Zurich Open Data MCP Server

🇨🇭 Part of the Swiss Public Data MCP Portfolio

🏙️ Zurich Open Data MCP Server

🌐 English | Deutsch

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server providing AI-powered access to Open Data from the City of Zurich, Switzerland.

Enables Claude, ChatGPT, and other MCP-compatible AI assistants to directly query 900+ datasets, geodata, parliamentary proceedings, council resolutions, tourism data, linked data, and real-time environmental and mobility information from the City of Zurich. 24 Tools, 5 Resources, 6 APIs.

Demo

✨ Features

CKAN Open Data (data.stadt-zuerich.ch)

• zurich_search_datasets – Full-text search with Solr syntax across 900+ datasets
• zurich_get_dataset – Complete metadata and download URLs for a dataset
• zurich_datastore_query – Query tabular data directly (filters, sorting)
• zurich_datastore_sql – SQL queries on the DataStore
• zurich_list_categories – Browse 19 thematic categories
• zurich_list_tags – Tag-based thematic search

Real-Time Environmental Data

• zurich_weather_live – 🌤️ Current weather (temperature, humidity, pressure, rain) from 5 UGZ stations
• zurich_air_quality – 🌬️ Live air quality (NO₂, O₃, PM10, PM2.5) with WHO thresholds
• zurich_water_weather – 🌊 Lake Zurich data (water temperature, level, wind) every 10 min

Real-Time Mobility Data

• zurich_pedestrian_traffic – 🚶 Pedestrian counts on Bahnhofstrasse (3 locations, hourly)
• zurich_vbz_passengers – 🚊 VBZ public transit ridership (800,000+ records, all lines/stops)
• zurich_parking_live – 🅿️ Real-time occupancy of 36 parking garages (ParkenDD)

Geoportal (WFS Geodata)

• zurich_geo_layers – 📍 List 14 available geodata layers
• zurich_geo_features – 📍 Fetch GeoJSON features (schools, districts, playgrounds, climate data, etc.)

City Parliament (Paris API)

• zurich_parliament_search – 🏛️ Search parliamentary proceedings (interpellations, motions, postulates)
• zurich_parliament_members – 🏛️ Search council members (party, commissions, mandates)

Zurich Tourism

• zurich_tourism – 🏨 Attractions, restaurants, hotels, events (Schema.org data, 4 languages)

Linked Data (SPARQL)

• zurich_sparql – 📊 SPARQL queries on the statistical linked data endpoint (currently disabled — endpoint not productive yet)

Stadtratsbeschlüsse (Council Resolutions)

• search_stadtratsbeschluesse – 📜 Full-text search of public council resolutions (title, department, date range)
• get_beschluesse_by_departement – 📜 List all resolutions of a department (e.g. SSD, FD, PRD)
• get_stadtratsbeschluss_detail – 📜 Single resolution by NNNN/YYYY number

Analysis Tools

• zurich_analyze_datasets – Comprehensive analysis: relevance, recency, data structure
• zurich_catalog_stats – Catalog overview with statistics
• zurich_find_school_data – Curated search for education-related datasets

MCP Resources

• zurich://dataset/{name} – Dataset metadata
• zurich://category/{group_id} – Category details
• zurich://parking – Current parking data
• zurich://geo/{layer_id} – GeoJSON geodata (14 layers)
• zurich://tourism/categories – Tourism categories

🚀 Installation

Prerequisites

• Python 3.11+
• pip or uv

Install

# Clone
git clone https://github.com/malkreide/zurich-opendata-mcp.git
cd zurich-opendata-mcp

# Install
pip install -e .

# Or with uv
uv pip install -e .

⚙️ Configuration

Claude Desktop

Edit ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zurich-opendata": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["-m", "zurich_opendata_mcp.server"],
      "env": {}
    }
  }
}

Alternatively, using the installed command:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zurich-opendata": {
      "command": "zurich-opendata-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Claude Code (CLI)

claude mcp add zurich-opendata -- python -m zurich_opendata_mcp.server

Cursor / VS Code

Add to .vscode/settings.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zurich-opendata": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["-m", "zurich_opendata_mcp.server"]
    }
  }
}

💬 Example Queries

Once configured, you can ask Claude:

Open Data

• "What datasets are available about schools in Zurich?"
• "Show me school holidays for public schools"
• "Analyze the available geodata"

Real-Time Data

• "What's the current temperature in Zurich?" → zurich_weather_live
• "How is the air quality today?" → zurich_air_quality
• "What's the water temperature in Lake Zurich?" → zurich_water_weather
• "How many parking spaces are free right now?" → zurich_parking_live
• "How many people are on Bahnhofstrasse right now?" → zurich_pedestrian_traffic

Geodata

• "Show me all school facilities in Zurich as GeoJSON" → zurich_geo_features
• "What geodata layers are available?" → zurich_geo_layers
• "Where are the playgrounds in Zurich?"

