Monitoring U.K. Public Services
Many of our (U.K.) utility companies and public services produce data feeds or mapping information. There are even publicly available real time graphs of that data. I think it's pretty fascinating and so I'll be using this blog to collect them.
Electricity demand and current generation levels from various sources
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
Graph showing National Grid Status of energy produced by Coal, Nuclear, Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT), Wind, Hydro and how much we import from overseas. It also graphs the usage of each of those sources annually, monthly, weekly and daily. Raw data used:
https://www.elexon.co.uk/change/new-balancing-mechanism-reporting-service-bmrs/
National grid balance
http://www.dynamicdemand.co.uk/grid.htm
Power balance of the UK electricity grid. 50% means we are using what we are producing. Below 48% will result in blackouts because more power is needed. Above 52% will result in blackouts are generators will start to trip because they are working too hard. The meter actually shows the grid's "frequency", which is related to the speed of rotation of generators all over the country.
Public Service Monitor
http://www.publicservicemonitor.com/
Monitors the internet for articles relating to Fire, Health, Housing, Police and Council. It breaks them down into areas and decides whether the News items, blog articles or forum posts were positive, just mentions or negative.
Local crime and policing website for England and Wales
Information about crime and policing in your area. Raw data used:
World statistics
Featured on BBC2's Dara O'Briain's Science Club, this displays real time information on everything from the number of deaths this year from HIV/AIDS to how many cars were built this year. There are several running totals under each of the following headings: World Population, Government & Economics, Society & Media, Environment, Food, Water, Energy and Health. There is also a sister site set up for statistics relating to the United States of America. Everything from the number of obese people to books sold under the headings of: Population, Economy, Society, Media & Entertainment, Health and Energy.
World economy
http://globe.cid.harvard.edu/?mode=gridSphere
While this is strictly not a real time feed, it is a visualisation from one. It shows the distribution of the 15 trillion dollars of the world economy in 100 million dollar chunks. Splits it up into industry and products showing how they are related to each other across the different countries of the world.
The Internet in real time
Not technically a public service but on-line services we all use. Everything from number of Facebook likes to items bought in Amazon.
http://www.betfy.co.uk/internet-realtime/
If anyone knows any other publicly available feeds from bus/train locations to whatever then please leave a comment below.
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