Slides from my talk at the Melbourne Software Freedom Day, 21st September 2013, on the topic of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in public decision-making, particularly in the policy areas of climate change and transportation.

1. SoftwareFreedomDay2013:
TheImportanceofFreeandOpenSource
SoftwareforPublicDecision-Making
Patrick Sunter (PhD Candidate in Architecture Building and
Planning, University of Melbourne)
17 September, 2013

2. Key Ideas for FOSS in Public
Decision-Making
 Aspects of supporting ‘democratic autonomy’ (Held,
2006):
 1) Supporting the conditions for living up to the best
traditions of science :- reproducibility, contestability,
peer-review
 2) A view of government that is a bit more ‘bazaar’
than ‘cathedral’:
 Supporting more distributed, pluralistic policy-making
 FOS software as part of a broader agenda of engaging
the public in decision-making
 Illustrated by examples from:
 Climate change (economics)
 Large-scale transport planning.

3. Analogies to FOSS in Science
 The ideal of science is a
process where alternative ideas
put forward, in an open-
debate to prove which theories
best match evidence (Popper
etc)
 Journals, science institutes
support this by requiring precise
details of experiments to be
published with papers
 Computational science, where
computer models are key
part :- hasn’t always lived up to
this
Within the world of science,
computation is now rightly seen
as a third vertex of a triangle
complementing experiment
and theory. However, as it is
now often practiced, one can
make a good case that
computing is the last refuge of
the scientific scoundrel. –
Randall LeVeque

4. Example: “Climategate”
 A complex case where back in 2009 after a series of
almost overwhelming FoI requests, the emails of
researchers at University of East Anglia were hacked
and placed on internet etc …
 Accusations of cover-ups, manipulation – however
researchers later completely exonerated (See
http://theconversation.com/there-is-a-real-
climategate-out-there-4428 )
 However, a case to answer:- if Climate change is so
crucial to public policy over next century:- shouldn’t
the models used, data etc be as open to scrutiny,
reproducible as possible?

5. Socio-Technical Responses
 Several calls for greater openness in computational
science;
 A project to specifically re-code climate models using
higher-level languages, and release as FOSS -
http://climatecode.org/ (Nick Barnes);
 A big concern with ‘provenance’ of results :-
 Metafor in climate science
 Accountability, traceability of models
 Also ACRID – Advanced Climate Research
Infrastructure for Data
 UK Software Sustainability Institute (software.ac.uk)

6. Reproducibility more generally
Reproducibility PI Manifesto, Prof Lorena Barba of Boston University (
http://software-carpentry.org/blog/2012/12/lorena-barbas-reproducibility-
pi-manifesto.html):
1. I will teach my graduate students about reproducibility.
2. All our research code (and writing) is under version control.
3. We will always carry out verification and validation.
4. For main results in a paper, we will share data, plotting script & figure
under CC-BY.
5. We will upload the preprint to arXiv at the time of submission of a paper.
6. We will release code at the time of submission of a paper.
7. We will add a "Reproducibility" declaration at the end of each paper.
8. I will keep an up-to-date web presence.
See also http://recomputation.org/

7. FOSS Tools to support this
 Madagascar (www.ahay.org/wiki/Main_Page) “an
open-source software package for multidimensional
data analysis and reproducible computational
experiments.”
 Kepler (kepler-project.org): “designed to help scientists,
analysts, and computer programmers create, execute,
and share models and analyses across a broad range
of scientific and engineering disciplines.”
 Nimrod (www.messagelab.monash.edu.au/Nimrod):
Grid computing …
 great Python-based tools more generally, and the R
package for statistics, …

8. My contribution: CREDO
Supporting regular testing of scientific ‘benchmarks’ of Geophysics models
ThermakConvB
enchmarkDim.
xml
Model Results:
- Images
- Data
CREDO records
(XML):
-Test suite ran
- Models ran
-Test results
www.underworldproject.org/credo-doc/

