U.S. City Open Data Census
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Calls for service from Police, Fire, and EMS. Emergency response is one of the most important functions of local government as the lives of city residents may be on the line. Emergency call data can provide insight into the most common public safety issues facing a city, as well as geographic areas most affected. Transparent public access to emergency call data can also serve to keep dispatch and public safety offices accountable.
Emergency calls may include 911 calls, 911 calls plus agency-initiated calls, actual dispatches, or something similar. Sometimes calls for things like sensitive crimes may be excluded; this is acceptable.
When searching for Emergency Calls data, note that EMS is often included within Fire but is sometimes separate. If this data is spread out across multiple datasets (which is often the case), the section where you link to the data must include links to all of them.
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| Question | Answer | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Openly licensed | Yes | |
| Available in bulk | Yes | |
| Up-to-date | No | Police data is updated daily, while fire and rescue data is updated every two weeks. |
| Available free online | Yes | |
| Available free of charge | Yes | |
| In an open format | CSV, GeoJSON, KML, KMZ, RDF, TSV, XML | Only the police data is available in KML, SHP, and KMZ formats. All other formats are available for both datasets. |
| findable | 3 | |
| findable_steps | Went to data.montgomerycounty.gov, clicked on "Public Safety," searched for calls | |
| licence_url | According to Montgomery County law, all data is "available without any registration or license requirement or restriction on use." https://montgomerycountymd.gov/open/Resources/Files/Sig (Page 6) | |
| Collected by government | Yes | |
| usability | 3 | |
| collector_name | Department of Police, Fire and Rescue Service | |
| characteristics | Date and time, Type or description, Location (may be coordinates or addresses; addresses may be at the block level, such as “5XX Main Street”) | |
| location | https://data.montgomerycountymd.gov/Public-Safety/Polic - Police Dispatched Incidents, https://data.montgomerycountymd.gov/Public-Safety/MCFRS - MCFRS Incidents by Station |