The Transport Sector has made customer account data sharing difficult. There are now hundreds of different online accounts across the sector (Bus, Rail, Taxi, Micro-Mobility, Air, etc.), meaning each customer must work hard to access all their own transport & mobility data.
As an example, just to consolidate their transport expenses, customers need to log in to multiple accounts to view and export their transport tickets and usage information.
Plus, GDPR individual rights are ignored, such as The Right to Data Portability, which allows users the ability to “move, copy or transfer personal data easily from one IT environment to another in a safe and secure way, without affecting its usability”:
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/individual-rights/individual-rights/right-to-data-portability/
This difficulty is perpetuated by:
- The need for transport operators (and their technology suppliers) to keep data sources under their control, with each still wanting to ‘own’ their relationship with their customers.
- A general lack of awareness of Smart Data and its potential benefits across the transport sector (e.g. no specific mention of Smart Data in the current DfT Transport Data Strategy “Innovation through data”
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/transport-data-strategy-innovation-through-data ) - The lack of available customer account data sharing examples (pilots or full implementations).
To therefore drive the adoptions of Smart Data sharing across the wider transport sector the following is recommended:
- Transport sector stakeholders must provide strategic guidance and sponsorship of customer account data pilots and projects – for example the recently announced Smart Data Challenge https://smartdata.challenges.org/
- Transport data subject matter experts need to fully understand the role of Smart Data and its potential benefits across the sector – for example that it is still possible for transport operators to ‘own’ their relationship with their customers whilst still allowing them to share their account data with Authorised Third Parties [ATPs)]
- Technologists need to familiarise themselves with the existing Open Standards for transport & mobility-specific data sharing and also contribute to their ongoing development and sector suitability: https://opentransport.co.uk/open-standard/
- Customer account interoperability for any new Public Sector transport service or platform, for any mode, must be mandated (e.g. to ensure full compliance with GDPR) and then designed into all solutions from the onset, thus kick-starting the market and acting as implementation exemplars for the private sector to follow.
Open Transport - Transport & Mobility Data Interoperability 