Big Data Test Infrastructure (BDTI) has provided public administrations in the EU with a free open-source cloud-base platform to test governance and management solutions.
About the BDTI
The Big Data Test Infrastructure (BDTI) was created by the European Commission in 2019. The infrastructure provided a free-of-charge cloud-based analytics test environment for public administrations in EU countries.
Any public administration at any level could experiment with open-source tools and prototype solutions before deploying them in the production environment on their premises.
The BDTI test environment contained several open-source solutions and the required cloud infrastructure, like virtual machines, analytics clusters, storage and networking facilities. It allowed public administrations to derive insights from public information and move towards data-driven decision-making.
The BDTI project was funded and shaped by the goals set out in the Digital Europe Programme (DEP). DEP aims to increase the availability, quality and usability of public sector information in compliance with the requirement of the Open Data Directive, supporting the implementation of the European Data Strategy.
The BDTI impact
Data-driven pilots
The BDTI project encouraged public administrations to leverage data to make informed decisions. BDTI has supported numerous European pilot projects, demonstrating how data-driven approaches contribute to positive public service outcomes.
Reusable resources
BDTI continues to contribute to public sector data innovation and fosters a culture of continuous skills building among those working to improve public services and outcomes. Teams and individuals can learn from reusable data, resources, technical documentation and real-world case studies.
Success stories
Read stories and case studies from selected BDTI pilots.
Greece - MitosLOD
The Ministry of Digital Governance (GRNET) and the University of Macedonia (UoM) transformed MITOS, which provides structured descriptions of over 3,000 public services, into Linked Open Data (LOD). The transformation created a dynamic, queryable endpoint for public service data—facilitating easy access and retrieval via open standards and semantic technologies like SPARQL.
City of Bochum, Germany - The Urban Data Platform test
An open-source tree health data monitoring system and Machine Learning capabilities for predicting tree health from resistivity readings.
City of Turku, Finland - Enabling public transport efficiency
A collaborative pilot involving the City of Turku and the University of Turku analysing mobility efficiency and public transportation using a variety of BDTI's free sandbox of tools.
City of Naples, Italy - Mobility and urban environment data for decision making
Naples tested advanced analytics on data related to public spaces (parks, street areas, etc.) and mobility-related data to build decision support systems for evaluating potential future use of public spaces.
Arezzo Municipality, Italy - Accidents time series analysis
The Arezzo team leveraged advanced time-series analysis from 2008 to 2024 on accident data to identify dangerous roads or intersections in the municipality's urban planning, and to outline correlations between accidents, weather, and street conditions.
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