Royal Library of Belgium

Sven Lieber

Hi everyone,

today's edition is about FAIR data that is not necessarily related to
cultural heritage, but related to cars 🚗. We will have a look into an
Open Data dataset of the Dutch government that provides data which
hopefully helps me to answer some questions about **child safety
seats**. Statistics shown in this post come from this [GitHub
repository](https://github.com/SvenLieber/registered-dutch-cars-analysis).

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As someone who sometimes has to use car-sharing, I want to know if a car
is equipped with a **child safety seat** or at least has the **ISOFIX**
([Q1320419](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1320419)) attachment points
to easily mount one. Whereas car fleets of commercial car-sharing
services usually consist of a limited number of similar car models, the
fleets of more **community-driven initiatives** like
[Dégage](https://www.degage.be/)
([Q107390097](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q107390097)) in Flanders,
Belgium consist of a wide range of individuals' cars, and hence a large
variety of car models.

As a user I can usually search and filter cars of the fleet. Oftentimes
some structured information such as "has child seat" is available.
Although it's possible that not all attributes are available as search
filter in the application of the company or initiative. Also, some
information might be provided as free text by the owner and this usually
is not searchable. Here FAIR data can make a difference. On the one hand
provide a better search experience for the end user and on the other
hand a be a useful and rich data source for the provider to enrich and
link their data!

There is already a lot of data about different car models on Wikidata.
However, not every model is described in large detail. Some attributes
might be missing. How could we possibly enrich those automatically?

::: {.captioned-image-container}
<figure>
<a
href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F25f6a474-6644-45fc-9992-3d32b4cd058d_1000x1133.jpeg"
class="image-link is-viewable-img image2" target="_blank"
data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"></a>
<div class="image2-inset">
<img
src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F25f6a474-6644-45fc-9992-3d32b4cd058d_1000x1133.jpeg"
title="Voorbehouden parkeerplaatsen in Gent: update - Dégage! - autodelen en  fietsdelen"
class="sizing-normal"
data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/25f6a474-6644-45fc-9992-3d32b4cd058d_1000x1133.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1133,&quot;width&quot;:1000,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:512,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Voorbehouden parkeerplaatsen in Gent: update - Dégage! - autodelen en  fietsdelen&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null}"
srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F25f6a474-6644-45fc-9992-3d32b4cd058d_1000x1133.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F25f6a474-6644-45fc-9992-3d32b4cd058d_1000x1133.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F25f6a474-6644-45fc-9992-3d32b4cd058d_1000x1133.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F25f6a474-6644-45fc-9992-3d32b4cd058d_1000x1133.jpeg 1456w"
sizes="100vw" data-fetchpriority="high" width="512" height="580"
alt="Voorbehouden parkeerplaatsen in Gent: update - Dégage! - autodelen en fietsdelen" />
<div class="image-link-expand">
<img
src="data:image/svg+xml;base64,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"
class="lucide lucide-maximize2" />
</div>
</div>
<figcaption>A parking spot in Ghent, Belgium that is reserved for
carsharing. Photo by Dégage.</figcaption>
</figure>
:::

Long story short: apparently in the Netherlands a license plate is
related to the car and not the owner. Additionally, the Dutch government
provides Open Data. Hence there are **open datasets of all 16.2 million
cars in the Netherlands**, including technical data about the car as
well as administrative data (of course without private information).
Given the fact that the Netherlands is a wealthy country with many car
owners, we probably will find data of almost all sorts of cars in the
Netherlands that can be used to enrich Wikidata! This not only makes the
data more FAIR and interlinked with the rest of Wikidata, but also makes
it possible that the international community can enrich missing
information.

Short-story long: have a look at the post below where I describe how to
download and analyze the dataset to subsequently enrich Wikidata with
it. The data analysis is available as a Jupyter notebook on
[GitHub](https://github.com/SvenLieber/registered-dutch-cars-analysis).

As a note upfront: technically it is possible to create Wikidata
entities for all cars in the Netherlands, useful for all kinds of
environmental or economic analysis. However, in this post I focus on the
more limited number of car models within the data. Also not every field
is always filled in, which makes the data incomplete too.

## Getting the Dutch open data about license plates

Data from the Dutch government about mobility is available
[here](https://opendata.rdw.nl/). More specifically,
[this](https://opendata.rdw.nl/Voertuigen/Open-Data-RDW-Gekentekende_voertuigen/m9d7-ebf2/about_data)
file contains 16.2 million rows with 96 different attributes for each
registered car. There are also possibilities to analyze and inspect the
data by using the web interface of their website. Different Application
Programming Interfaces (APIs) are provided as well!

I preferred to download the data to do some analyses myself. First of
all, downloading 16.2 million rows of data takes a few hours! For me it
was even interrupted after 14.6 million rows. Hence my analysis is based
on partial data. By the way, the data is also available as RDF, but for
some reason I only got 22MB of RDF with a successful download. It
definitely was not just metadata about the dataset, but data about
actual cars. Anyway, CSV is fine too!

