Utilisation of Urban Data in a Municipal Data Platform – A Field Report From the German MPSC Süd-West-Cluster

Urban data are a key resource for evidence-based decision-making in municipalities, but are often underutilized due to organizational and technical barriers. This paper reports on the German MPSC Südwest- Cluster, where several municipalities jointly develop an open municipal data platform within a comprehensive Urban Data Management approach. The paper outlines challenges in municipal data handling, describes the project context, platform architecture, and development phases, and presents initial results in the form of data-driven use cases and interactive dashboards. The findings indicate that an open, cooperative platform approach can improve data accessibility and reuse while strengthening municipal data sovereignty and reducing vendor lock-in.