Community for Impact
Why is mobility data management essential to helping cities adapt to societal change?
Establish a Shared Vision
Create Use Cases
Draft a Manifesto for Data Sharing
Movin'On members
Contributing partners
Since April 2020, we have reached two important milestones. The first chapter, on access and governance, was published following a virtual workshop held during the Movin’On Digital Meetings in June 2020.
The discussion on responsible data then led to a second chapter, developed as part of the Entretiens Jacques Cartier in November 2020. This manifesto sets out possible courses of action for municipalities, to be implemented through projects on the ground. In addition, plans for developing the manifesto’s third chapter were announced at the Movin’On Summit in June 2021. They are based on a practical case involving coordinated access to curbside space, illustrating how cities are putting the principles for action into practice through experimentation.
The manifesto on mobility data sharing is the result of a continuous, collaborative and systemic approach involving a range of public, private and academic organisations. Its aim is to remain open and inspire other stakeholders, particularly local authorities. It also seeks to support the ongoing optimisation and management of mobility services and the use of their data, while meeting the requirements of sustainable, socially inclusive and environmentally responsible mobility.
Cities face the same challenges: new forms of urban mobility and data-related issues that are having a profound impact on local communities. An increasing number of private transport solutions are emerging, requiring new uses of public space—car-sharing, on-demand transport, electric scooters and more. These trends are fundamentally changing data management (how should cities, as custodians of the public good, share data?) and mobility policy (understanding a city’s needs and supply in order to develop an integrated, sustainable mobility plan).
After publishing Chapter 1 on access and governance and Chapter 2 on responsible data management, the Community for Impact is currently examining a practical case for Chapter 3, dedicated to the use of curbside space.
Boston, Montréal and the Métropole de Lyon consider data essential to planning transport, representing residents’ interests and improving sustainability and inclusion. Given their existing decentralised cooperation, collaborating internationally on mobility data was a natural step. Because data, sometimes sensitive, is often collected by different public and private stakeholders and operators, sharing it is not as straightforward as it might seem.
To strengthen both ties between stakeholders and the guidelines underpinning action, Boston, Montréal and the Métropole de Lyon joined forces to draft a manifesto establishing a framework for mobility data sharing while taking the common good into account.
The City of Montreal has drawn up a data charter to strengthen the transparency, accountability, flexibility and efficiency of its digital data management. We invite our partners and all stakeholders involved in Montreal’s economic, social and territorial development to follow these principles and commitments, reaffirming our relationship of trust with all members of the Montreal community. The guidelines in our charter are aligned with the principles of the manifesto. The data charter positions the city as the guardian of the common good, sets out and specifies the conditions for a successful governance framework—including on privacy issues—and paves the way for new methods to help citizens better understand data.
Montreal is seeking to encourage forms of transport other than private vehicles and has adopted a municipal bylaw to support the introduction of shared vehicles, which offer an alternative to public transport while reducing the number of cars. Operators are required to share the data the city needs to plan its transport services and urban spaces as effectively as possible. Implementing this bylaw is a direct application of principles 1 and 7 in the first chapter of the manifesto: positioning the city as the guardian of the public interest and putting users at the heart of service planning.
As part of “Montreal in Common”, the City of Montreal is supporting a range of projects with a shared objective: improving access to mobility data. As part of this initiative, Jalon is currently developing a mobility data platform. This platform will facilitate data sharing between the various stakeholders in our transport community, based on a specific set of rules. In addition, Fabmob is studying several data-sharing models. This mobility data platform is a direct application of several principles: 3) Agreeing on data-sharing arrangements, 4) Establishing rules for sharing data from private companies, 5) Implementing new partnerships and 6) Improving access to mobility data.
The City of Boston hosts an open-access data portal containing more than 165 datasets, most of them directly related to transport and mobility. The portal aims to promote transparent governance through open data, encourage members of the community to engage creatively with their city and provide them with a direct gateway for that engagement. Users can browse and download the data or access it via an API. The data portal is also governed by Boston’s protected and open data policy. The Analyze Boston portal is fully aligned with the principles and values set out in the collaborative manifesto, both in its purpose and in the standards applied to the data.
Boston is working with rideshare companies to make urban transit more accessible and improve Boston’s paratransit service, The RIDE.
The data exchanges required to turn these advances in accessibility into reality bring to the forefront issues raised in discussions with Montreal and Lyon, while shared values help establish the partnership between the public and private sectors.
Sensors have been installed on Boston’s streets to monitor car, bicycle and pedestrian traffic without using video, instead relying on digital techniques to detect and identify relevant elements.
Like the city, the private-sector partners involved in the project—including Numina—place a strong emphasis on privacy and appropriate data governance. Their motivation for the project and its implementation also provide a good example of applying the shared principles set out in the manifesto to strengthen partnerships and improve services.
Created in 2013 by the Lyon Metropolitan Area and redesigned in 2019, the data.grandlyon.com platform gives all stakeholders simple and effective access to hundreds of datasets from the Lyon region.
This data is particularly useful for addressing emerging uses and the services of tomorrow in mobility, the environment, civic participation, urban planning and culture. The platform currently contains 790 datasets from public and private partners and aims to facilitate access to data in support of economic and social development: enabling citizens to take ownership of data and local stakeholders to drive the development of new services.
Access and governance.
Responsible data management.
Data and use.
Putting it into practice.
