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Tunisia

Enhancing Transparency in the Transport Sector (TN0027)

Overview

At-a-Glance

Action Plan: Tunisia Second National Action Plan 2016-2018

Action Plan Cycle: 2016

Status: Inactive

Institutions

Lead Institution: Ministry in charge of transport

Support Institution(s): NA

Policy Areas

Access to Information, Capacity Building, Infrastructure & Transport, Open Data, Public Service Delivery, Science & Technology

IRM Review

IRM Report: Tunisia End-of-Term Report 2016-2018, Tunisia Mid-Term Report 2016-2018

Starred: No

Early Results: Marginal

Design i

Verifiable: No

Relevant to OGP Values: Access to Information , Technology

Potential Impact:

Implementation i

Completion:

Description

Enhancing transparency in the transport sector

IRM Midterm Status Summary

7.  Enhance transparency in the transport sector

Commitment Text:

Providing access to public data related to the transport sector (land, sea, air) in an open format and facilitating its reuse to develop new systems and added value services, especially in the field of passenger Media (via WAP, smart phones ...).

Milestones:

  • The elaboration of a study on the project to determine the organizational and procedural priorities and to prepare the back office of the portal,
  • The definition of the technical and functional specifications of the portal,
  • Development of the portal and put it on line

Responsible institution: Ministry of transport

Supporting institution(s): None

Start date: June 2016        End date: July 2018

Context and Objectives

Most of the public transportation services in Tunisia are state-owned companies. The Tunisian transport sector, except the international marine and air lines, is overall archaic. There is no online scheduling for internal land or marine public transportation services, it is impossible to buy tickets from automated machines or plan a journey using a website or an application. The general public perception is that the public transportation in Tunisia is unreliable, overcrowded and underfunded.

The websites of the different transportation agencies do not offer updated data and the little information available is not in an open format.

This commitment lacks specificity as it does not list which agencies affiliated with the ministry are targeted by the open data portal. Although the English version does not specify this, the Arabic version lists the type of data that would be available on the portal, such as bus, metro, ports and airports stations locations, timetables as scheduled and real-time, ticket pricing and itineraries.

The commitment is relevant to access to information and technology and innovation for transparency and accountability, as it includes the creation of web platforms and GPS services. If fully implemented, this commitment would have a minor potential impact. A more ambitious commitment in this area would be to provide information about the budget spending in public transportation or the profitability of companies or lines.

Completion

The commitment completion is limited. According to the representative of the Ministry of Transport, the ministry is currently doing a needs assessment study of the portal.

Digitizing the data of the Ministry of Transport is a vast undertaking. When asked about further details the ministry plans to do the following:

  • Mapping of all the train, bus and metro stations and inserting them in a geographical database
  • Mapping of all the train, bus and metro lines in the database
  • Equipping the bus, metro and trains with GPS and connecting them to the stations to calculate delays and timing
  • Designing and implementing a portal that would aggregate the data from all the steps above

Next Steps

This commitment could be important to the daily life of Tunisians and any visitor to Tunisia. The country suffers from the poor quality of its ground and air transportation. Complaints about the national air carrier and its low quality of service are regular, impacting directly on tourism, one of the main pillars of the Tunisian economy. In greater Tunis, which is home for more than 25 percent of the total population, the lack of quality of public transportation is often pointed out as one of the main problems of the capital’s development. However, considering the progress made so far, it is unlikely that this commitment will be finished on time.

The IRM researcher recommends not carrying forward this commitment in its current form due to the lack of specificity and ambition. The new form of the commitment could include detailed budgeting on spending for each transportation company affiliated and in direct funding from the Ministry of Transportation, as most of the investment in public transportation is taxpayers’ money. The data could also include revenues of these public institutions.

IRM End of Term Status Summary

7. Enhancing transparency in the transport sector

Commitment Text:

This portal aims to provide access to the public data related to the transport sector (land, sea, air) in an open formats and facilitating its reuse to develop new systems and added value services, especially in the field of passenger Media (via WAP, smart phones ...).

