Open transport data on the European Data Portal
Publication Date/Time
2019-04-17T09:00:00+00:00
Country
Europe
Discover open transport data and its applications
TRANSPORT DATA

Open transport data is one of the European Data Portal's
[https://www.europeandataportal.eu/] (EDP) most frequently re-used
data domains and is one of the five thematic data domains
[/en/highlights/open-transport-data] that the European Commission
[https://ec.europa.eu/] (EC) has identified as highly impactful. These
five thematic data domains are datasets that the EC expects to have
the highest demand from re-users across the European Union. They
include geospatial data
[https://searchsqlserver.techtarget.com/definition/spatial-data],
earth observation data and environment
[http://www.eo-miners.eu/earth_observation/eo_introduction.htm],
transport data, statistics
[https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Statistical+data]
and company (or corporate) data
[https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/corporate-data]. This article
will focus on open transport data [/data/group/transport].

IMPACT OF OPEN TRANSPORT DATA

The EDP offers overs 7,600 datasets related to transport. For example
from Switzerland about bike sharing and bicycle hiring systems
[/data/dataset/https-opendata-swiss-dataset-22671ffb-65d5-417c-84f2-bdf1d7011f97]
throughout the country or from Italy showing the location of bicycle
sharing stations that have been installed and are planned in the
municipality of Matera, Italy [/data/dataset/bike-sharing]. In
addition, the portal also provides, for example, access to datasets
representing road work
[/data/dataset/http-data-gov-be-dataset-ngi-a9187022-0bf6-4e96-a787-25476d9f1173]
in Belgium, the winter traffic conditions for cars
[/data/dataset/conditions-de-circulation-hivernales]in France or
datasets about road construction
[/data/dataset/https-linkoping-entryscape-net-store-1-resource-8] in
Sweden.

These datasets are accessible via the EDP which is harvesting metadata
from national open data portals. The national open data portals
publish the data or harvest the data from different institutions
within their countries, such as federal, regional and local portals;
national, regional and local government bodies or research
institutions.

OPEN DATA USE CASES OF OPEN TRANSPORT DATA

The EDP has ninety examples of open data use cases that use open
transport data. For example, the platform _Saemes_ and the application
_Moovit_.

_Saemes [/en/news/saemes-french-platform-find-parking-spaces]_ is a
French platform [https://www.saemes.fr/en] that provides users with
real-time parking information in Paris. The service enables users to
find available parking and provides the best route to that location.
In selected parking areas, _Saemes_ allows users to reserve a parking
space to save time searching for available spots. The platform
collects data from different local authorities and institutions about
the different parking garages and car parks in the city of Paris.

_Moovit [/en/news/moovit-global-transport-application]_ is an
application that allows users to view public transportation options,
such as bus arrival times, maps and train schedules around the world.
The company [https://moovitapp.com/] originated in Israel and is an
early pioneer of Mobility as a Service
[https://ec.europa.eu/inea/en/horizon-2020/projects/h2020-transport/intelligent-transport-systems/maas4eu]
(MaaS) and aims to simplify urban mobility by making transportation
more efficient, accessible and sustainable. _Moovit_ collects data
from different modes of transport from countries around the world
including Europe. This data includes bus and train time schedules,
stops, and stations. The company collects up to four billion anonymous
data points every day that is then analysed to show users the best
travel options on _Moovit's_ application and website.

For more examples, look at the European Data Portal's
[https://www.europeandataportal.eu/en/] datasets
[/data/group/transport] and use cases
[/en/using-data/use-cases?title=&body_value=&field_country_value=All&field_region_value=All&field_sector_value=Transport&field_type_of_use_case_value=All]
from different European countries that exemplify the value of open
data and aim to address the current and future challenges in
transportation.
