Noticia
Today, transparency, innovation and economic development are key to the progress of public institutions. In this context, the Cabildo of Tenerife has undertaken an ambitious open data project that goes beyond the mere publication of information. The aim of this strategy is to ffacilitate access to information, encourage the reuse of data and generate social and economic value for the island.
Through its open data portal, the Cabildo not only promotes transparency and accountability, but also drives innovation in areas as diverse as tourism, transport and the rural environment.
Scope and objectives of the project
The open data portal of the Cabildo de Tenerife publishes datasets of the entire public sector of the island, including all the local councils of the island. In particular, this includes municipalities with less than 20,000 inhabitants, as established in Law 8/2015 on Island Councils. The main objectives of this project are:
- Strengthen the internal and external culture of data use.
- Increase transparency and accountability through data.
- Generate wealth in society through the reuse of information.
In this website you can find open datasets on tourism, transport, culture and leisure and rural environment, among others. In order to offer this information the Cabildo of Tenerife benefits from the collaboration of various bodies such as:
- Transportes Interurbanos de Tenerife (TITSA)
- Tenerife Island Water Board (CIATF)
- Metropolitan of Tenerife
- SINPROMI (Insular Society for the Promotion of People with Disabilities)
- ITER (Technological Institute of Renewable Energies)
- IASS (Insular Institute for Social and Socio-sanitary Care)
- Agrocabildo
Most downloaded and significant datasets
Some of the portal's most downloaded and significant datasets include:
- Network of weather stations, with updates every 10 minutes.
- Influx of recreational areas, such as Punta Teno and Barranco de Masca, with information on the number of vehicles and people, and the itineraries of trails or routes on the island.
- Indicators of economic development and tourist occupancy, including the number of tourists accommodated by category and area.
- Prices of fruit and vegetable products in Mercatenerife.
- Public transport Origin Destination Matrix, which shows the relationships between the places of origin and destination of journeys made on the island.
The Cabildo's open data project is clearly oriented towards compliance with the Technical Interoperability Standard (NTI) for the Reuse of Information Resources and the DCAT-AP model, areas in which it continues to make progress.
Use cases and applications to incentivise reuse
Beyond publishing open datasets, the Cabildo de Tenerife actively promotes their use through the development of use cases and applications. Examples of this work include:
- Development of a urban development plan in the municipality of Santiago del Teide through the reuse of various datasets.
- Project on meteorological data forecasting.
- Tourist places and traffic scorecards. Specifically:
- On tourism: tourist accommodation places by municipality and type, and the occupancy rate by type of accommodation from 1978 to 2023.
- About traffic: dashboard from Power BI showing the average daily traffic intensity at a station on the island for the years 2021, 2022 and 2023.
On the other hand, in order to promote the reuse of the data on its portal, the Cabildo of Tenerife organises various activities, such as the I Ideas Reuse Competition, in which 25 proposals were received. This competition will be followed by a second edition that will reward the development of applications.
In addition, there are talks and webinars, such as the one organised in collaboration with the Chair of Big Data, Open Data and Blockchain of the University of La Laguna on how to use open data from Tenerife to drive innovation , which you can see again here.
Next steps AI and community building
In order to measure the impact of open data, the Cabildo de Tenerife uses tools such as Google Analytics which allows the analysis of user interaction with the available data. The next big step, as reported by the organisation, will be to implement a virtual assistant with generative AI that will allow:
- Analysing data with natural language.
- Discover trends and correlations.
- Bringing information closer to any citizen.
In parallel, the Cabildo of Tenerife will also continue working on new avenues of collaboration with the island's municipalities and other entities, with the aim of expanding the amount and variety of open data available to citizens.
From datos.gob.es, we encourage development and research professionals, students and citizens to explore, reuse and create value with Tenerife's data.
Blog
Although local governments are the closest actors to citizens, they often face limitations in terms of resources and capacities to implement open data effectively. The diputations, as intermediate institutions between central government and municipalities, play a key role in coordinating, supporting and facilitating open data at the local level.
In this article, we will explore the work of the Diputaciones in this area, showing some examples.
Why is it important for local authorities to commit to open data?
Local open data is of great importance to citizens because of its high granularity. These data provide information on specific settings, which gives a detailed picture of the situation of citizens in that area and shows disparities between municipalities.
