Smart Data 4 Transport Meeting – 1 April 2025

Context:

The Smart Data 4 Transport meeting held on April 1, 2025, brought together key stakeholders from various sectors, including transport, data governance, and procurement. The discussion focused on the implementation and implications of Smart Data initiatives in the transport sector, particularly in relation to the ongoing Data Use and Access Bill and the Smart Data Challenge. Participants included representatives from public & private sector, and the Open Transport Initiative Advisory Board.

Agenda:

The meeting covered several main topics, including:

• Introductions of participants and their roles.
• Overview of smart data and its distinction from open data and smart ticketing.
• Updates on the Data Use and Access Bill and its implications for the transport sector.
• Discussion of the Smart Data Challenge and the submission made by the Open Transport Initiative.
• Future plans for the Smart Data Forum and governance models for smart data schemes.

Key Figures:

• 27.8 billion: Estimated GDP value across UK from Smart Data
• £600,000: Total prize pool for the Smart Data Challenge.
• £50,000: Individual prize amounts available through the Department of Business and Trade for demonstrating cross-sector Smart Data use cases.

Topics discussed:

1. Understanding Smart Data:
   Hayden Sutherland provided a definition of Smart Data, emphasizing that it involves secure sharing of customer data with their permission, contrasting it with Open Data, which is freely available under open licenses. Smart data is not to be confused with smart ticketing, which involves payment methods for transport.
   
2. Data Use and Access Bill:
   The Data Use and Access Bill is currently in its report stage and aims to extend the principles of Open Banking to other sectors, including transport. The bill will enable the establishment of smart data schemes across various industries, requiring secondary legislation for specific implementations.
   https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3825
   
3. Smart Data Challenge:
   • The Smart Data Challenge, which ran from January 15 to March 14, 2025, aimed to identify and develop smart data use cases. The finalists will be announced in May.
   • Open Transport Initiative’s submission was discussed, which focuses on integrating Smart Data with Open Banking data to demonstrate interoperability and customer data sharing, linked with CO2 data.
     https://smartdata.challenges.org/
     
4. Governance Models for Smart Data:
   The meeting touched on the need for effective governance models for smart data schemes and recent cross-sector interviews being conducted.
   
5. Challenges Identified:
   • The fragmented nature of the transport sector, where multiple payment methods and data sources exist, complicates the integration of smart data.
   • The need to ensure that the system accommodates various user demographics, including those who rely on cash transactions or have limited access to banking or transports & mobility accounts (e.g. younger or older people)
     
6. Future Implications:
   The discussion highlighted the importance of anticipating future regulatory changes and designing systems that are compliant with GDPR and other data protection regulations.

In conclusion, the meeting underscored the potential of Smart Data to transform the transport sector by enabling secure, user-centric data sharing and fostering innovation through reducing barriers to entry. The upcoming Smart Data Forum and continued engagement with stakeholders will be crucial in advancing these initiatives, but participants agreed that the introduction of such a scheme would be a long-term initiative.