MOT data

[bouncer]

The data we used to buy was about £15,000, and in todays climate with redundancy hitting our department at a ratio of 1 in 4 by wednesday 23rd this month. We are not goint to be buying data for some time. With a little bit of siffting and work the data from the MOT file will be very useful.. . . . . but saying that come 23rd i may need a new job rather than the data.

sTeVe

 

[Mr E]

Did you read the user guide? It describes the format and gives examples (in MySQL) og how to import the data.

 

[Dieselman]

Did you read the user guide? It describes the format and gives examples (in MySQL) og how to import the data.

I realised the information was in the different folders, but have no idea how to combine what I want using SQL.

Can you do it?

 

[bouncer]

Cant even get the data to unzip without errors !!!

sTeVe

 

[Dieselman]

Having had contact with VOSA helpline, who have been very helpful, My query was passed to VOSA Inforamtion Management Services to see if they would process the data into a usable format.

The answer I got indicates they are not going to help.

Dear Mr ********,

VOSA is under no obligation to provide you with this information in the
format of the 2007 data release. Section 21 of the Freedom of Information
Act 2000 provides an exemption to the public authority holding the
information (VOSA) whereby any information is exempt from the FOI act where
it is considered to be reasonably accessible to the applicant by other
means. For ease of reference I have copied the relevant section of the act
below;

21 Information accessible to applicant by other means.
(1)Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant otherwise
than under section 1 is exempt information.
(2)For the purposes of subsection (1)—
(a)information may be reasonably accessible to the applicant even though it
is accessible only on payment, and
(b)information is to be taken to be reasonably accessible to the applicant
if it is information which the public authority or any other person is
obliged by or under any enactment to communicate (otherwise than by making
the information available for inspection) to members of the public on
request, whether free of charge or on payment.
(3)For the purposes of subsection (1), information which is held by a
public authority and does not fall within subsection (2)(b) is not to be
regarded as reasonably accessible to the applicant merely because the
information is available from the public authority itself on request,
unless the information is made available in accordance with the authority’s
publication scheme and any payment required is specified in, or determined
in accordance with, the scheme.

Furthermore, a user guide was also provided with the release detailing
examples of how to extract certain tables of information from the "raw
data" using SQL.

regards
******* *******
VOSA Information Access



So this begs the question.

Is there anyone can create a working sheet from the information VOSA has supplied. It needs to be organised using a MySQL database.

I can get the data in a CSV format, but can't sort or filter it as it all reads as in one cell per individual entry.

 

[bouncer]

Bump !

 

[bouncer]

Just an update !
I’ve got all the data now and it is a HUGE file. I don’t know If VOSA check this data or mess it up deliberately so it’s not much use, or do they use it for statistics.
It’s very flawed.
I took a RANDOM sample of 31,048 BMWS with a cc of 2926 and split them into Petrol(628) and Diesel(30428) and electric(5)

Now looking at the pic1 what data is wrong.
It’s obviously BMW DIESEL CC in as a petrol or Electric (geeez) or is the vehicle correct and the CC and fuel are wrong. . . .Discuss

Second set of random data pic2 shows vehicles that have failed then passed the test but the vehicle Make and model are “UNCLASSIFIED”.
Clearly the vehicle is the same in the pass and fail, identified my ID (sequential number) DATE, Mileage, colour and year.
This makes sorting the data impossible to identify what type of vehicle has failed the test. . . deliberate may be?

There are errors all over it, motorcycle data in the car class, VOSA say the errors are about 0.7% i would suggest a lot higher.
Do VOSA actually check what they get. I know some of it is operator error at the Testing Station. If my department was to submit this as data i’d be sacked.

I’ll poke around in the data for a bit longer before i put it in the bin

Just before posting this i found a Steam powered VW golf.

sTeVe