Case Study: City of Reykjavik improves public services with Posit Connect

City of Reykjavik launches real-time citizen services in 2 weeks with Posit PBC

The City of Reykjavik faced the challenge of leveraging its municipal data to directly improve citizens' daily lives, starting with a specific request to provide real-time occupancy information for the city's popular geothermal swimming pools. The city's data science team, led by Chief Data Officer Óli Páll Geirsson, needed to overcome complex data ownership and quality issues to deliver this valuable service. They partnered with Posit PBC and utilized Posit Connect to operationalize their data science work.

Using R and Posit Connect, the team built a predictive model to estimate pool occupancy in near-real-time, which was then shared via a Shiny application. This solution allowed citizens to see how crowded a specific pool was before visiting. The success of this project helped Posit PBC establish trust with stakeholders and led to the development of a portfolio of other data products, such as an automated trash collection calendar and an application for the Department of Welfare, collectively building a better digital landscape for residents.

City of Reykjavik