This offers multiple advantages. On the one hand, public administrationscan develop better policies and manage resources more efficiently. On the other hand, businesses, researchers and entrepreneurshave the opportunity to develop new, more customised solutions based on the needs of each location. It also improves transparency and accountability, fostering trust in local institutions, and facilitates citizen participationby giving residents access to key data about their municipalities, which can contribute to more active and informed decision-making.
Challenges for local authorities in opening up their data
Despite the advantages, local authorities face a number of challenges in trying to make their data available to citizens, many of which are related to resource constraints and technical capacity:
- Lack of technical and human resources: Many municipalities, especially small and medium-sized ones, do not have the trained staff and resources to manage and publish open data. Lack of IT and data management expertise can hinder the implementation of open data initiatives.
- Inadequate infrastructure: Open data requires adequate technological infrastructure, such as platforms and storage systems to host data in an accessible and secure way.
- Awareness and resistance to change: In some municipalities, both policy makers and public employees may not fully understand the benefits of open data, leading to resistance to change.
- Data quality and standardisation issues: Municipal data are often scattered across different systems and formats, which can make standardisation and validation difficult. Ensuring that data is correct, up to date and in reusable formats is a major technical challenge.
- Cost of implementing, maintaining and updating data: Opening up data involves not only having the right infrastructure and staff, but also investing in platforms, software and other tools needed to make the information accessible to the public, which can be a barrier for municipalities with tight budgets. Moreover, once data is available to the public, it is necessary to keep it up to date and ensure that it remains relevant, which is a constant effort.
How can county councils help local authorities to overcome these challenges?
The Diputaciones are supra-municipal entities whose functions include legal, economic and technical assistance and cooperation to the municipalities in their province, especially those of smaller size or fewer resources. Among other things, they offer support in technological and managerial matters, for example in administrative tasks, the provision of public services or economic development.
In the context of open data, local councils can act as "facilitators" of open data at local level, through different actions:
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Technical advice and training
The Diputaciones offer training to municipalities so that municipal employees can learn how to manage and open data. This is something that the Diputación de Salamanca, for example, has done with this course, whose objectives included raising participants' awareness of the importance of open data as a means to enhance citizen participation, helping them to understand technical issues in order to boost the degree of openness of institutions.
The Diputación de Castellón, for its part, provides support to small municipalities in opening their data, offering support materials related to open data. Another example is the Provincial Council of Albacete, which provides technical assistance, monitoring and support to its 87 municipalities through the Provincial Sustainability Observatory of Albacete (OPSA), an entity in collaboration with the University of Castilla-La Mancha. To this end, it offers sustainability reports (with 25 indicators), monitors its localization plans and emission studies, offers training and guides related to the sustainability of its municipalities related to open data, etc.
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Technological infrastructure
Some councils provide digital platforms and tools for municipalities to upload and share data in a simple way. This includes hosting open data portals or analysis and visualisation tools.
This is the case of the Diputación de Bizkaia, whose scope affects the foral public sector (Foral Entities) and the Local Entities of Bizkaia. Through the BiscayTIK foundation, municipalities can join the Open Data Bizkaia portal so that their data can appear on this portal. In addition, a customised view is generated that can be embedded in the municipality's own website, in case they want to have their own open data portal.
Another example is the Diputación de Córdoba. Its provincial strategy consists of unifying efforts and making a common platform for all municipalities, through automated processes of extraction and processing of structured information for publication, without the need for manual dedication on the part of staff. Through the Enlaza project, the platform receives and monitors information obtained both from citizens and from the sensors and systems of the multiple municipal services, and then carries out a cross analysis of the data. With this service, all the town councils in the province of Cordoba can have a homogeneous catalogue of open data with automated loading, which in turn is federated with datos.gob.es, saving this procedure for smaller administrations.
The Diputación de Albacete, for its part, has a platform with an open data exhibition of the panel of local indicators of the province (48 sub-indicators with a historical series of +15 years). The standardization of open data facilitates municipal and provincial analysis, allowing the comparison of municipalities with graphical and georeferenced output. Includes download space with user registration.
Thanks to these actions double efforts and duplication of uploading of information on various platforms are avoided. In addition, the standardisation of open data facilitates regional analysis and comparison between municipalities, generating new opportunities for innovation and improvement in the quality of life of citizens.
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Grants or funding
Sometimes, the local councils allocate financial resources so that small municipalities can implement open data projects. An example of this is the Diputación de Valencia, whose functions include fostering and developing the right of access to information, as well as promoting the re-use of public data. To this end, in 2024, it launched a series of aids.
