Hero picture
Blog
news

Blog: Clarify Contractual Framework for Data Sharing in Public Transport to Unlock Sustainable Multi-Stakeholder Mobility Systems

26/07/2019
  • Asia-Pacific
  • Bike-sharing
  • Car-sharing
  • Data
  • Operators
  • Sustainability

Suddenly, sharing has become trendy.

We often hear of the ‘shared’ or ‘collaborative’ economy. The rise of transportation network companies (TNCs) like Uber and Grab, ofo and Zipcar, providing ridesharing, bikesharing, carsharingand their ever-increasing market capitalisation epitomises this transformation. We hear the companies promote ‘sharing’ as a social virtue, although there is the usual confoundment between the far more important sharing of space (or pooling) with the sharing of vehicle assets (linked to temporal utilisation). The sharing of data is placed on a pedestal, as tensions around the legitimacy of these operations continue to boil (Uber as a case in point in many markets). As a storm of media attention surrounds these companies, TNCs are claiming to share their data as an almost ‘truce’ with city regulators and authorities. Is this sharing just a veil? And more fundamentally, why should these companies have any obligation to share their data? Why does society expect companies who compete commercially, with their entire business models predicated on collecting, mining and selling users’ data be expected to share their ‘golden goose’?

We often make the comparison with urban public transport where the state maintains control as the principal source of knowledge about travel patterns on the network. In most developed countries, governments either directly operate services or they are provided by the private sector under contract to the government, through a tender process, negotiation, or by direct award. This occurs under a gross cost contract model where government collects the fare revenue and operators are reimbursed on a per kilometre basis, or a net cost model with some element of revenue risk. In either case, the private operators are in effect an ‘extended’ public servant with a protected area monopoly for a defined period of time. The sharing of data is a given in contracted environments where it is stipulated as part of an agreement, and the data essential to determining the remuneration of the operator and to implement actionable benchmarking, including the administration of incentives and penalties linked to operator performance.

TNCs operating in an economically deregulated market have far less necessity to share data since they are not being directly remunerated by the government. Economic deregulation offers many advantages linked to cost efficiency but also externalities like network effectiveness and the traditional difficulty to regulate.

Figure 1: Manchester’s Oxford Rd, hailed as the busiest bus corridor in Europe, is an oft-cited example of the so-called ‘bus wars’ which accompanied economic deregulation in the bus sector.

This aspect of the whole debate in how data sharing fits within the broader contractual framework, regulatory and institutional settings is often neglected amidst the dogma associated with the ‘open data’ movement and the need to regulate disruptive new technologies and business models. In studying data sharing issues, it is therefore instructive to consider where the contractual environment might head in the future.

Figure 1: Manchester’s Oxford Rd
To go further
The blog articles are the writers' opinions and do not necessarily represent UITP perspective or view.
Access
exclusive resources
This website uses cookies

This website uses third-party website tracking technologies to give you the best experience, help us understand and continually improve how the site works, and to display advertisements according to users' interests. You consent to the use of our cookies by continuing to browse this website.

Cookies page
  • Essentials Essentials

    Those cookies are essentials to the functioning of the site and cannot be disabled in our systems. They are generally set as a response to actions you take that constitute a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in, or filling out forms. You can set your browser to block or be notified of these cookies, but some parts of the website may be affected. These cookies do not store any personally identifying information.

    cloudflare

    Cloudflare uses various cookies to maximize network resources, manage traffic, and protect our customers’ sites from malicious traffic.

    epic-cookie-prefs

    Cookie that remembers the user’s cookie settings preferences. It allows to avoid asking the user about their preferences each time they visit the website.

  • Performance

    This Google Analytics cookie is used to persist session state. Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic anonymously.

    _ga

    This Google Analytics cookie is created when you first visit our site. It contains the version of Google Analytics, a randomly generated ID and a datetime group of your first visit. Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic anonymously.

    _ga_(STREAM ID)

    This Google Analytics cookie is used to persist session state. Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic anonymously.

This website uses cookies

We use cookies and similar techonologies to adjust your preferences, analyze traffic and measure the effectiveness of campaigns. You consent to the use of our cookies by continuing to browse this website.