Open Data for Intelligent Mobility (DE0007)

Description: Making available the data of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI), linking them with third-party data and funding data-related application development will create an ecosystem for intelligent mobility. Aim: The BMVI wants to create and specifically promote a culture of transparency and responsiveness as well as creative solutions for issues of transport policy. The ministry seeks to achieve this through the mFUND funding programme for mobility and transport infrastructure and by connecting relevant stakeholders. To this end, it is necessary and planned to involve the ministry’s executive agencies in a coordinated manner. Technical and organizational framework conditions are to be created. Status quo: Public administration data (in particular mobility data) are not yet sufficiently made public and accessible to businesses, civil society, researchers or even to public administration; potential for innovation lies unused. The mFUND research initiative is intended to remedy this situation by generating more open mobility data and use cases for these data. Ambition: An ecosystem of mobility data and innovations for intermodal transport and mobility of the future will be established. The desired outcomes rely on active involvement of users in the BMVI’s open data project. This is based on three principles: information about users; open data services tailored to the users’ needs; and promoting co-creation with users. New or ongoing: ongoing Implemented by: Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure Organizations involved in implementation: BMVI executive agencies; industry (SME and startups), research community, civil society Organizational unit and contact: Division DG25, ref-dg25@bmvi.bund.de Open government values addressed: Participation, transparency, technology/innovation Relevance: The commitment creates transparency for the open (government) data (in particular mobility data) of the ministry and its 15 executive agencies, promotes the goals of the Open Government Partnership and supports technological innovation.

7. Open Data for Intelligent Mobility

Language of the commitment as it appears in the action plan:

“Making available the data of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI), linking them with third-party data and funding data-related application development will create an ecosystem for intelligent mobility.”

Milestones:

7.1 Applying the mFUND programme

7.2 Connecting the various stakeholders through events and innovation competitions:

• networking meetings
• BMVI Data Run (hackathon)
• Startup pitch
• dialogue with civil society (e.g. 2017 Data Summit)
• Contest Deutscher Mobilitätspreis (German Mobility Award)

7.3 Adding the technical component “user dialogue” to the open data portal mCLOUD

7.4 Adding more data to the open data portal mCLOUD

7.5 Connecting mCLOUD to the federal GovData portal

7.6 Integrating open data approaches in the ministry’s laws (e.g. for the spatial data offered by the German Meteorological Service (DWD); amending the DWD Act)

7.7 Involving the public in developing noise maps for the rail infrastructure

Start Date: July 2017

End Date: June 2019

Context and Objectives

Within the field of open data in Germany, the development of innovative, data-driven mobility solutions has been earmarked for the largest amount of government funding. [29] For example, 20 percent of funded projects under the EUR 150 million mFUND initiative, the federal government’s main funding program to support future mobility innovations, directly relate to the provision of open data, while many others support the broader open data ecosystem. [30]

According to the action plan, the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure “wants to create and specifically promote a culture of transparency and responsiveness as well as creative solutions for issues of transport policy.” The ministry is the coordinating commitment implementer.

Milestones 7.4, 7.5, and 7.6 in particular make this commitment relevant for transparency. They aim to expand open data availability related to mobility issues (7.4) and link the main government data portals on mobility (mCLOUD) and administrative information (GovData). The milestones also seek to strengthen the legislative basis for further opening up related datasets, such as official weather data and statistics (7.6). The mFUND funding program referenced in Milestone 7.1 also aims to support data initiatives that embrace an ecosystem approach and practices of co-creation. That milestone makes this commitment relevant for technology and innovation. The milestones’ activities also speak to the value of civic participation. Milestone 7.2 outlines networking and stakeholder dialogue activities. Milestone 7.3 calls for designing a more interactive interface for the mCLOUD data portal, and Milestone 7.7 involves the public in mapping the noise footprint of the railway network.

The milestones are verifiable, yet some (7.4, 7.7) need more specificity. The range of different yet complementary initiatives closely aligns with the envisaged ecosystem development. These activities include creating the necessary legal foundation (7.6), providing seed funding (7.2), networking stakeholders (7.2), populating the data repository (7.7), and conducting trials of collaborative data production efforts (7.7).

The linkage to data held by the private sector constitutes a promising innovation in the commitment. [31] Linking this data could be a first step toward creating a data collaborative to stand as a promising model for more equitable and problem-centric data sharing templates fbeyond the transport policy area. [32] The mCLOUD portal already actively invites business and other nongovernmental data holders to add links to their data. [33] With this multi-level approach to fostering an entire open data ecosystem and the gradual move toward a data collaborative model, this commitment could serve as a lighthouse project and have a transformational impact on opening government.

Next steps

The IRM researcher recommends that future commitments in this area:

• consider more strongly the co-creation potential and the targeted inclusion of civil society stakeholders in the networking mechanisms—for example, consider groups from the alternative mobility, environmental, and data justice spheres;
• explore mechanisms and incentives to open and interlink mobility data across levels of government, from federal to state to local; and
• explore desirability and ability regarding implementation of public-private data trusts in this area, particularly regarding the importance of training data for autonomous vehicle; data rights; privacy and competition considerations; and sharing obligations in the context of data capture by ride-hailing and ride-sharing, public transport providers, and original equipment manufacturers in the automotive sector. [34]

[29] Interview with civil society representative; view confirmed by scan of 2019 budget allocations to open data issues.

[30] Of the 133 project entries on the mFUND portal, 28 are tagged for the open data portal (https://www.bmvi.de/DE/Themen/Digitales/mFund/Projekte/mfund-projekte.html).

[31] Included in the narrative for this commitment in the mid-term self-assessment report, issued by the federal government in November 2018 (https://www.verwaltung-innovativ.de/SharedDocs/Publikationen/Internationales/Zwischenbericht_OGP_engl_Fassung.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2).

