchers at various conferences and workshops, where information and experience are continuously shared. The Ministry wants to continue in these activities and develop this networking among academic and research professionals and public authorities.

Project outputs and specific experiences from using them in the public administration is possible to share during the meetings at various international conferences or international platform, which are attended by employees of the Ministry of the Interior. From the point of view of the Ministry, the greatest potential for sharing the know-how of the project is between countries with a similar system of public administration. The know-how can be easily transfered into their conditions. The core of a number of development strategies and public policies across EU countries is to ensure the availability of authorities and public services. Higher demand for successfully implemented projects in the field of accessibility improvement can be thus expected.

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