Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority Adopts Open Data Policy

The Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority (VTA) announced the formal adoption of an open data policy earlier this month, according to an post by Cody Kraatz.

The announcement "makes VTA the first government organization in Santa Clara County, one of the first agencies in the Bay Area, and perhaps the first transit operator in the country to adopt a formal Open Data Policy," according to Kraatz.

The Open Data policy is the work of the VTA's Transportation Innovation Center. "The policy creates a standard for proactively releasing VTA’s valuable transportation data through our Open Data Portal at data.vta.org. All data released through the portal will be 'machine readable,' meaning it will use formats that software can understand and manipulate rather than PDFs or text documents only people can read," reports Kraatz.

The article also includes some description of the potential of open data to improve public engagement and as a tool for economic development.