The Policy Monitoring Dashboard (PMD) is a new visualisation and analytics platform developed to enhance the value of citizen science data. With PMD, users can study the impact of planning measures (e.g. road closure, speed limit) on traffic and air pollution as part of ex-post policy evaluation. The platform displays data from multiple sources and allows users to drill deeper into the datasets to gain new insights. PMD supports the monitoring of a target location and surrounding areas to assess whether a policy intervention really solves the problem or simply moves it further afield (the displacement effect).
Addressing target audiences and expressing needs
- To raise awareness and possibly influence policy
Local and public authorities interested in measuring the effects of urban (mobility) measures such as school streets.
- EU and Member State Policy-makers
R&D, Technology and Innovation aspects
The app was tested in 6 cities and has reached sufficient maturity to be scaled up. Further usage is planned in the region of Flanders.
PMD in East Flanders: The province of East Flanders bought several dozen Telraam S2 traffic sensors and gave them to citizens to measure the effects of the recently opened Vijfstraten bicycle bridge in Sint-Niklaas. Data from sensors is displayed on PMD, having been routed via Data Manager. The monitoring will continue for several months after the end of COMPAIR.
PMD in the VMM’s toolkit: Flanders Environment Agency (VMM) is running a programme aimed at supporting local governments throughout their policy cycle. As part of this programme, a toolkit is being developed to aid i) the identification of pollution hotspots and ii) the evaluation of measures undertaken to reduce them. VMM wants to add PMD to this toolkit to stimulate data-driven environmental decision making in cities like Antwerp, Bruges, and Ghent.
Before PMD can be offered as a viable decision support tool, though, additional testing and finetuning needs to happen. VMM plans to do this as part of the LIFE CityTRAQ project it’s coordinating. A decision is expected by mid-2025 on whether further modifications are needed or PMD is good enough to join the toolkit.
Interested parties can request a custom PMD style app built for them. The following services are available:
Consultation and development: Understanding client needs and building custom dashboards or data management systems tailored to their project or organization
Data integration: Offering services for data migration, cleaning, and structuring to ensure smooth implementation
Support and maintenance: Provide ongoing technical support, troubleshooting, system updates, performance monitoring, and other maintenance services
Training: Provide training and documentation for teams to efficiently use the dashboard or Data Manager
Both apps are licensed under GNU General Public License v3.0. This means that if people know how, they can recreate PMD and DEV-D from the code provided, because GNU GPL3 is an open source license that allows others to use it privately, even for commercial purposes. If interested parties aren’t able to build the dashboards themselves, they can ask owners for help.
As more and more cities beging to implement climate-friendly policies, they will need a solution like PMD to help them with this endeavour.
