Latvia / 2014 51% open

This entry is about public train transport in Latvia. The bus transport is operated at a municipal level.

Live train schedules, including pricing information, are published at http://www.pv.lv/lv/vilcienu_saraksts

There is also an XLS version available that contains all the schedules together and is reasonably up-to-date (last updates: 2014-Oct-13): http://www.pv.lv/lv/kopejais_iekszemes_vilcienu_kustibas_saraksts/

Both versions should be up-to-date but the live version may also contain information about unscheduled changes.

See also:

• The State of Open Data in Latvia: 2014. Baltic J. Modern Computing, Vol. 2 (2014), No. 3, 160-170 - http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.5052

Unsure how to answer "Available in bulk?":

• each dataset is available in bulk via a data selection form where users can choose time periods and data fields to export. However, there is no single downloadable archive with all the national statistics in it.

English version of the data portal: http://www.csb.gov.lv/en/about-us

See also:

• The State of Open Data in Latvia: 2014. Baltic J. Modern Computing, Vol. 2 (2014), No. 3, 160-170 - http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.5052

Air polution monitoring data is published on a monthly basis. Queries can be made for custom time periods. Measurements include the maximum concentration of carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone and particulate matter.

Air quality measurements are taken by automatic DOAS OPSIS stations ensuring continuous registration of polluting substances.

See also:

• The State of Open Data in Latvia: 2014. Baltic J. Modern Computing, Vol. 2 (2014), No. 3, 160-170 - http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.5052

Enterprise register's data is published in a structured form and updated daily. Benefits from timely updates: organisations requiring Enterprise register statistics can just grab the file instead of filing official requests, thus saving time and effort.

Files include basic information about enterprises but lack more detailed information. Enterprise register sells access to detailed information to commercial companies for a considerable fee (in tens of thousands EUR) which can resell this information to everyone else.

This is one of the best open data examples in Latvia, but it is not easy to find - you have to know the URL or the path to take through register's page in order to find reference to open data.

The state budget for recent years is published as semi-structured XLS files (cell text indentation level shows budget entry hierarchy, not entirely machine-readable): http://www.fm.gov.lv/files/valstsbudzets/2014/4piel_2014_budzets_131113.xls

URL for state budget 2014: http://www.fm.gov.lv/lv/sadalas/valsts_budzets/2014__gada_budzets/

• see "4.pielikums" for the main budget and "5.pielikums" for the special / social insurance fund budget

The archive of state budget data for previous years (year 2013 shown by default, see the sidebar for earlier years): http://www.fm.gov.lv/lv/sadalas/valsts_budzets/valsts_budzeta_likums_arhivs/2013_gads/

See also:

• The State of Open Data in Latvia: 2014. Baltic J. Modern Computing, Vol. 2 (2014), No. 3, 160-170 - http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.5052

The Central Election Commission publishes election results (for both general and EP elections). Each election instance, however, has its own web page and there is no central starting point where you could find all results together.

I was not sure if the dataset qualifies as machine-readable -- the situation varies in every case with most results available as HTML tables located on multiple web pages:

• 12th Saeima election (the most recent general election) results are published as XML: http://sv2014.cvk.lv/index_rez.html
• 2014 European Parliament election results are published as HTML tables only: http://ep2014.cvk.lv/index_rez.html
• 11th Saeima election results are published are published as HTML tables only: http://www.cvk.lv/cgi-bin/wdbcgiw/base/Saeima11.GalRez_s11
• the formats of earlier election results vary, but are either HTML tables (semi-machine-readable) or not machine-readable

See also:

• The State of Open Data in Latvia: 2014. Baltic J. Modern Computing, Vol. 2 (2014), No. 3, 160-170 - http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.5052

Likumi.lv is a legislation website ensuring free access to systematized (consolidated) legislation of the Republic of Latvia. Its operation is regulated by the Law on Official Publications and Legal Information. - http://likumi.lv/about.php

• likumi.lv is for systematized, consolidated laws and other legislative acts (complete texts) while https://www.vestnesis.lv/ publishes official decisions which are incremental (you may have separate publications for the initial law and tens of amendments. - if there are any inconsistencies between these two sources, what was published in Latvijas Vēstnesis is the official version. That's why the law states that Latvijas Vēstnesis is the official publication and likumi.lv is for "informative purposes".

The official publisher Latvijas Vestnesis does not receive budget funding for maintenance of Likumi.lv. It is maintained from the earnings of Latvijas Vestnesis (the costs are covered from the charge for the official publication paid by the information submitter, unless otherwise provided by a law or Cabinet Regulations).

Regarding information reuse Likumi.lv points to the legislation that determines how this information can be reused and sets the fee for reuse (however, it is not clear what is meant by reuse and if, e.g., publishing law excerpts on a website requires paying the fee or not):

• http://likumi.lv/doc.php?id=254491
• http://likumi.lv/doc.php?id=249322#p18

See also:

• The State of Open Data in Latvia: 2014. Baltic J. Modern Computing, Vol. 2 (2014), No. 3, 160-170 - http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.5052

Unsure how to answer the "Available for free" and "Machine-readable" criteria:

• there is an online version http://kartes.lgia.gov.lv/karte/ which is free but not machine-readable (it's an online map)
• detailed machine-readable versions are also available (as OGC WMS, OGC WFS services, etc.) but it is a paid service and it is not clear how to get access to them. here's the official publication with a list of fees: http://likumi.lv/doc.php?id=258991

Latvian Geospatial Information Agency: http://www.lgia.gov.lv/en/Par%20mums.aspx

Map services available: http://map.lgia.gov.lv/index.php?lang=2&cPath=4

See also:

• The State of Open Data in Latvia: 2014. Baltic J. Modern Computing, Vol. 2 (2014), No. 3, 160-170 - http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.5052

The Treasury has detailed up-to-date spending information, but this information is not available online.

There is a service "Valsts budžeta iestāžu izdevumi": http://www.kase.gov.lv/?module=maks&object_id=7446 that claims to provide daily expenditure information but it does not return any data.

There is some ZIP-code information available but it does not fit the Index criteria.

Latvia Post has a ZIP-code index page ("Pasta indeksu grāmata") containing a number of XLS files in unstructured / semi-structured form. It shows the relation between locations (towns, streets, etc.) and relevant ZIP-codes but does not contain lat/long coordinates nor is there another service where one could resolve ZIP-codes to geo-coordinates.

Note: the URL of the ZIP-code index page had changed since we last checked it in July 2014.