NSW Premier, Nathan Rees, tells public transport bureaucracy to embrace third parties who supply timetable info
In March this year iPhone application developer Alvin Singh was threatened with legal action by RailCorp after he invented an app that showed train and ferry timetable information, which RailCorp claimed it had copyright over the details.
The sequel was played out over earlier this week at a public transport forum organised by Parliamentary Secretary Penny Sharpe, where Rees told his bureaucrats to pull their heads in.
According to a report by
Cnet, the Premier said it was time for local government and the public spheres it controls were more transparent and cooperative. “Governments have to overcome old habits of secrecy and control,” he said today at NSW Public Sphere “The old one-way street style of politics has to go. I spoke to the transport minister and we couldn’t find any reason to withhold the data, especially given that RailCorp doesn’t offer an equivalent service and this information actually belongs to the people of NSW,” Rees said.
This brings NSW in line with Victoria and Western Australia, who both embraced similar apps for their public transport operations.
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