James Wong - Open data in transport, St.Petersburg

OPEN DATA IN TRANSPORTBenefits, Risks and Case Studies

Presented by:

James Wong, AICP, Consultant

Vitaly Vlasov, Consultant

Oleg Petrov, World Bank

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Agenda• Open Data in Transport• Case Studies from Global Cities• Implementation• Closing Thoughts

Open Data in Transport

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OPEN DATA IN TRANSPORTATION


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Transportation Data• Traditional sources

• GIS base-layers• Traffic counts• Transit vehicle locations• Toll and Fare-gate counts

• New technology provides new data• On-street and garage parking

space occupancy• Bike-share station activity• Crowd-sourced incident alerts• Trip records for public/shared

transport (taxi, bike-share etc)


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Open Data

1. Availability and Access• Data is available in the common and convenient format• Data is free or for a fee tied to distribution costs

2. Reuse and Redistribution• Allows for reuse and mixing with other datasets

3. Universal participation• Civic and for-profit purposes are treated equally

Adapted from the Open Data Handbook (http://opendatahandbook.org)


http://opendatahandbook.org/

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Examples of Open Transport Data• Transit

• Maps and schedules (GTFS)• Stop and station locations• Real-time vehicle locations

• Traffic/Roads• Road crashes• Roadway features/classifications

• Walking• Sidewalk inventory• Wheelchair accessible ramps/sidewalks

• Cycling• Bike facilities and preferred routes• Location of bike share stations


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Why should data be made open?


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“Government as a Platform”• Agencies should focus on core competencies and direct

services offered.

• In doing so, certain data and information will be generated

• By releasing that data and information to the public, agencies provide necessary ingredients for public innovation

• Civic hackers serve the same traveling public served by you

• What is the least amount of effort needed by government to enable others to build on your services?


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What can open transport data lead to?• Public-facing transport applications like journey planners,

real-time travel information

• Transport planning and analysis applications

• Technology to support new modes of transport (carshare, bikeshare, dynamic dispatch, etc.)

• Third party involvement in transport information provision

• Freedom from proprietary data management systems and services

• Informal planning coordination among public agencies

Adapted with permission from Conveyal and ITP


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Benefits• Positive image for agencies

• New services for customers with no agency expense

• Improved customer experience

• Better accessibility for various disabilities (hearing and visual impairments)

• Better informed traveler decisions can reduce congestion and improve safety (avoiding busy highways)


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Open Data promotes innovation with low effort

Data HubAgency responds to

individual, custom requests by developer

All developers can access open GTFS

Agency produces GTFS and

opens it once.

Small subset of riders find this specific tool useful.

Many riders access a diverse market of tools powered by GTFS.

Too burdensome; some developers never participate


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Developer-Agency Relationship

Travelers

Citizens

People thinking about riding transit

Developers


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Developer-Agency Relationship

AgenciesDevelopers

Travelers

Citizens

People thinking about riding transit


Open Data in Transport 14

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Quantitative Results:Infrastructure Planning and Management• Moscow, Russia - 2012

• open data about commuter patterns helped officials choose to reroute 100 bus routes in order to avoid ~$1 billion in infrastructure capacity expansion and replacement costs.

• New Jersey, United States – 2012• Passenger flow data released to public, analyzed by third parties to

identify under-utilized stations. These were the basis for new express service

Adapted from Open Data: Unlcking innovation and performance with liquid information. McKinsey Global Institute, 2013


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Quantitative Results:Optimized fleet investment/management• California and Texas, United States – 2008

• Public budgeting with line-item information allowed citizens to identify areas that needed scrutiny including underutilized fleet vehicle purchases, leading to 15% fleet reduction

• Open data used by other public agencies for benchmarking on vehicle spending usage, allowing for 5% savings in vehicle purchasing budget


• European Potential• Some 20% of truck trips are empty throughout

Europe (public and private enterprise). With open data, new opportunities arise for better matching empty trucks to demand for better utilization.