City Parliament

• "What parliamentary motions about schools were filed?" → zurich_parliament_search
• "Which council members belong to the SP party?" → zurich_parliament_members

Council Resolutions (Stadtratsbeschlüsse)

• "Find council resolutions about Volksschule from 2025" → search_stadtratsbeschluesse
• "List all SSD resolutions in 2025" → get_beschluesse_by_departement
• "Show council resolution 1203/2025" → get_stadtratsbeschluss_detail

Tourism & Statistics

• "What restaurants does Zurich Tourism recommend?" → zurich_tourism
• "How has Zurich's population evolved?" → zurich_sparql

🔗 Data Sources

API	Endpoint	Data
CKAN	data.stadt-zuerich.ch/api/3/	900+ open datasets
Geoportal WFS	ogd.stadt-zuerich.ch/wfs/geoportal	14 geodata layers (GeoJSON)
Paris API	gemeinderat-zuerich.ch/api	Parliamentary proceedings & members
Zurich Tourism	zuerich.com/en/api/v2/data	Attractions, restaurants, hotels
SPARQL	ld.stadt-zuerich.ch/query	Linked Open Data / statistics
ParkenDD	api.parkendd.de/Zuerich	Real-time parking occupancy

📊 Available Data Categories

Category	ID
Employment	arbeit-und-erwerb
Base Maps	basiskarten
Construction & Housing	bauen-und-wohnen
Population	bevolkerung
Education	bildung
Energy	energie
Finance	finanzen
Leisure	freizeit
Health	gesundheit
Crime	kriminalitat
Culture	kultur
Mobility	mobilitat
Politics	politik
Prices	preise
Social Affairs	soziales
Tourism	tourismus
Environment	umwelt
Administration	verwaltung
Economy	volkswirtschaft

📍 Available Geo Layers

Source of truth: GEOPORTAL_LAYERS in src/zurich_opendata_mcp/config.py.

Layer ID	Description
schulanlagen	School facilities (kindergartens, schools, after-school care)
schulkreise	School district boundaries (polygons)
schulwege	School-route crossings and hazard points
stadtkreise	City district boundaries (polygons)
spielplaetze	Public playgrounds
kreisbuero	City district offices
sammelstelle	Waste collection points
sport	Sports facilities
klimadaten	Climate data (raster, temperatures, heat islands)
lehrpfade	Educational trails
stimmlokale	Polling stations
sozialzentrum	Social centres
velopruefstrecken	Bicycle exam routes for schools
familienberatung	Family-counselling meeting points

🏗️ Project Structure

zurich-opendata-mcp/
├── src/zurich_opendata_mcp/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── app.py               # Shared FastMCP instance
│   ├── server.py            # Console entry + back-compat re-exports
│   ├── config.py            # Endpoints, layer maps, resource IDs
│   ├── http_client.py       # Shared httpx client + CKAN wrapper
│   ├── formatters.py        # CKAN→model mapping + Markdown rendering
│   ├── models.py            # Pydantic structured-output models
│   ├── clients/             # API clients: paris, sparql, tourism, wfs
│   └── tools/               # @mcp.tool implementations:
│                            #   catalog, datastore, geo, parliament,
│                            #   realtime, sparql, strb, tourism,
│                            #   resources (zurich:// URIs)
├── tests/
│   └── test_server.py       # Pydantic + integration tests (live-marked)
├── audits/                  # Code-audit reports
├── .github/workflows/       # ci.yml + publish.yml (Trusted Publisher)
├── pyproject.toml
├── README.md / README.de.md
├── CONTRIBUTING.md / .de.md
├── SECURITY.md / .de.md
├── CHANGELOG.md
├── CLAUDE.md                # Project conventions for Claude
├── LICENSE
└── claude_desktop_config.json

🧪 Development

# Install dev dependencies
pip install -e ".[dev]"

# Unit + validation tests (no network)
pytest tests/ -m "not live"

# Live integration tests (against live APIs — opt-in)
pytest tests/ -m live

# Linting
ruff check src/ tests/

Safety & Limits

• Read-only: All tools perform HTTP GET requests only — no data is written, modified, or deleted.
• No personal data: The APIs return open civic datasets (parking occupancy, weather readings, parliamentary proceedings). No personally identifiable information (PII) is processed or stored by this server.
• Rate limits: CKAN Solr search and ParkenDD are public APIs without documented rate limits; use rows and limit parameters conservatively. The server enforces a 30s timeout per request.
• Data freshness: Real-time tools (parking, weather, air quality) reflect the upstream source at query time. No caching is performed by this server.
• Terms of service: Data is subject to the ToS of each source — data.stadt-zuerich.ch, ParkenDD, gemeinderat-zuerich.ch. All City of Zurich data is published under CC0 (Open by Default since 2021).
• No guarantees: This server is a community project, not affiliated with the City of Zurich or any of the API providers. Availability depends on upstream APIs.

---

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md (Deutsch).

🔒 Security

Read-only, no PII, no authentication, a fixed set of public-data endpoints. See SECURITY.md (Deutsch) for the full security posture and accepted-risk decisions.

📜 License

MIT License — see LICENSE. All data used is published under open licenses (CC0 / Open by Default since 2021).

👤 Author

Hayal Oezkan · malkreide

---

Powered by Model Context Protocol • 6 APIs • 24 Tools • 5 Resources

Installation

Run via uv's uvx — no clone or manual install needed. Add to your MCP client config (mcpServers for Claude Desktop, Cursor and Windsurf; use a top-level servers key for VS Code in .vscode/mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zurich-opendata-mcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "zurich-opendata-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}