introducing valencia-now: real-time traffic information about Valencia

The open data portal of the Spanish city of Valencia provides real-time traffic data for both cars (and other motor vehicles) and bicycles. A series of electromagnetic loops distributed throughout the city are capable of measuring the intensity of vehicles passing through them. This information is published on an hourly basis for motor vehicles and approximately every 30 minutes for bicycles. With that information, valencia-now is able to build these two maps representing current traffic intensity:

The bicycle traffic is also represented in the same way, as well as the air quality data obtained from various measurement stations located in different parts of the city. In this case, we are representing the air quality index, a value that can range from 1 (hazardous) in color purple to 6 (good) in color blue.

If I were to stop at that point, I wouldn't be adding much additional value to this data, since the open data portal itself already provides some simple visualizations of the current state of traffic and air quality.

However, valencia-now is also collecting and storing this information which allows me not only to see the current status but also the evolution.

With that historical data, I am also able to provide aggregations such as the following one that shows how the air quality in the city centre improved just a day after the Fallas finished.

In the following days, I would like to create some additional blogposts. I want to explain technical details about the data ingestion and the data transformation processes (spoiler, tinybird made this extremly simple) and also about public open data iniciatives.

At some point in time I would like to make the collected data available for everyone, but this will require some work.

🗨️ As always, feel free to contact me (unmonoqueteclea@gmail.com) for whatever doubt, suggestion or idea you may have. Happy to receive your feedback!