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Quantitative Results:Better informed customer decision making• Duluth, United States - 2008

• 12% increase in transit ridership after implementing trip planning and real-time tracking through Google Transit project

• Price transparency for better mode decisions• Savings in the US of up to $2,500/year for individuals using transit



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Risk Potential and Remedies• Incorrect information published

• Using live data feeds allows for corrections made at the source to cascade to active data users.

• Maintain mailing lists/contact forums for data users

• Data becomes out-of-date• Set expiration dates on data and plan to take down information• Old data may be worse than no data at all if it gives wrong

information

• Errors by developers are perceived as agency errors• Include disclaimers and consider restrictions on naming

conventions to avoid confusion with agencies


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EXAMPLES AND EXPERIENCES IN PEER GLOBAL CITIES


Bikeshare Data

Developer Community Activity –• station locators• empty station predictor• analysis of travel time benefits• new modes in trip planners

Example Cities:• New York, USA• London, UK• Washington, DC

20Open Data in Transport

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Traffic and Bicycle Counts

WayCount - Private company sells devices, all data generated is shared to a public traffic count map for shared use.


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City-Sponsored App Challenges

App Challenges allow civic hackers to apply their developer skills using open data, often to address urban problems proposed by agencies.

London

NYC


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Fast Pace of Local InnovationBoston, USA

Agency Releases Real Time Data

Google Maps implementation

Desktop Widget

Additional websites

Countdown Sign

iPhone app

IVR Service

SMS Service

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Weeks After Opening Data

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Open Data as a Transport Investment London, UK

• ~500 Applications(mobile, web, others)

• ~5000 people involved in “app industry”

• As a transport project alone, evaluated by usual economic criteria:ROI = 58:1

• TfL have stopped making their own apps

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Adapted with permission from Andrew Stott (@DirDigEng)


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Efforts throughout Russian Federation

Russian Federation Presidential Decree № 601 of 7 May 2012 Government of the Russian Federation was directed to ensure the availability of access through the Internet to open data placed in the governmental information systems.

The short-term impact included a regulatory framework to require open data policies be implemented.

75% of agencies publishing some kind of open data through their websites. Some very little.

Transport and roads data is in high demand!


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IMPLEMENTATION


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Resources required for open data intiatives

• Immediate• Resources for setting up a data section on websites• Staff time to identify “easy” data for sharing• Staff champions for effort and motivation throughout agency

• Medium Term• Staff-time for data conversion/uploads and developer engagement• Outreach costs and prizes

• Long Run• Connected systems for automatic updates• Ongoing staff time for maintenance and expansion


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Easiest and cheapest method• Open by Default

• Mentality that data should be public UNLESS there is a compelling privacy or security concern to keep it internal.

• New systems are established with a data output/publishing function

Sunlight Foundation: http://sunlightfoundation.com/opendataguidelines/


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World Bank Case: Mexico City Crowdsourced Data Generation• Example of Open by Default

• Implementing use of transit data collection/management tool that conforms to common standards (GTFS)

• Developing tools to capture and communicate disruptions in public transport service

• Test and pursue new data standards to better represent informal transit services.


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Closing Remarks• Opening data can enable others’ innovation based on existing

services and information

• Benefits of open data accrue to • Travelers - have more services available)• Agencies – free app/service development and better collaboration• Public – improved transparency and activism

• Global cities are now leading the way in the open data movement

• Implementation steps are now documented for easy deployment – help available through World Bank


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THANK YOU

Comments, Questions?

James Wong, Consultant [email protected]

Vitaly Vlasov, Consultant [email protected] Petrov, World Bank [email protected]


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World Bank – East & Southeast Asia

Case studies and support available for:

• Data creation and management• App competitions• Real-Time congestion maps• Roas-safety management• Crowd-sourced data creation• Open street map contributions