9. ‘Props’ to Commonwealth & US
NSF …
 In 2 projects I was involved with, FOSS licensing of
research software was a standard requirement
for receiving grants as part of a view of greater
value:
 Geoframework project (later
www.geodynamics.org/ , Computational
Infrastructure for Geodynamics)
 ACcESS and later AuScope
(www.auscope.org.au ) Australian Commonweath
research projects
 Bureau of Meteorology is now increasingly good
at supporting FOSS

10. Moving from science to public
policy: integrating economics++
“The growing importance of computer models raises many
challenging issues for scientists, engineers, decision
makers, and ultimately the public at large. If decisions
are to be based (at least in part) on model output, we
must be concerned that the computer codes that
implement numerical models are correct; that the
assumptions that underpin models are communicated
clearly; that models are carefully validated; and that the
conclusions claimed on the basis of model output do not
exceed the information content of that output. Similar
concerns apply to the data on which models are based.
Given the considerable public interest in these issues, we
should demand the most transparent evaluation process
possible.”
Prof Ian Foster, in a keynote address to 2010 e-Science
conference: http://www.escience2010.org/keynote_speakers.html

11. “Contestable Evidence-Based
Policy”
 The point is these decisions will
inevitably be a) controversial, b)
affect many people, and c)
involve scenarios based on
human behaviour, a ‘science’
that is a long-way from predictive
certainly
 ‘Contestable Evidence-Based
Policy’:- (Wigan, 2008)
 C.f. Doug Harley’s recent public
comments on East-West tunnel
assessment:-
 “If they really have good
evidence for their claims, these
should be out there to be
reviewed and assessed.”
Picture source: http://www.linkingmelbourne.vic.gov.au/pages/latest-news.asp

12. 2) A more ‘bazaar’ as well as
‘cathedral’ view of govt & policy
 But I argue FOSS is not just about transparency,
reproducibilty of government or expert decisions;
 It also connects to a view of a more engaged
democracy, where multiple groups and
individuals can assess the evidence for policies:-
develop their own views, and put them forward.
 This is especially important where society may be
on the wrong policy path, and need new views /
alternatives
 FOSS can be a crucial plank in supporting this

13. A quick intro to my PhD
 View for public transport to be an effective option,
we need a new ‘paradigm’ (Curtis & Low, 2012) of
running the system as an integrated, multimodal
network (Nielsen et al, 2005, Mees, 2010).
 Computer Models and GIS have important role in
transport futures – as a “knowledge
technology” (Gudmundsson, 2011)
 Interpretive Action Research (Info Systems):
Undertake a GIS-T System Design, Development &
Evaluation with 2 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in
Melbourne
Network image from HiTrans Best Practice Guide (Nielsen et
al, 2005). Photo credits: www.pt4me2.org.au, Wikimedia
commons user "voland b", Flickr user "avlxyz”. Travel time
map from www.mapumental.com.

14. Public Transport Network
Analysis: Travel-Time Maps
 “Travel Time Maps” (IsoChrone
maps)
 Display either:-
 Locations reachable from a
given origin in a given time;
 ‘Catchment’ to reach a given
destination
 Generally involve A* network
calculation but can be
optimised.
 Good because they indicate
overall network quality,
including interchanges
Travel time map from www.mapumental.com.

15. Data for PT Schedules: GTFS
 GTFS = “General Transit Feed
Specification’
 developers.google.com/transit/
 Emerged in mid 2000s from
Portland TriMet and Google’s
‘20% time’
 Plaintext format: Entire GTFS
feed of Portland is ~169 Mb
 Live feeds available from 376+
agencies, see:-
www.gtfs-data-exchange.com/
 Includes Sydney, Adelaide,
Brisbane, Canberra: not yet
Melbourne
A good set of tools for examining/updating is
http://code.google.com/p/googletransitdatafeed/wiki/
TransitFeedDistribution

16. OpenStreetMap is other key
data source
 A very impressive collaboratively-developed street
database
 Hint: segments for major city-regions, inc. Melbourne,
downloadable from http://metro.teczno.com/#melbourne
Image from http://www.ideasintransit.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap : showing global
edits to OSM in 2008

