#In-Depth |Road to Data-based Mobility Governance
By Snehil Singh
“Technology and data have offered cities an opportunity to thrive, and it’s critical that we embrace these benefits.”
The world today is dominated by the digital economy ignited by the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). The digital economy has the potential to unlock 60–65 million jobs in India by 2025. A major outcome of 4IR has been the generation of large amounts of data, often referred to as big data. Today, big data is ubiquitous, giving rise to a data revolution and the data-driven economy.
Defining Data-Driven Economy
There’s no single commonly accepted definition for a data-driven economy. However, it broadly refers to an ecosystem wherein production, distribution and consumption of data from digital products and services are used to innovate and derive new economic opportunities.
Is Mobility a contributor to the Data-Driven Economy?
One of the most visible implications of this can be seen in how people and goods move around the planet. New age mobility in the form of autonomous, connected, electric and shared (ACES) is one of the most prominent users and generators of data. The growth of new business models like Mobility as a Service(MaaS) has led to the generation of mobility data in the form of travel patterns, infrastructure-related information, traffic data, route performance etc.
Digital mobility platforms such as Ola, Grab or Lyft provide a variety of transportation services with a single touch on smartphones. For example: Ola’s ‘Guardian’ feature uses real-time data from rides to automatically detect irregular trip activity, including prolonged stops and unexpected route deviations that are flagged off in real-time to ensure safety of both the driver and passenger. Travel from various modes of transportation such railways, city-buses and metros also involve collection of data through ticketing. Many of us already use these services and contribute to mobility data. Travel from various modes of transportation also add to this pool of data like ticketing for railways, city bus, metros and delivery services. With the imminent future of mobility and development of smart cities set to be shaped by AI and machine learning, increased adoption of digital services is expected to make data even more valuable.
“The mobility sector is therefore a key driver of the data-driven economy. Hence, it is important to understand the various possibilities of using mobility data for governance.”
Data-Driven Governance
The need for data-based policy making has been recognised for years now. From preventing life-threatening illnesses to using traffic data to design more efficient transport infrastructure, governments across the globe are harnessing data for public good. Government administration is starting to recognize the benefits of using mobility data to shape dynamic and responsive transport management.
Global Cities such as London and Helsinki have championed the use of open transit data. Transport for London (TfL) provides open access to information such as maps, congestion updates, estimated journey times and closures across modes of transport. This is open to commuters to plan their journeys as well as developers, who are free to create navigation apps and other digital aids like CityMapper. Similarly, the Helsinki government provides its own web and mobile-based route planning tool and app to provide commuters better travel choices.
In India too, the central government’s Open Government Data (OGD) platform publishes datasets across sectors for free public use, under the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy. Ever since the introduction of the policy in 2012, states such as Sikkim, Kerala, Odisha, Telangana and cities such as Surat have launched their open data platforms. Utilising this data, developers have developed 23 mobile apps as of 2018.
With the implementation of the ‘Smart Cities Mission’, cities now rely on providing actionable intelligence on city governance by deploying data from connected infrastructure. During the pandemic, Bengaluru Smart City has been leveraging its centralised city centre for GIS mapping of covid-19 positive cases, predictive analytics for virus containment across different zones of the city and real-time tracking of ambulances and disinfection services in the city.
Data Partnerships for Mobility Governance
Mobility data is often exchanged between governments and private or non-profit organisations to shape dynamic and responsive transport management systems. The new public-private arrangements in the mobility sector, like the World Bank Open Transport Partnership covering 30 countries with leading ride hailing companies such as Grab, makes data available for policymakers. The ride-hailing giant DiDi Chuxing combines anonymized and aggregated public and ride-share transportation data with more than 20 city governments in China, helping reduce congestion by 10 to 20% on average.
Greater connectivity in mobility, coupled with the generation of data, is enabling Indian governments to collaborate with private organisations too. For example, the Ola City Sense program utilises Ola’s cab ride data to enable the city administration in Hyderabad to undertake repairs and for monitoring of potholes on major roads, enabling them to develop efficient transport networks.
Maharashtra’s transport departments have partnered with Ridlr, a public transport management and electronic ticketing app. It collaborates with agencies to analyse information on public transport services including traffic updates, schedules and builds tools which help them fetch meaningful information and maintain data. It allows both commuters and the government to know the real-time GPS position of the bus on a map. Similarly, MapmyIndia, a navigation and telematics company, provides real-time live maps, live traffic, location- based demographics and socio-economic data to central and state governments.
Such partnerships are enabling data-based governance in the form of managing traffic, improving road infrastructure, enabling smart parking systems, public transit schedule management, and dynamic routing in real time in the attempt to make mobility safe and efficient.
The Road Ahead
The unprecedented disruption caused by COVID-19 has underlined the importance of technology for building resilience and connectivity. New age mobility is a great enabler to ensure this shift through the use of intelligent transport services and AI- based technologies such as multimodal digital ticketing, crowd and congestion management etc.
“Therefore, the need of the hour is a prudent data governance structure based on multi-stakeholder platforms (i.e. involving businesses, non-profits and government agencies).”
The current draft Data Protection Bill that looks to answer aspects of data governance in India still remains under legal debate, given the risk involved in sharing data by private players and concerns around privacy, confidentiality and misuse of data for commercial purposes. However, to build sustainable and liveable cities in the digital age, appropriate standards and protocols for data collection, quality checks and management is imperative. In parallel, it is crucial to build the capacity of the city and regional administrators to help develop reliable and adequate tools for data sharing, process data, and overall, adopt a data-driven approach to mobility governance.
In-Depth is a fortnightly blog series by OMI on the latest mobility-related developments.
