Cities have figured out a way to access private data in real time
The Mobility Data Specification provides an interesting example of data sharing and collaborative governance
In the previous post I explored some of the models that are emerging to enable the exchange of data between private and public actors. One of the areas where new privately generated data can be leveraged for better public outcomes is mobility. Urban mobility is a core responsibility of city governments, as well as a sector with booming innovation: ride-hailing, electric scooters, bike-sharing, last mile delivery, drones, or autonomous vehicles are already or about to inundate city streets (and air). Getting mobility right, whatever that means, is also key to increase equity (e.g., access to jobs and amenities) and sustainability (e.g., reducing pollution and moving things and people around in more energy efficient ways).
Those in charge of managing this complex issue are grappling with a question: how can we access all the newly generated data to better manage mobility in cities?
Their efforts to access the data from mobility operators have often faced resistance, so when shared scooter operators started to appear in cities, some city officials were not longer caught off guard. In 2018, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation moved in quickly and developed a set of standards for the data that these companies had to share with the department if they wanted to operate in the city. Shortly after, the administration of the standard, called the Mobility Data Specification (MDS), transitioned to the Open Mobility Foundation, and since then, more than 130 cities have started to use the MDS.
OK, but what is exactly the MDS?
It is an open-source standard that includes real-time (within 5 seconds) reporting through an API to track individual mobility vehicles/devices using a unique ID. The MDS includes vehicle type, event type (e.g., “scooter reserved”), reason for trip, trip time, locations of pick-up and drop-off, and percent remaining of the vehicle/device’s battery. (D’Agostino, Pellaton, and Brown, 2019)
The MDS therefore combines the standardization of the data with three APIs (Application Programming Interfaces[1]) through which the data exchange occurs. This exchange works both ways: mobility companies share data with the city (through the Provider API), and in turn, through the Policy and Agency APIs, the city communicates mobility rules and updates to mobility operators.
Accessing all this data about the scooter fleets in real time can be very useful for city administrations - if they have the capacities to process, analyze and make decisions on this data, of course. But what do mobility operators get out of this disclosure?
A priori, mobility operators have little incentives to participate in this data exchange. It makes it easier for cities to regulate them, and it also makes more difficult, or even impossible, to hoard and monopolize data by these companies, in theory one the key drivers of platform business models. Mobility operators may also be worried that, if the shared data is mishandled or leaked, they will lose competitive advantage or breach their privacy protection obligations.
In many cases, mobility operators must play along since data sharing through the MDS is a condition to get a permit to operate. But is this enough for them to be willing to open their data? On its website, the Open Mobility Foundation lays out some of the reasons why they may be willing to do so:
Establishing mutual trust and a frictionless working relationship between mobility providers and city officials is key to a sustainable future for mobility providers. MDS helps make that possible:
Streamlines communication between cities and mobility providers, making it easier to collaboratively solve problems with data or assets
Provides a single reporting standard, eliminating the need for redundant data formatting and processing
Helps providers scale by offering a platform and best practices that providers can offer to new city markets
Maybe. Maybe these benefits outweigh the costs and risks of sharing the data for mobility providers. Maybe they would be willing to share this data even if it was not mandated, or in smaller cities who have less negotiating power than LA. It is true that the way the standards are designed and managed by the Open Mobility Foundation creates a space for mobility operators to influence the standards that they are – or may be - mandated to use, and therefore is better than a world where they don’t have a say.
The Open Mobility Foundation is a non-profit organization funded through their members’ (a combination of cities and mobility companies) contributions and philanthropic support (by the Knight and Rockefeller Foundations). The design and development of standards is done via GitHub and by working groups that are open to the public, providing great transparency to the process. Decisions are first made in working groups, ideally by consensus, and then subsequently approved by a Steering Committee, the Technology Council, and ultimately the Board of Directors (made up of representatives of 13 city US governments). This governance model seems to ensure great inclusion, transparency, and the opportunity for different stakeholders to come together to define rules and standards that are mutually beneficial and can result in better mobility outcomes. As such, it is a great example of a collaborative governance mechanism for data exchange that may be replicated in other sectors.
And MDS is not just about shared scooters and bikes. The Open Mobility Foundation has already released some standards for the management of cities’ curbsides, and in the Architectural Landscape report published in April last year there is already talk of the future areas where similar standards could be developed: urban freight, autonomous vehicles, personal delivery or urban aerial devices.
Given its novelty, the research on MDS and the Open Mobility Foundation is still scarce. There are exceptions, however, such as the interesting Master thesis written by Emmet Z. McKinney at MIT, in which he studied MDS from an equity perspective, noting, among other things, the expert nature of working groups and the need for greater community involvement in the standard drafting process. There are many other questions that could be explored, such as the extent to which the standards are resulting in better mobility outcomes, whether the views and concerns of smaller cities with fewer capacities are being adequately integrated in the decision-making process or questions around how the politics of standardization may be influencing the workings of the Open Mobility Foundation.
There is a huge opportunity to use the new data that is being generated in cities to improve mobility, air quality, energy consumption and housing, but there are still many questions around how that data can be accessed, used, and shared. The experience of MDS and the governance setup of the Open Mobility Foundation may prove fertile ground for lessons and insights to make sense of a topic that will be key for cities in the near future.
[1] An API provides a direct connection between computers or between computer programs.