Milestones:

  • The elaboration of a study on the project to determine the organizational and procedural priorities and to prepare the back office of the portal,
  • The definition of the technical and functional specifications of the portal,
  • Development of the portal and put it on line

Responsible institution: Ministry of transport

Start date: June 2016 End date: July 2018

Editorial Note: This is an abbreviated version of the commitment text. For the full commitment text from the Tunisia National Action Plan, see here.

Commitment Aim:

This commitment aimed to provide more transparency in the transport sector. The milestones include conducting a need assessment study, and the development and launch of a portal related to the transport sector.

Status

Midterm: Not Started

During the midterm, the Ministry of Transport started a feasibility study for the open data website. According to Mr. Ridha Ajroun, the government contact for this commitment, the development of the portal faced some technical challenges including the selection of a common platform to host the data. He added that each of the public transportation companies’ technical requirements is different and this difference delayed the implementation phase. As such, the completion of this commitment was limited during the midterm.

End of term: Complete

In August 2018, the Ministry of Transport launched a website that included multiple datasets. [42] The datasets contain timetables and pricing for a pilot of 27 enterprises under the Ministry of Transport. The information published includes details on the fleets of national enterprise of marine, air and ground transportation agencies. Schedules, prices, and timetables were only available for five of the enterprises. The Ministry of Transportation received help from the Financial Services Volunteer Corps (FSVC) that supports a Tunisian program named “Onshor”. [43] The support of FSVC allowed the Ministry to considerably speed up the implementation of the platform by using an Open data framework solution, CKAN (Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network), that provides an easy template to upload open data. [44] A GPS tracking component was added to the commitment later, but implementation was postponed due to lack of resources, knowledge, and time.

Although the website has been launched and therefore formally completing the commitment, the amount of data provided is still limited and the development of the platform needs improvement.

Did It Open Government?

Access to Information: Marginal

In Tunisia, overall, information about public transport is nonexistent or limited. This commitment had promised enhanced transparency in the transport sector. The milestones, however, were ambiguous, and it was not clear how the government was going to achieve its objectives, particularly in the area of improving access to information.

Among the published data, information about pricing of most of the state-owned public transportation agencies, their fleet, and their regular timetables are available. Also, information about the major regional ground transportation stations and their addresses can be found in Open data format. However, the website does not include budgetary information and revenues, and most of the information available on the website concerns logistics. In addition, exploitation of the data is still not user-friendly.

Carried Forward?

This commitment was not carried forward.

[42] “Tunisie le Ministère du Transport adopte un portail Open Data”, L’économiste Maghrebin, https://www.leconomistemaghrebin.com/2018/10/29/ministere-transport-open-data/
[43] Ridha Arjoun, Ministry of Transport, interview by IRM researcher, 20 April 2018.
[44] Ridha Arjoun, Ministry of Transport, interview by IRM researcher, 20 April 2018.

