The UK government has launched a new strategy that it hopes will improve the availability, quality, and accuracy of transport data.
The Transport Data Strategy will seek to support digital developments such as apps to make it easier to plan journeys with multiple modes of transit.
The government says better use of transportation data use can improve interconnectivity between different types of transport, support the development of journey-planning apps, and improve their accuracy, ultimately helping to make it easier for people to use and plan journeys.
Data can also help unlock additional benefits, it says, such as new products and services for customers, while supporting employment opportunities in the sector.
The Transport Data Strategy focuses on five ambitions:
- Improving data sharing to benefit travellers
- Promoting data standards
- Improving data skills in the workforce
- Ensuring appropriate governance and communication with the sector
- Providing leadership and support for the sector
Transport Technology Minister Jesse Norman said: “Better use of transport data will help to improve journeys for travellers, tackle climate change, and grow the economy.
“The Transport Data Strategy sets out the government’s vision in this area, creating the right framework for the market to innovate and transport users to benefit.”
As part of the strategy, the government is launching the ‘Find Transport Data’ pilot, a data catalogue that aims to make it easier for the likes of innovators and researchers to find transport data, and ultimately deliver efficiencies and help improve services for customers.
The strategy also considers data ethics to help guide the sector to ensure data is used appropriately and responsibly.
‘Greater quality’ of data
Chris Lane, head of Transport Innovation at Transport for West Midlands (TfWM), said: “TfWM welcomes the Transport Data Strategy’s goal of greater quality and use of transport data.
“We want to see journeys for everyone becoming so convenient, seamless, and trusted, that users will often give up driving their personal vehicles, not because they have to, but because the alternative is better for them and the environment.
“A critical factor in achieving this is the customer receiving appropriate, accurate, and timely information and having trust in the provider as they make their travel decisions.”
Along with the strategy, the government aims to publish a number of data sets and tools in a bid to help kickstart better data use in the sector.
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