Dive Brief:
- Tech companies like Google, Apple and Tesla have changed the mobility data landscape, according to participants on a panel about the intricacies of mobility data hosted by the MIT Mobility Initiative in May.
- Governments have the opportunity to use private sector data, in conjunction with their own data, to create better transportation outcomes, panelists said.
- Some panelists said the various entities collecting data can make it challenging to determine who owns the data.
Dive Insight:
As transportation and tech companies became increasingly intertwined over the past 20 years, private sector and open source data has exploded, Jinhua Zhao, professor of cities and transportation at MIT, said during the panel.
Zhao said determining who owns that data can be tricky. He presented an example of someone driving their Tesla down a section of I-90 funded by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation using Google Maps on their iPhone with Verizon Wireless service.
“In this case, who has a claim on my data?” Zhao said. “Who defines the property right of data?”
Even so, abundant data presents opportunities for transportation policymakers. Ralf-Peter Schäfer, vice president of product management traffic and travel information at mobility data company TomTom, said data can help reduce congestion and make roads safer. He cited an example in Tokyo, where a traffic light control company used TomTom data to optimize traffic signals and give guidance on speeds.
“We are in a revolution of traffic management and planning using data,” Schäfer said.
Paul Friedman, co-founder and CTO of transportation data company StreetLight Data, said his company ingests almost 15 billion raw GPS points per day — more than the 13.7 billion Google searches conducted per day. Some aspects of data collection could be improved, he added, pointing out that the quality of data collected for pedestrians and cyclists is worse than vehicle data collection in the United States.
“I think the biggest trend that I’m pleased to see is that the acceptance of using data to make decisions and to validate decisions has grown,” Friedman said.
