Data Driven Exploration in Contextual Information on Decisions

(DECIDE)

Basic Pilot Info:

Involved Cities:
Ghent (Belgium)
Freiburg, Bamberg (Germany)

Duration:  May 1st, 2025 - August 31st, 2026

Domains: 

  • Predictive traffic management/ sustainable mobility planning

  • Domains falling under the New European Bauhaus initiative:

    • Aesthetics & Quality of Life, Implementation of Green & Inclusive Urban Planning,Community involvement

Motivation:

Local (and other) decisions and legislations contain a vast amount of relevant information. This information is still locked away in non-transparent and not easily accessible archives. Therefor the DECIDe project aims to create a Decisions and Legislations Data Space.

A data space where decisions made at local, regional, national, and European (and maybe one day global) levels can connect. These decisions, often interdependent, form a complex web that influences public services and policies.

By making this information machine-readable and semantically linked, DECIDe wants to enable smarter, more transparent governance. This approach will support automation, cross-sector collaboration, and the development of digital services that help citizens, companies and administrations navigate legal and policy frameworks more easily.

Use Case Description:

  1. Basic set-up for a local decisions and legislations dataspace according to the DSSC building blocks and with the help form transparent AI-solutions. 

  2. Build a Policy Impact Reporting, with the help of AI, based on the local decisions and legislation published in a standardised & machinereadable way to provide insight into the extent to which local decision-making contributes to (higher) policy goals. 

  3. Build a reusable solution to create an overview of decisions and legislations, based on the data in the data space, on access to specific mobility zones (car-free zones, LEZ zones, school streets, play streets, shopping events, etc.), not only giving insights in restrictions this inflicts, but also the possibilities it creates and make cities and towns more liveable. In this use case we aim to map the local decisions and legislations to geo-locations with the help of transparent AI solutions. 

  4. Build a reusable solution to create an overview of decisions and legislations, based on the data in the data space, on subsidies related to sustainability (e.g. for housing renovations, greening initiatives or Electric Vehicle Infrastructure) in order to solicitate citizen engagement in sustainabilty measures regarding their property on the (semi-)private domain. This will also be done with the help of transparent AI solutions. 

These examples must show how standardized, accessible decision data can empower citizens to understand mobility restrictions or building regulations without professional help. The insights we gather with these use cases should empower us to undertake similar initiatives on other domains. 

For all use cases we aim to deliver reusable, scalable and affordable set-up so that others can learn from them and repeat the way of working translated to there own needs or wishes.

Added Value:

 Governmental

Raise quality of (policy) decisions by bringing together the data on which they are based (incl. applicable rules of law) and raise quality of public administration data (often based on decisions). 

Support democratic (public) scrutiny in different policy domains, e.g. giving citizens access to this valuable information, or facilitating/automating reporting on implementation of higher-level regulation giving citizens access to information or facilitating or automating reporting on implementation of higher-level regulation.

DECIDe will not only bring insights to local and regional governments, it will help them gather public support and cooperation by offering citizens sufficient information on local policies and legislation. It will contribute to sustainable and democratic living together in diversity by connecting and strengthening citizens and authorities.

Technological and Digital Innovation

DECIDe showcases the power of linked data by transforming legislative and decision-making documents into structured, machine-readable formats. This allows for seamless integration, querying, and reuse of data. It empowers developers, researchers, and policymakers to build services that are responsive to real-world needs, and it lays the groundwork for a scalable local decisions and legislations data space. 

The project drives digital innovation by building a cross-border data space that connects public decisions in a machine-readable format. This enables advanced applications such as AI-powered policy analysis and real-time decision support tools. Although this project does not set up a digital twin, it also demonstrates how emerging technologies like digital twins and federated data platforms could use the data form the data space to automate and enhance public services, setting a precedent for future smart city solutions.

Environment and Systainability

DECIDe contributes to sustainability by supporting smarter urban planning and mobility management. And by motivating citizens or companies in contributing to sustainable cities by encouraging them to undertake environmental friendly investments to their buildings. By integrating environmental data into decision-making processes, the project aligns with the European Green Deal and fosters climate-resilient urban development.

Economic

The DECIDe project creates economic value by enabling more efficient public services through the reuse of machine-readable legislation and decisions. By making regulatory information accessible and interoperable across cities and regions, it reduces administrative burdens, supports innovation in service delivery, and opens opportunities for businesses to develop new digital tools—such as apps for mobility access or environmental permits, or even others—thus stimulating local economies and digital entrepreneurship.