MIVB/STIB: Let’s move together, from pillar to post

Update: We have access to the static GTFS-feed and we are going to release a project in February. We’ll keep you posted!

 

This is history:

We have made an incredible mistake.

The community of iRail has always been about being open and transparent. The board, Christophe, Yeri and Pieter, have never kept something from the mailing list and never has anything been left undiscussed on one of our meetings. This was true until June and I hope this post will help to understand our conformist actions which we now regret.

Let’s get to the point. We have been talking to the MIVB/STIB, the bus and subway company for Brussels, about using their data and doing some projects in parallel with our plans for building a mobile website, mobile games and info screens using data from De Lijn (which we can access thanks to @BartNelis). After all, MIVB/STIB was the first company to work to be integrated Google maps, and the first to have a real data sharing policy. We even seem like the ideal partner for this data sharing program: we’re a non-profit organisation and the slogan «let’s move together» could have been ours as well!

 

«Let’s move forward together» is exactly what we thought in February 2011. After an inspiring first official meeting of the NPO, we decided it was time to  include buses and trams in the iRail API. Everyone with a little knowledge of computer science can find a machine readable used by several sites of the MIVB/STIB. Therefore, with the same legal arguments as were used in the situation with SNCB/NMBS, we started coding, moving forward, working together on even more creative ideas concerning public transport information. But we thought, let’s inform the MIVB/STIB and maybe we should walk their line first in order to get even better apps, tools and toys.

An e-mail

It started with one e-mail and a lot were about to follow. Slowly (we’re 7 months further now). This was our first mail:

Cher Monsieur,

J’ai reçu votre adresse courriel par eMich (Michaël Uyttersprot).

Je me présente. Je m’appelle Yeri Tiete et je travaille pour l’asbl iRail.

iRail livre des données de service des transports en commun (comme “De Lijn”, “TEC”, et “SNCB”) par le biais d’une interface standardisée (format XML & JSON), d’un site web mobile et d’une application pour smartphone (comme l’iPhone, Android, Windows Phone 7, Nokia, …).

En ce moment, nous ne fournissons que les données de la SNCB, mais nous sommes en communication avec De Lijn pour avoir accès à leurs données.

J’ai cru comprendre par Michaël que vous ne livrez pas encore d’ interface (API) ouverte à tout le monde: seriez-vous intéressés de collaborer avec nous? En effet, iRail aimerait livrer le plus d’informations possible au public et ce serait un grand plus d’ajouter MIVB à cette liste.

Voici notre site web:
http://irail.be
http://project.irail.be

After only 3 weeks we got this reply:

Cher Monsieur,

Après analyse de votre demande, nous devons malheureusement constater que votre demande ne réponds pas à aux conditions générales d’utilisation de notre service de data sharing.

En effet, nos conditions d’utilisation n’autorisent pas la sous-licence, ce qui est, selon toute évidence, l’objet de votre projet.

Pour plus d’informations, vous pouvez vous référer à notre site web: http://www.stib.be/data-sharing.html?l=fr.

Bien à vous

Wait a minute. We went to a lot of trouble with the NMBS/SNCB’s lawyers, explaining we were not infringing on any copyrights because there is no copyright on their data, it was in the newspapers, and all this just to hear that we have to start all over again? The data cannot be licensed to us because there is no copyright. There is a European directive which clearly states that these data should be released without any restrictions at all. After trying to inform the MIVB/STIB about this, this time in English, this was their response on the 7th of March:

Thank your for your mail and sorry for this late answer.

Unfortunately, I have to confirm my first answer. The description of the service that you give is covered by what we call ‘sub-licence’ because they intend to create a toll for developers and not a information service for the end-user.

At least they were apologizing for their late response, but again a very disappointing one. We just want to work together with our volunteers to get more people using public transport.

A little disappointed, we started focusing on De Lijn (the Flemish bus company) instead, who have data we can easily access, and we know at least they are happy about our work. We even invited them for Apps For Ghent where Bart Nelis, who is working for De Lijn, gave a very interesting lightning talk.

The MIVB/STIB must have noticed our previous work at maps.iRail.be because suddenly, the 10th of May, we received this e-mail:

Il y a quelques semaines, vous nous avez contacté afin d’avoir accès à notre système de Data sharing. A la suite de l’analyse de votre projet, nous nous sommes vus contraints d’opposer un refus à votre demande. Nous constatons aujourd’hui dans un article publié sur frandroid.com (http://www.frandroid.com/69464/et-si-on-developpait-une-appli-pour-les-transports-en-commun-de-votre-ville/) qu’en dépit de notre réponse défavorable, vous communiquez sur votre site internet http://maps.irail.be/?system=MIVB des informations sur notre offre de transport provenant directement de notre site web et que vous reproduisez sans autorisation des éléments qui en sont issus. Par conséquent, nous vous prions de mettre fin immédiatement à cette utilisation de nos données qui, par ailleurs, enfreint les conditions générales d’utilisation de nos différents sites web (http://www.stib.be/legal-terms.html?l=fr).