::: {.captioned-image-container}
<figure>
<a
href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F13f8e201-8c8a-427b-9072-6a6b6861cb02_777x379.png"
class="image-link is-viewable-img image2" target="_blank"
data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"></a>
<div class="image2-inset">
<img
src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F13f8e201-8c8a-427b-9072-6a6b6861cb02_777x379.png"
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srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F13f8e201-8c8a-427b-9072-6a6b6861cb02_777x379.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F13f8e201-8c8a-427b-9072-6a6b6861cb02_777x379.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F13f8e201-8c8a-427b-9072-6a6b6861cb02_777x379.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F13f8e201-8c8a-427b-9072-6a6b6861cb02_777x379.png 1456w"
sizes="100vw" loading="lazy" width="777" height="379" />
<div class="image-link-expand">
<img
src="data:image/svg+xml;base64,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"
class="lucide lucide-maximize2" />
</div>
</div>
<figcaption>A few lines of RDF data from the Open Data dataset.
Unfortunately I could not download all data in RDF. I think
performance-wise it is better anyway to analyze the data based on
CSV</figcaption>
</figure>
:::

More nerdy details about the download process: After clicking to
download the file nothing seemed to happen, the Download icon in Firefox
didn't move. However, I got a warning from my Ubuntu system that I am
running out of disk space, so definitely something was downloaded. With
the command `watch df -h` I could confirm that my hard drive was
constantly filled. I saw that a new temporary file was added by Firefox
in /tmp. I started to make space and could estimate by the current size
and the current number of rows (command: `wc -l`) that I would need
**additional 10 GB**. Even though the download failed according to the
Firefox UI, I could simply use the partial `.part` file. Luckily it was
a plain CSV file that is not broken if rows are missing.

## What's inside the dataset?

The main dataset consists of 96 columns. Unfortunately not all columns
always contain values. It remains to be seen which data this dataset
provides that are not already on Wikidata. The script I wrote simply
iterates over given columns in a streaming manner to count statistics.
Iterating over all rows takes around 3 minutes and the progress is shown
thanks to the Python library TQDM.

::: {.captioned-image-container}
<figure>
<a
href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F45a9f5b8-4e9c-49d7-807d-59740e412ba7_1091x287.png"
class="image-link is-viewable-img image2" target="_blank"
data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"></a>
<div class="image2-inset">
<img
src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F45a9f5b8-4e9c-49d7-807d-59740e412ba7_1091x287.png"
class="sizing-normal"
data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/45a9f5b8-4e9c-49d7-807d-59740e412ba7_1091x287.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:287,&quot;width&quot;:1091,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:29268,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null}"
srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F45a9f5b8-4e9c-49d7-807d-59740e412ba7_1091x287.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F45a9f5b8-4e9c-49d7-807d-59740e412ba7_1091x287.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F45a9f5b8-4e9c-49d7-807d-59740e412ba7_1091x287.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F45a9f5b8-4e9c-49d7-807d-59740e412ba7_1091x287.png 1456w"
sizes="100vw" loading="lazy" width="1091" height="287" />
<div class="image-link-expand">
<img
src="data:image/svg+xml;base64,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"
class="lucide lucide-maximize2" />
</div>
</div>
<figcaption>The top 10 car brands of registered cars in the Netherlands
(out of more than 10k brands)</figcaption>
</figure>
:::

According to the 90% of the data that I could fetch, the Dutch ride more
than 10k different brands of cars. Mainly Volkswagen (more than 1.3
million registered Volkswagens). Followed by Peugeot, Renault and Ford
(each between 700k and 800k).

You will find more statistics in the Jupyter notebook of [this GitHub
repository](https://github.com/SvenLieber/registered-dutch-cars-analysis)
and by installing it (and downloading the data) you can create more
statistics.

## What's next and remarks

This journey began with the question which car is equipped with ISOFIX
attachment points. **Did I find this answer? No, unfortunately not**.
There are commercial players that provide this data for a price, e.g.
via the website of a Dutch car magazine. Even though information about
equipment such as ISOFIX is *their* added value, the underlying data
about the cars is Open Data.

A next step could be to group the data based on brand and model and
reconcile it with Wikidata. Then we would be able to see which of the
linked Wikidata items miss attributes that are provided by our data. By
adding found data to Wikidata in a structured manner, this data can
become interlinked with the rest of Wikidata and would be available to a
broader audience. An audience that does not necessarily need to know
Dutch and the specific open data websites of the Dutch government.

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<div>

------------------------------------------------------------------------

</div>

That's it for this week of the FAIR Data Digest. If you found the
content interesting, please share and subscribe. See you next year after
the holidays!

Sven

PS: thanks to the [Rogue Scholar](https://rogue-scholar.org/), this post
can be cited by using a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) which you can
find on the linked Wikidata page
[Q123755598](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q123755598) after the post
was published.


Hi everyone,  today’s edition is about FAIR data that is not necessarily related to cultural heritage, but related to cars 🚗. We will have a look into an Open Data dataset of the Dutch government that provides data which hopefully helps me to answer some questions about
<strong>
 child safety seats
</strong>
. Statistics shown in this post come from this GitHub repository.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

FAIR Data Digest #23