[32] See Stefaan Verhulst, "Corporate Social Responsibility for a Data Age," Stanford Social Innovation Review, 15 February 2017, https://ssir.org/articles/entry/corporate_social_responsibility_for_a_data_age.

[33] “FAQ,” mCLOUD, https://www.mcloud.de/web/guest/faq.

[34] Some of these related issues have, for example, been flagged in the following two recent parliamentary inquiries: Deutscher Bundestag, Standards und Rahmenbedingungen bei Fahrzeugdaten für die Mobilität des 21. Jahrhunderts [Standards and Framework Conditions for Vehicle Data for 21st Century Mobility], Antwort der Bundesregierung auf die Kleine Anfrage 19/6736, Drucksache 19/7312 (2019); Deutscher Bundestag, Open Data Bus und Bahn—Bedeutung der Richtlinie über die Weiterverwendung, von Informationen des Öffentlichen Sektors (PSI-Richtlinie) für den Öffentlichen Personennahverkehr, Antwort der Bundesregierung auf die Kleine Anfrage 19/6966, Drucksache 19/7498 (2019).

✪7. Open Data for Intelligent Mobility

Language of the commitment as it appears in the action plan:

“Making available the data of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI), linking them with third-party data and funding data-related application development will create an ecosystem for intelligent mobility.”

Milestones:

7.1 Applying the mFUND programme

7.2 Connecting the various stakeholders through events and innovation competitions:

• networking meetings
• BMVI Data Run (hackathon)
• Startup pitch
• dialogue with civil society (e.g. 2017 Data Summit)
• Contest Deutscher Mobilitätspreis (German Mobility Award)

7.3 Adding the technical component “user dialogue” to the open data portal mCLOUD

7.4 Adding more data to the open data portal mCLOUD

7.5 Connecting mCLOUD to the federal GovData portal

7.6 Integrating open data approaches in the ministry’s laws (e.g. for the spatial data offered by the German Meteorological Service (DWD); amending the DWD Act)

7.7 Involving the public in developing noise maps for the rail infrastructure

Start Date: July 2017

End Date: June 2019

Editorial note: This commitment is clearly relevant to OGP values as written, has transformative potential impact, and is substantially or completely implemented and therefore qualifies as a starred commitment.

This commitment aimed to enhance the open data ecosystem in Germany’s mobility sector. The activities included accelerating the publication of government-held datasets, supporting the networking and data exchange among all stakeholders, and funding data use and application development. Due to the scale of resources available for activities under this commitment and the strategic incorporation of complementary activities, this commitment was assessed as potentially transformative in the IRM Design Report.

All milestones under this commitment were completed. The mFUND initiative was carried out (milestone 7.1). The implemented networking activities (milestone 7.2) cover a variety of formats and are documented to facilitate post-event dissemination of ideas or collaboration options. [48] The envisaged addition of a user-dialogue functionality for the open data portal (milestone 7.3) has only been implemented as a contact form through which questions can be forwarded to the portal operators. Connecting the transport data portal with the main governmental open data portal (GovData.de) (milestone 7.5) was finalized with a substantive delay. Evidence also exists for the inclusion of open data requirements in legislative amendments (milestone 7.6). For example, the Federal Trunk Road Toll act was amended in 2018 to make available anonymized toll payment data in the mCLOUD platform. [49]

The public participation activities under milestone 7.7 are comprehensively documented in the resulting noise action plan. [50] The plan includes a highly detailed description of a significant set of outreach measures undertaken to mobilize engagement. It also includes a feedback survey on the participation process itself that sets an example for user-centricity and learning. More than 5,000 submissions were received in this consultation round, facilitated by an online platform and amplified by more than 200 media reports covering the consultation. [51]

Overall, this commitment has led to major improvements in opening data in Germany’s mobility sector, with a potential to achieve even more improvements in future expansions of the mCLOUD and mFUND initiatives. Early results from implementing the milestones are tangible. The data stock on the mCLOUD platform (milestone 7.4), for example, has risen from 600 datasets in July 2017 to more than 1,500 researchable datasets in 10/2019, including 870 open datasets from the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure. [52] This involves, for example, new datasets from communal public transport providers or the integration of Germany’s marine data inventory MDI-DE. [53] 63 percent of surveyed entrepreneurs that are funded through the mFUND program rate the data quality of these external data sources as high. However, less than half of respondents rate data accessibility as good or very good, and only 34 percent are satisfied with the accompanying data documentation. [54] Also noteworthy is the direct engagement of civil society during the implementation process, including judging the outcomes of a hackathon, contributing to the organization of a data summit, and providing input for a usability assessment of the mCLOUD platform. [55]

[48] Documentation of the most recent hackathon (BMVI Data-Run, March 2019), https://www.bmvi.de/SharedDocs/DE/Artikel/DG/mfund-vierter-bmvi-data-run.html

[49] See http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bfstrmg/BJNR137810011.html section 9 (7)

[50] Eisenbahn Bundesamt (2018), Laermaktionsplan Teil B, https://www.eba.bund.de/download/LAP_TEIL_B_2018.pdf

[51] Ibid, p 10. The survey shows that 43 percent of contributors were satisfied with the engagement process, suggesting room for improvement in future exercises.

[52] Government implementation report verified through mCLOUD search.

[53] Reply by responsible ministerial department to emailed questionnaire, received via point of contact to OGP, 17 December 2019.

[54] iRights.Lab. 2019, Data-Governance-Report. mFUND Begleitforschung, May 2019, vol. 3.

[55] Reply by responsible ministerial department to emailed questionnaire, received via point of contact to OGP on 17 December 2019.