A product of WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities

JYOT CHADHA

THE VALUE OF OPEN DATA IN TRANSPORT

Talking Transit 2016

WHAT IS OPEN DATA?

• available for anyone to access, use,

and share

• free of royalties and restrictions

• can be re-used, modified, and shared

by anyone for any purpose

Source: Open Data Institute

WHAT IS HIGH QUALITY OPEN DATA?

• linkable and easily shared

• standard format

• machine readable and easily processed

• reliable in terms of availability, consistency

• traceable to the original source

Source: Open Data Institute

OUR STORY BEGINS IN PORTLAND

FORMAT FOR TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL ELEMENTS

LAUNCH ON 7 DEC 2005

• Unprecedented downloads

• Hugely positive public response

• Developed GTFS and brought other agencies on board

• In two years ~20 cities opened their data in GTFS

Source: http://beyondtransparency.org/chapters/part-2/pioneering-open-data-standards-the-gtfs-story/

WITHIN 1 HOUR OF MASSACHUSETTS DOT OPENING

ITS DATA : REAL TIME BUS LOCATION

WITHIN 1 WEEK: COUNTDOWN WIDGET

WITHIN 5 WEEKS: IOS AND ANDROID APPS

WITHIN 7 WEEKS: REAL TIME DATA BY PHONE

596 AGENCIES HAVE ADOPTED GTFS, GTFS-RT

Source: transitfeeds.com as accessed on 2 April 2016

AND MANY HAVE GONE BEYOND BUS DATA

• Portland: bus, light rail, commuter rail, and street car

• London: tube, bus, coach, river, road traffic, Barclay’s cycle hire,

Oyster card journey information, and toilet data

• Massachusetts: bus, commuter rail, subway, ferry, bicycle, park and

ride lots, private bus carriers, roadway traffic and events, traffic

camera information, MV registry, MBTA data, Massachusetts Port

Authority data

• Manila: 98 datasets and crowd-sourced data for informal jeepneys

• Mexico City: subway, rapid transit, trolley bus, light rail lines,

suburban rail lines, formal city buses, informal minibuses, and public

bikes

Source: Transit agency websites

IS IT WORTH ALLOCATING RESOURCES TO?

“Due to the large proliferation of transit apps on mobile platforms,

the market is able to react quickly to changes and to fill gaps in service.

This is something that one

government IT department could not develop or support with the same level of

spontaneity and flexibility.”

McHugh, personal communication to Bibiana McHugh of TriMet, 2013

362 APPS FROM TFL FEEDS, 4 MN DOWNLOADS…

SAVING TFL UPTO £42M & COMMUTERS UPTO £58 M

Maps and apps of the Tube Trip planning apps across modes

80+ TOOLS OUT OF NYC FEEDS…

…IMPROVING 8.5MN PEOPLE’S COMMUTE IN 2013

CONSIDERATIONS

• Availability and format of data

• Privacy

• Available resources

• Internal capacity

WHERE ARE WE IN INDIA?

• Reactive data access: RTI Act

• Proactive data access: NDSAP

• data.gov.in

• Sikkim open data policy

CONTRIBUTION TO INNOVATION

$0.7 – 0.9 trillionof economic value through innovation and new business development

by open data in transport

Source: McKinsey

innovation@wri.org