Le présent e-mail vous est adressé sous toutes réserves et sans reconnaissance préjudiciable aux droits de la STIB.

All this again now that they saw a prototype of something that we stopped developing for now?

This is where we went wrong

We met with our lawyer and without informing the community we argued about either just ignoring this silly request, or taking the MIVB/STIB development offline without any good reason. In exchange for that, we would ask for a meeting where we could discuss cooperating again. Our attorney said we had nothing to worry about. We were not infringing on any laws and he would help defending us if need be.

Sadly, we ignored his advice, took the website down and asked the MIVB/STIB for a meeting. After 2 or 3 emails we agreed to meet on the 28th of June. One important quote from the mail conversation with MIVB/STIB was this one:

J’espère que vous comprendrez que nous poursuivons le même objectif, à savoir une plus grande utilisation des transports publics grâce, notamment, à une plus grande ouverture de nos données, mais que, en utilisant nos données malgré notre refus, vous renforcez les personnes qui s’opposent à cette ouverture.

We indeed have the same goal, but apparently, by doing nothing wrong, we are enforcing the people who are against it? Say what?

So, basically, we are being aggressive by reusing their data (something that we, you guessed it, can just do; without asking), and that supposedly scares off people within the MIVB company?

I guess there really are people against informing and having more people on public transport … Confusing, isn’t it?

A meeting!

The meeting went like this:

iRail: Hi, we’re here for a meeting with Mr. ***
MIVB/STIB: I will call him. … – He says there’s nothing on his schedule and he has no idea who you guys are.
iRail: Oh, but we really do have an appointment.
MIVB/STIB: Ok, he will see you in a minute.

After a short chat in the coffee room about who exactly we were again and what we were doing, he basically said the same as in any other email that was sent. We took the opportunity to inform him again of the non-copyright issue, and of the European directive which clearly says they should open their data. We offered to forward these documents to him and he told us he would let their attorneys look into it, so that’s what we did. No response so far.

When he showed us out, he told us this: “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of any help. But, maybe if you’d send me a specific project description, I might have more leverage to convince management to share the data with you”. That was such a relief to hear!

A project

 

We decided to present a project where somebody, “a man with a plan”, wanted a television screen in his office with a lot of information, bundling De Lijn, NMBS, Twitter feeds … so that the employees and visitors could be informed in a better way. We made the above illustration to explain the concept. At this moment we have the screen up and running, without data of the MIVB/STIB, as you might have guessed.

The last pillar

For two months we received no reply. “The man with the plan” became a little frustrated and decided to email the MIVB himself:

Notre immeuble de bureau (l’Amadeus Square à Drogenbos) est idéalement situé à cote de vos arrêts “Mozart” et “Humaniteit”  et proche de l’arrêt “Bollinckx”. Nous investissons le maximum pour que les 765 employés dans notre immeuble prennent le transport public, via des leaflets et des écrans en real time dans chaque hall d’entrée.
Voici le contenu de notre écran: http://s.flatturtle.com/amadeus/
Serait-il donc possible d’accorder votre « GO » à notre fournisseur pour le real-time Feed.
Nous l’avons déjà de la SNCB, mais il nous manque le bus.
N’hésitez pas à me contacter pour plus d’info.

He received a reply right away:

Nous ne sommes malheureusement pas en mesure à l’heure actuelle de donner accès à notre real-time feed à des partenaires externes à la STIB et je ne peux donc pas répondre favorablement à votre demande.
Par contre, nous travaillons actuellement à la création de « fiches mobilité dynamiques » qui donnent des informations sur les solutions de transport à proximité d’un lieu, ainsi que les temps d’attente en temps réel pour les lignes passant à proximité de ce lieux. Ce produit sera disponible tant en version web qu’en version écrans. Je pense que ce produit pourra répondre à votre demande.

Not only is he immediately saying that he doesn’t have the data that we used already in February, but he is aso trying to convince him to leave our non-profit organisation and buy an information screen from the MIVB/STIB containing only the MIVB/STIB data.

Never in my life I have ever felt this ridiculed. For me, this is proof that we should first ask the general opinion of the community before acting in name of the NPO. What are the next steps? Continuing, of course. You can access the liveboards through an API over here:

http://api.irail.be/liveboard/?station=stokkel&system=MIVB&lang=nl

This is a work in progress and it should not be used in apps yet. To help improve the system you’re most welcome at http://github.com/iRail/iRail

- Pieter — @pietercolpaert

 

Revised by Yeri and Greet

20. August 2011 by Pieter Colpaert
Categories: iRail, MIVB | 3 comments