

Tube train, on time. Photo by fabbio on Flickr. Some rights reserved

Want to get the bus and underground timetables, in a zippy XML format? You can, right now, via the London Datastore.

As the page explains, "The data available in the attached zip file consists of almost 800 xml files, with each relating to a particular service i.e. one per tube line, bus route, riverboat route, dlr route etc. Each xml file contains the following data elements: StopPoints; RouteSections; Routes; JourneyPatternSections; Operators; Services; VehicleJourneys."

Getting this data out hasn't been a trivial task - and my understanding is that it's been down to persistent lobbying from the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, himself.

This is another significant tranche of data to come out of TfL - an organisation that for years has been seen by developers and some within the Greater London Assembly as something of a black box; as one person put it to me, "you pour money in at one end and you get transport out at the other, but you're not allowed to see inside it." Previously, TfL released data about locations of bus stops, and then some real-time data about movements of tube trains - which led, you'll recall, to Matthew Somerville's live tube train map. (Unfortunately, the API for that has been suspended: it couldn't cope with 10m hits per week, and hasn't come back since June. Ahem, ahem, TfL.)

You can see all the London transport-related datasets via the London Datastore. With Johnson pushing it, though, light is starting to shine inside TfL.

By far the most successful demonstration of the power of making data free though has come from the London Cycle Hire scheme - where you can now get real-time information about availability of bicycles for hire, by location, in apps for Android and iPhone.

But if we can now add information about bus and tubes to apps like that, we're getting closer to the point where TfL really is being run for the citizens of London, rather than (as many bureaucracies are) for its staff. The distinction is a fine one - most organisations think of themselves as having their users' best interests at heart; the difference is that when you can get feedback, then the organisation may discover things about their users that they never knew.

There's still some way to go with TfL: for example, it collects data about how many cars pass particular points (using induction loops in the road) which is used for traffic light timing; that's data that many developers would love to get their hands, or processors, on. You never know: if the pressure continues, it might come too.

You might think that Boris Johnson's presence pushing this along is just a bit of grandstanding, but that wouldn't be correct. He's actually been in the vanguard of politicians introducing open data. If you have a long memory for public data-related stories, you'll recall that he did a rather neat end-run around the Labour administration's Home Office in 2008, when as part of his manifesto while running for the office of London mayor he declared that he would publish crime maps.

We were a little sceptical on the Free Our Data blog, although the blocking attitude of the police and the Information Commissioner's Office did nudge us towards Johnson's side.

Johnson did go on to publish them, and London has been in the forefront of cities which have tried to do innovative things with the data that its local government and authorities collect. First came the London Datastore, launched in January. Then came the datasets. And that brings us to the present day. For the many who don't live in London, this might all seem academic - but really the Datastore, and the political impetus behind it, are examples for the rest of the country that making data open and reusable actually can have a benefit. Would the Bike Scheme be as useful if you couldn't find out availability easily? Probably not. And once the TfL timetables have been processed, someone is sure to have a smart use for them.

Can't wait, personally. Overall, 2010 has already been a fantastic year - possibly the best ever - for making data free: first the London Datastore, then the Ordnance Survey OpenData release in April, and now the drive by central government to get both central and local government to publish data (soon to include the text of contracts) about spending. Results don't come much better than that.