In this line the Diputación de Albacete has an annual aid or call for municipalities to implement their Agendas 2030 or projects related to sustainability and included in their plans. For example, in February 2025 the call was published with a budget of € 325,000.
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Awareness-raising and reuse promotion actions
Another area where county councils can help is the promotion of favourable frameworks for data re-use. The Diputación de Castellón, for example, maintains a close relationship with civil society organisations and universities to meet their data demands. With the collaboration of the Diputación de Barcelona and the Government of Aragón, organised in 2024 the III National Open Data Meeting, where the importance of open data as a resource for understanding and achieving interesting and sustainable tourism was disseminated.
For its part, the Diputación de Bizkaia is launching competitions such as the Open Data & Artificial Intelligence Challenge, aimed at identifying initiatives that combine the reuse of data available on the Open Data Bizkaia portal with the use of this disruptive technology in various sectors.
In conclusion, the collaboration between councils and municipalities makes it possible to generate greater cohesion in the opening of data throughout the territory, ensuring that all municipalities, regardless of their size or resources, have access to the necessary tools and knowledge. However, local councils also have their technical and resource limitations, so this is an area where further progress needs to be made, with a focus on raising awareness of the benefits of open data and collaboration between institutions.
Documentación
The digital revolution is transforming municipal services, driven by the increasing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies that also benefit from open data. These developments have the potential to redefine the way municipalities deliver services to their citizens, providing tools to improve efficiency, accessibility and sustainability. This report looks at success stories in the deployment of applications and platforms that seek to improve various aspects of life in municipalities, highlighting their potential to unlock more of the vast untapped potential of open data and associated artificial intelligence technologies.
The applications and platforms described in this report have a high potential for replicability in different municipal contexts, as they address common problems. Replication of these solutions can take place through collaboration between municipalities, companies and developers, as well as through the release and standardisation of open data.
Despite the benefits, the adoption of open data for municipal innovation also presents significant challenges. The quality, updating and standardisation of data published by local authorities, as well as interoperability between different platforms and systems, must be ensured. In addition, the open data culture needs to be reinforced among all actors involved, including citizens, developers, businesses and public administrations themselves.
The use cases analysed are divided into four sections. Each of these sections is described below and some examples of the solutions included in the report are shown.
Transport and Mobility
One of the most significant challenges in urban areas is transport and mobility management. Applications using open data have proven to be effective in improving these services. For example, applications such as Park4Dis make it easy to locate parking spaces for people with reduced mobility, using data from multiple municipalities and contributions from volunteers. CityMapper, which has gone global, on the other hand, offers optimised public transport routes in real time, integrating data from various transport modes to provide the most efficient route. These applications not only improve mobility, but also contribute to sustainability by reducing congestion and carbon emissions.
Environment and Sustainability
Growing awareness of sustainability has spurred the development of applications that promote environmentally friendly practices. CleanSpot, for example, facilitates the location of recycling points and the management of municipal waste. The application encourages citizen participation in cleaning and recycling, contributing to the reduction of the ecological footprint. Liight gamifies sustainable behaviour by rewarding users for actions such as recycling or using public transport. These applications not only improve environmental management, but also educate and motivate citizens to adopt more sustainable habits.
Optimisation of Basic Public Services
Urban service management platforms, such as Gestdropper, use open data to monitor and control urban infrastructure in real time. These tools enable more efficient management of resources such as street lighting, water networks and street furniture, optimising maintenance, incident response and reducing operating costs. Moreover, the deployment of appointment management systems, such as CitaME, helps to reduce waiting times and improve efficiency in customer service.
Citizen Services Aggregators
Applications that centralise public information and services, such as Badajoz Es Más and AppValencia, improve accessibility and communication between administrations and citizens. These platforms provide real-time data on public transport, cultural events, tourism and administrative procedures, making life in the municipality easier for residents and tourists alike. For example, integrating multiple services into a single application improves efficiency and reduces the need for unnecessary travel. These tools also support local economies by promoting cultural events and commercial services.
Conclusions
The use of open data and artificial intelligence technologies is transforming municipal management, improving the efficiency, accessibility and sustainability of public services. The success stories presented in this report describe how these tools can benefit both citizens and public administrations by making cities smarter, more inclusive and sustainable environments, and more responsive to the needs and well-being of their inhabitants and visitors.
Download here the accesible version of the report.