🇨🇭 Part of the Swiss Public Data MCP Portfolio

🏙️ Zurich Open Data MCP Server

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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. 23 Tools (+3 deprecated aliases), 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 4 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 (endpoint not productive yet — the tool is not registered by default; opt in with the environment variable ZURICH_OPENDATA_ENABLE_SPARQL=1)

Stadtratsbeschlüsse (Council Resolutions)

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

(The former names search_stadtratsbeschluesse, get_beschluesse_by_departement and get_stadtratsbeschluss_detail remain available as deprecated aliases until the next major release.)

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
• mcp[cli] 2.x — installed automatically; the server uses the 2.x API (mcp.server.mcpserver) and cannot run on mcp 1.x

Use 0.6.0 or newer. Release 0.5.1 declared mcp[cli]>=1.28.1 with no upper bound. Once mcp 2.0.0 removed mcp.server.fastmcp, every fresh install of 0.5.1 resolved to 2.0.0 and failed at import with ModuleNotFoundError. 0.6.0 runs on the 2.x API and pins >=2.0.0,<3. If you are pinned to 0.5.1, upgrade — there is no working configuration of that release left.

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" → zurich_strb_search
• "List all SSD resolutions in 2025" → zurich_strb_by_department
• "Show council resolution 1203/2025" → zurich_strb_detail

Tourism

• "What restaurants does Zurich Tourism recommend?" → zurich_tourism

🔗 Data Sources

📊 Available Data Categories

📍 Available Geo Layers

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

🏗️ Project Structure