The Transport Department of NSW has for the first time released real-time public transport network data from the state’s roads, for initial use in the Codeworks 2014 NSW Hackathon over the weekend.

Data on traffic lights, incident data base, traffic volumes and transport networks will be made available to software developers and entrepreneurs in the hopes they can create innovative ways to help the state’s road users.

Deputy director general for the Customer Experience Division at Transport for New South Wales, Tony Braxton-Smith, says he hopes the Hackathon builds on the success the Codeworks program has had in recent years.  Since 2012, it has produced six apps – TripView, Triptastic, Arrivo Sydney, TransitTimes, Next There and TripGo – which Braxton-Smith says enable users access to 40 million data points per month.

“That’s been a huge success for public transport customers, and we’ve taken the model we’ve used and are sharpening it up to see what we can deliver for our customers who use the roads network,” he says.

“Open data is an established policy of the New South Wales government, and they have set the broad direction that we will go with open data and agencies like ourselves are looking for ways not only to go open data, but to realise some early benefits of that policy.”