17. OpenTripPlanner (Analysis)
 One of a range of new FOSS transit network-analysis tools including
GraphServer, but has most mature interface and web-capabilities
 Java, designed to work with standard popular FOSS building-blocks (Tomcat
web server, PostgreSQL, OpenLayers (though working on new Leaflet client)
Demo URL1
Demo URL2

18. Melb Example: RMIT (close)

19. Melb Example: RMIT (train+tram+walk)

20. Melb Example: RMIT (all, inc bus)

21. Melb Example: Monash

22. Melb Example: Chadstone (train
+tram)

23. Melb Example: Chadstone (all)

24. Melb Example: Dandenong (all)

25. Augmenting Accessibility
More advanced
analysis using OTP,
including evaluation
of network’s support
for existing travel
Journey-to-Work
data, modal-
difference to car,
and job-based
access.
McGurrin, M. F. & Greczner, D. 2011, 'Performance Metrics:
Calculating Accessibility Using Open Source Software and Open
Data', 11-0230.

26. Visualising Network Change
 Differential impact to New York Transit network after
Hurricane Sandy (
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/01/best-
maps-weve-seen-sandys-transit-outage-new-york/4488/)

27. What sort of model does this
mean for ecosystems?
 In scenario models, code is not just about computation, its about ideas :-
and people outside government and elite research groups have them
too (especially about systems like transport and urban planning)!
 However this may require a model of service learning where universities, or
public servants, see part of their role as working with the public to
understand and use models.
Proprietary Model
S/W Company
$
licence
User
Open Source Ecosystem
Software code: digital
commons
Governance Process
Host
(personal,
institutional,
public)
(Peer
Support
Community)
(Derivative
Services)
(code improvments)
Custom version
Expert
Company
Companies/
Government
Test
Reports
Expert User Expert User
Casual User/
Hobbyist
Clients
Founder
(BDFL)

28. Relationship between Information
Technology & Democracy?
Local:-
 www.communityindicators.net.au
 www.aius.org.au/transport/
International:-
 metrobostondatacommon.org/
 www.bostonscenarios.org/
 (LUTRAQ project)
 www.friends.org/resources/reports
“Modelers should ensure that
legitimate policy positions in
debates that do not have
modeling support obtain
necessary support, either as
an entitlement of
participation in the policy
process, or via third-party
arrangements involving
philanthropic or other
organisations.”
-- King, J & Kraemer, K, 1993,
“Models, Facts, and the Policy
Process: The Political Ecology of
Estimated Truth’, University of
California working papers.

29. Contacts & References
 P.sunter@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au , T: @PatSunter
 http://www.appropedia.org/OSSTIP
References:
 Curtis, C. & Low, N. 2012, 'Sustainable Transport and Institutional Barriers', in Institutional Barriers to Sustainable
Transport, Ashgate, .
 Curtis, C. & Schuerer, J. 2009, 'Network City Activity Centres: Developing an analysis, conception and communication
tool for integrated land use and transport planning in the Perth metropolitan area', Curtin University, Research Report.
 Held, D. 2006, Models of democracy, Polity Press, California.
 Foster, I. 2010, 'Open source modeling as an enabler of transparent decision making', IEEE e-Science 2010 Conference
(http://www.escience2010.org/keynote_speakers.html )
 Gudmundsson, H. 2011, 'Analysing models as a knowledge technology in transport planning', Transport Reviews, 31, 2,
145--159.
 Mees, P. 2010, Transport for Suburbia: Beyond the Automobile Age, Earthscan, London, UK .
 Nielsen, G., Nelson, J., Mulley, C., Tegnér, G., Lind, G., & Lange, T. 2005, Public transport - Planning the networks. HiTrans
Best practice guide No. 2., , .
 Wigan, M. 2008, 'The role of information contestability in evidence based policy in planning and transport', NECTAR
Policy and Environment Workshop: Transition towards Sustainable Mobility: the Role of Instruments, Individuals and
Institutions