Commitments

  1. Right to Information

    TN0036, 2018, Access to Information

  2. Open Data Framework

    TN0037, 2018, Access to Information

  3. Access to Geographic Information

    TN0038, 2018, Access to Information

  4. Open Transport Data

    TN0039, 2018, Access to Information

  5. Improve Water Resource Governance

    TN0040, 2018, E-Government

  6. Join EITI

    TN0041, 2018, Anti-Corruption

  7. Open Contracting in Hydrocarbons

    TN0042, 2018, Access to Information

  8. Anti-Corruption Framework

    TN0043, 2018, Anti-Corruption

  9. Participatory Budgeting

    TN0044, 2018, Anti-Corruption

  10. Youth Participation

    TN0045, 2018, Marginalized Communities

  11. Implement Initiatives to Apply the OGP at the Local Level

    TN0046, 2018, E-Government

  12. Online Administrative Services

    TN0047, 2018, Capacity Building

  13. Access to Civil Service

    TN0048, 2018, Capacity Building

  14. Joining the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative "EITI"

    TN0021, 2016, Anti-Corruption

  15. Modernizing the Regulatory Framework to Enforce The Right To Access to Information

    TN0022, 2016, Access to Information

  16. The Completion of the Legal and Regulatory Framework of Open Data at the National Level

    TN0023, 2016, Access to Information

  17. Improve the Transparency and Local Gov Openness

    TN0024, 2016, Access to Information

  18. Enhance the Transparency in the Cultural Sector : “Open Culture”

    TN0025, 2016, Access to Information

  19. Enhance the Transparency in the Environment and Sustainable Development Sector

    TN0026, 2016, Access to Information

  20. Enhancing Transparency in the Transport Sector

    TN0027, 2016, Access to Information

  21. Promoting Financial and Fiscal Transparency

    TN0028, 2016, Fiscal Openness

  22. Elaborating a Legal Framework for Citizen’S Petitions

    TN0029, 2016, Capacity Building

  23. Developing an Integrated Electronic Civil Petition and Corruption Reporting Platform

    TN0030, 2016, Anti-Corruption

  24. Developing New Mechanisms to Promote Interaction with the Youth and Enable Them to Pursue Dialogue About Public Policies

    TN0031, 2016, Capacity Building

  25. Adopting the Corporate Governance Referential on the Sectoral Level

    TN0032, 2016, Capacity Building

  26. Developing Mobile Applications Which Could Be Downloaded on the Mobile Phone to Reinforce Transparency of Government Activities and Participatory Approach

    TN0033, 2016, Capacity Building

  27. Enhancing Access to the Archive

    TN0034, 2016, Capacity Building

  28. The Development of an Electronic Mechanism to Ensure Transparency of Public Servants Recruitment

    TN0035, 2016, Capacity Building

  29. Strengthening Legal Framework for Corruption Fight

    TN0001, 2014, Anti-Corruption

  30. Developing an Integrated Electronic Civil Petition and Corruption Reporting Platform

    TN0002, 2014, E-Government

  31. Publishing an Annual Report on Audit Activities in Public Sector

    TN0003, 2014, Anti-Corruption

  32. Review of the Legal Framework of Personal Data Protection and Ensuring Conformity with Article 24 of Tunisian Constitution

    TN0004, 2014, Access to Information

  33. Developing an Open Data Portal

    TN0005, 2014, Access to Information

  34. Preparing a National Corporate Governance Repository

    TN0006, 2014, E-Government

  35. Establishing a Legal Framework That Regulates Communication and Interaction Within Public Sector and Between Public Structures and Citizens with Usage of ICT

    TN0007, 2014, E-Government

  36. Simplifying Administrative Procedures

    TN0008, 2014, E-Government

  37. Develop a Number of Administrative Services On-Line

    TN0009, 2014, E-Government

  38. Enhancing People Participation in the Decision-Making Process

    TN0010, 2014, E-Government

  39. Capacity-Building of Civil Servants and Citizens in the Area of Open Governance

    TN0011, 2014, Capacity Building

  40. Creation of a Structure Specialized in Training in the Governance Area

    TN0012, 2014, Capacity Building

  41. Publication of Budget Reports

    TN0013, 2014, Anti-Corruption

  42. Development of the Open Budget System

    TN0014, 2014, Fiscal Openness

  43. Use of the Data Extracted from the Application Dedicated to Budget Management (Adeb) in Public Sector

    TN0015, 2014, Anti-Corruption

  44. Publication of Reports Related to Attribution and Execution of Public Procurement and Audit Results

    TN0016, 2014, Anti-Corruption

  45. Publication of Recommandations Included in Audit Reports of Public Procurement

    TN0017, 2014, Anti-Corruption

  46. Development of an "Open Data" Platform Dedicated to Information Dealing with Oil and Mine Sector Investment

    TN0018, 2014, Access to Information

  47. Improve Transparency in the Area of Infrastructure Projects

    TN0019, 2014, Access to Information

  48. Devoting Transparency in the Environment Field

    TN0020, 2014, Access to Information

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