Software

TU Dresden: TUD research project investigates why people use the Dresden Open Data Portal

September 11, 2025. The state capital of Dresden makes a wealth of administrative data available free of charge and freely accessible via an open data portal. A research project at TU Dresden is intended to help optimize the portal and reach more people. The results of a survey on user behavior are now available.

Symbolic image of digitization / pixabay geralt

Users value active engagement with open data

According to the questionnaire-based online survey from the Faculty of Economics (TU Dresden), fun in dealing with data is a strong motivation for Dresdeners to use the city’s open data portal. Research into the user perspective provides the administration with important indicators. This makes it clear that there is a public interest in active engagement with open data that goes beyond pure information. Interactive gamification elements that playfully demonstrate the connections and added value of the datasets and interfaces that allow data to be integrated into open source projects would be incentives to get citizens interested in the portal.

Open Data Portal Dresden creates transparency

For the survey participants who identified themselves as non-users, the transparency of the city’s data and the awareness that open data is generally available were relevant. Accordingly, the inclusion of the portal in urban communication, such as publishing information on political events in the city specifically there, could draw the attention of interested parties to the portal.

TUD research project: analyses and measures to break down barriers

The TUD research project “Open Data for Citizens, Business and Administration” is analyzing the value creation potential of the Dresden Open Data Portal as part of the Smart City Dresden model project funded by the German government in collaboration with the Dresden Municipal Statistics Office. Based on surveys and best-practice examples, barriers are to be broken down and support offered.

The development of a chatbot is planned, which users without specific data expertise can use to ask questions and thus “talk” directly to the data in the portal. In addition, the open data portal is to be brought more into the public eye in order to be able to reach previous non-users within Dresden through appealing communication of the offerings, e.g. apps based on open data.

On completion, the solutions will also be available to other municipalities as open source applications in the spirit of the Smart City Dresden model project.

What is the Dresden Open Data Portal?

Which parts of Dresden are particularly bike and pedestrian friendly? What are the results of the latest municipal citizen survey? Where can I find playgrounds in the city? The Dresden Open Data Portal has been providing this information and many statistics, including volume values on inner-city streets, since 2019. The administration of the state capital wants to make its collected and processed data – provided it is not personal or confidential – accessible to the public so that it can be retrieved and used individually.

This makes Dresden one of the pioneers in Germany. In February 2025, an analysis of German cities by the Berlin-based consulting firm Finatycs showed that the state capital publishes the third most data records (1,117) after Hamburg and Berlin.