CitySDK

About CitySDK

CitySDK is a service development kit that provides a set of harmonized APIs for cities and developers, aimed at enabling applications to be developed, scaled, and reused across multiple European cities. It originated from a project starting in January 2012 involving 8 cities across Europe and later expanded with partners including Amsterdam, Barcelona, Helsinki, Istanbul, Lamia, Lisbon, Manchester, and Rome. The toolkit centers on three components: the Open311 API for citizen participation and issue reporting, a Linked Data API for mobility, and a Tourism API, each usable individually or in combination and documented with developer tools for implementation.

The Open311-based Smart Participation component creates an issue-reporting channel between citizens and civil servants, first implemented in Helsinki by Forum Virium Helsinki with the city's Public Works Department and Sanoma Media Company, then expanded to Amsterdam, Barcelona, Lamia, Lisbon, Manchester, and Rome. The mobility component uses an open data platform originally developed in Amsterdam, and the tourism API originated in Lisbon and can cover a broader range of points of interest beyond tourist attractions. Resources, including source code, are made freely available online through Github under open licenses.

The project is led by Forum Virium Helsinki, a not-for-profit development company, with 23 European partners across 9 countries spanning cities, private companies, development and research organizations, and universities. It is intended for developers and municipal technical teams looking to implement or extend standardized city APIs, with technical leads available to advise on integration approaches given differing levels of complexity across implementations.

Key features

• Open311 API for citizen issue-reporting and location-based collaborative tracking
• Linked Data API for urban mobility applications
• Tourism API for points of interest beyond just tourist attractions
• Open source code and documentation available via Github under open licenses
• Reusable and extendable components that can be used singularly or together
• Harmonized Smart City API Cook Book with implementation examples from six Finnish cities

Frequently asked questions