Smart Data is data that is securely shared, with the customer’s permission, to third parties. The most obvious example of Smart Data is Open Banking, but other sectors such as energy & finance are now looking to follow suit. The term should not be confused with other similar terms such as “Open Data” – e.g. public transport fares & timetables (defined as freely available data and typically published by public sector organisations for wider societal benefit), with each type of data sitting in a different part of the Transport & Mobility Data Spectrum.

The Open Transport Initiative was set-up to create and support the adoption of customer account data sharing across the transport & mobility sector.

Our view is that Smart Data has many benefits including:

1. Providing organisations with a standardised approach to GDPR data portability*, a GDPR right of the individual to obtain and reuse their personal data for their own purposes across different services.
2. Putting customer’s in control of their own transport & mobility data by providing an Open Standard API specification for account data integration regardless of software or database technologies.
3. Being an enabler of growth and innovation, by providing an interoperable way for an entire sector to share transport & mobility customer account information with third parties.

*The right to data portability allows individuals to move, copy or transfer personal data easily from one IT environment to another in a safe and secure way, without affecting its usability. It is seldomly considered when designing and building any sort of data storage, let alone enforced in the same way other GDPR rights have been.

If you would like to join or know more about the work of the Open Transport initiative please contact us: contact@opentransport.co.uk

The UK Government’s Department for Business & Trade has today published an important document that outlines how the transport & mobility sector will be part of Smart Data sharing schemes in 2024.

Titled “The Smart Data Roadmap” this report provides a timeline of the action the Government is taking in 2024 to 2025 to unlock the potential for Smart Data to drive the wider data economy.

Each sector will progress through four stages

• identification
• consultation
• design
• implementation

With Transport defined as still being in the ‘identification’ stage.

Next Steps

In the section “Next steps for Smart Data in Transport” the actions given are:
The Department for Transport will progress work to support Smart Data objectives, including:

• Taking forward discovery work to develop transport use cases for Smart Data.
• Using the outcomes of the discovery to shape the evidence for a Call for Evidence in Autumn 2024, along with potential questions.
• Publishing further detail on the opportunities for Smart Data in the transport sector in 2025.

With the further information provided that “The government is also considering schemes within energy, telecommunications and transport in line with its vision for regulatory reform that will ensure regulators help push down the cost of living and drive economic growth.”

The Open Transport Initiative welcomes the publication of this roadmap and especially the news that in Q3 2024 the Government will be launching a Call for Evidence for potential Smart Data schemes in the Transport sector.

Since the publication of the UK Government’s Smart Data consultation response “Next Steps for Smart Data” published back in September 2020, The Open Transport Initiative has campaigned for the introduction of ‘Open Banking’ like data sharing practices to be properly adopted across the Transport & Mobility sector.

In today’s UK Government Spring Budget announcement was the paragraph:

“Accelerating smart data schemes in energy and transport – Following announcement at Autumn Statement 2023 that the government would seek to maximise the benefits from incoming Data Protection and Data Information Bill Smart Data powers, the government is providing targeted funding for consultations and calls for evidence to accelerate schemes in energy and transport.”

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spring-budget-2024/spring-budget-2024-html

It is not clear from this statement on the timescales for when the funding will be released and when these consultations will be carried out. However this is the first mention of ANY plans from UK Government for the acceleration of Smart Data sharing in the Transport & Mobility sector. And consequently The Open Transport Initiative very much welcomes this announcement.

The Public Transport sector is not known for swiftly and easily taking on tech innovations. Adopting new technologies may be appealing to some (especially users), but so is running an efficient, safe and reliable passenger & freight service around a city, region or country.

Keeping up with customer demands in the transport industry is a continuous cycle… There’s new user experience trends, exciting (well to some) payment types and a constant flood of mobile apps & digital services to integrate with. Customer needs are now firmly set by the big technology companies, with everyone expecting “Apple-like functionality” all the time.

So if you are a transport service provider how can you ensure your next customer-facing application will be future-proof?

The short answer is “you can’t”. Predicting what the future will bring is almost impossible, and by the time most organisations have usually specified, procured and delivered something technical to be delivered it is almost certainly no longer going to be cutting edge.

