Register of public areas in the City of Helsinki

The register of public areas (YLRE) is a system of the Helsinki Urban Environment Division that contains information about the city’s street and green areas. The dataset is maintained for the use of the division and does not, as a rule, cover the assets in public areas that are the responsibility of the City of Helsinki’s other organisational departments or institutions. The information in the register of public areas is used to order maintenance for street and park areas in Helsinki. The information in the register is used, for example, in reporting on the activities of the Street and Park Department and in asset management of public areas.

The data includes the location of object in street and green areas and their classification into assets on the basis of their intended use or functionality, for example. Material and template information of the objects is also included. The dataset includes the maintenance categories of street and green areas, as well as the parties responsible for the maintenance and winter care of the objects. Owner and rental information is also stored for some feature.

YLRE data is published as a WMS and WFS service divided into nine different map levels: street areas, green areas, street sections (areas, points, lines), green sections (areas, points, lines) and bicycle and pedestrian traffic areas.

The street areas and green areas contain large area geometries. The division of areas is largely based on detailed plan entries. The street and green sections specify the contents of the area-like geometries of the street and green areas. Street and green sections can be area, line or point geometries on top of the street and green areas. Three different geometry types are on their respective levels. Area-type street or green sections may include, for example, driving lanes, park walkways or planting areas. Line-type section include, for example, different fences or walls. The sections recorded as points are often furniture or accessories, such as benches, play equipment or waste containers.

The features on the Bicycle and pedestrian traffic level are included in the normal levels of area-type street and green sections, but they have also been combined to form their own level to facilitate the use of the data.

The register is updated on the basis of street and park plans, detailed plans, area planning and topographic surveying. Some of the data have been compiled on the basis of aerial photographs. There are shortcomings and errors in the information on the features, which should be taken into account in the use of the data. Particularly for point features, such as furniture and equipment, the information may not correspond to the actual situation. Some of the boundaries of the street and green are based on terrain measurements, while others are adapted indicatively from aerial photographs, and therefore the boundaries are not precise. In the absence of material information, the default material is recorded as the material of the feature. The owner and rental information for the features is not recorded comprehensively.

The YLRE data in the WFS service is updated once a day at night, so the data provided by the service is the situation of the previous day from the register. The coordinate system of the dataset is ETRS-GK25 (EPSG: 3879).

Example query for the WFS service: https://kartta.hel.fi/ws/geoserver/avoindata/wfs?version=1.0.0&request=GetFeature&typeName=avoindata:YLRE_Katualue_alue&maxFeatures=5

The data is available for download in several formats, including JSON, KML, CSV, Esri Shape, and XML. Available formats can always be found under OutputFormat in the GetCapabilities query for the service.

Example of a CSV search: https://kartta.hel.fi/ws/geoserver/avoindata/wfs?request=GetFeature&service=WFS&version=1.1.0&typeName=avoindata:YLRE_Katualue_alue&outputFormat=csv

The fields of the map levels of the service are described in a separate document: https://kartta.hel.fi/avoindata/dokumentit/2019_ylre_tietokuvaukset.pdf (in Finnish)

Source: Register of public areas in the City of Helsinki.

The data can be easily viewed in the City of Helsinki Map Service at kartta.hel.fi