The candidacy presented by the municipal Geoportal to AUDAZ Locales 2025, an initiative through which RAGA Spain distinguishes the best for their efforts in transparency and recognizes the social commitment of the 16 most valuable projects in Spain at the local level, has been ‘Geoportal Technology to improve the lives of citizens’.
The Area of Urban Planning, Environment, and Mobility, led by Borja Carabante, has been recognized with this candidacy as one of the 16 initiatives awarded as best practices and most significant advancements.
RAGA Spain has awarded the Geoportal the AUDAZ 2025 Distinction in the category of ‘Most significant advancement in active advertising’, highlighting its role in local transparency and its advancements related to the quality of published information.
Defending transparency from the beginning
The Geoportal, created in May 2019, has promoted transparency in municipal georeferenced data since its inception. Its establishment as a platform for the consultation, visualization, and free download of georeferenced data has attracted many municipal initiatives, which have found in this technology the perfect showcase for the public to know the services offered by each of them.
Although the Geoportal was born out of the need to distribute the official cartography of Madrid, it quickly adapted to technological innovations and the increased capacity of computer systems to become a reference infrastructure for accessing georeferenced data from the Madrid City Council.
In 2024, the Geoportal evolved into a Geospatial Technologies Infrastructure, capable of automating queries about the location of public services and improving accessibility and efficiency to positioned data, gradually integrating into the ordinary management of the municipal organization.
The Spatial Data Infrastructure of Madrid was born in compliance with the European INSPIRE directive and the Spanish LISIGE legislation. Today, transformed into a Geospatial Technologies Infrastructure, it uses cluster map servers, metadata servers, and search tools based on the official street map as its main technologies. In addition, it has explored natural language processing among other branches of artificial intelligence and OGC API standards to enhance all its services and ensure universal access to them.
Technological and informational foundation
The Geoportal technology has also become the technological and informational foundation for the organization’s other geographic tools such as the Urban Planning Viewer, a consultation tool also managed by the area led by Carabante and essential in urban information and planning.
The alignment of the Geoportal with Open Government principles has allowed it to facilitate access to real-time geolocated data. Furthermore, its role in the digitization of public administration is crucial: it has been integrated with the Madrid Digital Twin, forming part of the Madrid City Council’s Digital Transformation Strategy, and is leading high-value AI projects for urban analysis such as the interpretation of maps of urban changes in the city of Madrid.
A reference for multiple disciplines, the Geoportal has already positioned itself as an innovative tool that improves decision-making based on geolocated data and thus contributes to a more informed city.
Three recognitions for Madrid
In addition to the Geoportal, Madrid has been awarded two other recognitions in the category of ‘Large cities and municipalities’. Both are promoted by the General Directorate of Transparency and Quality of the Vice-Mayor’s Office, Spokesperson, Security, and Emergencies Area. On the one hand, ‘Open Budgets’ has been recognized as the Best Practice, and on the other hand, ‘Visualize Madrid with open data’ has received an honorable mention in the same category where the Geoportal was recognized.
The award ceremony took place this morning at the headquarters of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces, within the framework of the Open Administration Week, and was attended by representatives of the winning candidacies: AUDAZ Locales 2025: Winning Candidacies – RAGA Spain./