However, transport authorities apply some key principles to ensure what they procure is as forward-compatible as possible…

1. Use self-contained, modular & independent services that each meet specific use cases, rather than implement a huge application that you only need part of (and that quite possibly duplicates functionality you already have elsewhere)
2. Have a clear “buy vs build” policy and understand the business & tech impact of each, including longer-term considerations such as: hosting, support & maintenance and future changes.
   Notes:
   Buy usually means purchasing a solution (“off the shelf” or as a “software-as-a-service” [SaaS] product) that another organisation has previously built, then enhancing it or configuring it to meet your own needs.
   Build usually means designing, developing and testing a bespoke solution with your own resources (either in-house or using a 3rd party)
3. Use Open and Interoperable standards, to ensure your technology integrates & works with other technology and that it can easily be expanded & upgraded. Proprietary standards, specific to a single vendor, can trap you in a situation where you’re reliant on that vendor for future upgrades, maintenance, and support. This lack of choice can significantly inflate costs and limit your options in the long run. Open standards, on the other hand, allow you to choose from a wider pool of compatible vendors and products, fostering competition and potentially driving down costs.

The transport and mobility sector in the UK (and other countries) is highly deregulated and fragmented, with services from many regional providers across different modes of transport. There are 20+  train operating companies, dozens of bus and tram operators, numerous taxi and micro-mobility companies, and more recently many new Mobility-as-a-Service [MaaS] platforms being launched. Each service has their own customer account, with a huge amount of siloed transport data, all stored in disparate systems in a range of ways.

To make things worse… The GDPR individual Right to Data Portability is rarely kept to across the sector. Meaning there is often no way for each user to export their account data in any meaningful way (let alone import data from one account into another).

By securely linking different mobility accounts all managed by the same user, it will be possible to share data between them and with a trusted Third-Party Processor [TPP] in a standardised way. This then allows the aggregated and consistent presentation of multi-modal information to the user in a single “Transport Dashboard”. This application can then show the user additional useful information, such as:

• cheaper fares
• shorter travel times / routes
• alternative modes of transport
• combined amounts of CO2 and other Greenhouse Gases (GHGs)

Presenting the joined-up data in this way helps the user understand the impact and costs of their travel, and can then be used to change future behaviour – such as choosing less polluting modes and providers.

The Open Transport Initiative was originally set-up to create and support the adoption of customer account data sharing (AKA “Smart Data”) across the transport & mobility sector. And having data (such as usage, journey information & discounts) shared from different accounts across the sector is an important first step. However the maximum benefit of Smart Data lies in the potential to connect cross-sector data.

The diagram below is our attempt to show how data from different sectors can be shared with transport data to create new and exciting cross-sector services.
For example, combining vehicle (e.g. car, motorcycle, etc.) usage data with financial product information could create a completely personalised insurance suite of products.

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the transport and mobility sector are increasing, despite global agreements to reach net zero emissions by 2050. In 2022, global CO2 emissions from transport grew by more than 250 Megatonnes, reaching 8 Gigatonnes in total. https://www.iea.org/energy-system/transport

The sector therefore has the responsibility to decarbonise, quickly.
(And like all good transport analogies, this transition needs a roadmap.).

Unfortunately, the transport and mobility sector’s roadmap to reach net zero emissions by 2050 isn’t an easy one. It will involve a major transformation of the way move people and goods. It will require a shift to cleaner fuels, more efficient vehicles, and a greater focus on public transportation and other sustainable modes of transport.

But this cannot happen without data (or put more frankly… no data, no decarbonisation).
Data can play a critical role in the transition to net zero transport in a number of ways, including:

• Operations: Using data to optimize transport providers’ routes and therefore reducing fuel consumption. For example, planning delivery routes in a way that minimizes the distance travelled.

• Operations: Using data to develop new technologies for decarbonizing the transport sector. For example, to develop new battery chemistries that could make electric vehicles more affordable and efficient.
• Change user behaviour: Using data to developing policies that discourage the use of high CO2 emitting modes of transport.
• Change user behaviour: Using data to incentivise the use of low-carbon transport options.

Sharing data can further help with the transition to Net Zero for the sector by both:

1. Making it easier for different authorities to collect, analyse, and share (anonymised user) data
2. Allowing users to securely share the multiple sources of information that they have in their individual transport accounts, to help them plan and use less co2

If you would like to join or know more about the work of the Open Transport Initiative please contact us: 
contact@opentransport.co.uk