Beta geospatial data released

We have just released two initial ('beta') data sets. The data are:

• A road network data set (available here http://hdl.handle.net/10389/207). The data contain a number of measures of road integration which can be used as a proxy for traffic volume.
• A building (household) data set (available here: http://hdl.handle.net/10389/206). The data contain estimates of the house type (detached, semi-detached, terraced or flats), the number of neighbours in the surrounding area (50m and 200m buffers) and the size of any garden attached to the property.

Next Steps
At this stage the data are only available for Leeds and, as they have both been derived from OS MasterMap products, require special licences. Over the next few weeks we will improve the amount of information available in the data (to identify some of the factors that are more relevant to crime analysis) and also generate an Open Street Map data set that can be released publically.

Producers and consumers brainstorm the potential of geospatial data for crime analysis

On Tuesday 20th the GeoCrimeData Project ran a workshop attended by 16 crime analysis stakeholders who will ultimately form part of the main user group for the data that we produce. There was a healthy 50-50 split between people working in crime-reduction organisations and academic researchers interested in crime and the analysis of spatial data more generally. This eclectic group helped to ensure that the discussion about access to and use of geospatial data was stimulating, focused and embraced an unusually wide range of perspectives.

The core of the meeting consisted of a breakout session where the delegates were split into two groups (developers of geospatial data and potential users of data) to discuss:

1. who might use the data and how they could use it
2. what the barriers are to the uptake of geospatial data
3. how these barriers can be overcome by developers.

The feedback was extremely useful for the project and will directly impact upon the spatial analyses that we perform and the ways in which we release and publicise the data. We are in the process of writing a summary about the barriers and solutions which will be relevant to many groups who use geospatial data, not just those interested in crime analysis.