In order to accelerate the transition towards more sustainable and smarter mobility, it is essential to unlock the potential of mobility data. Creating a common European data space for mobility will facilitate access, pooling, and sharing of mobility and transport data.
- EIT Urban Mobility and Telpark recently held the Mobility DataSpaces event on data sharing in the mobility sector.
- The event presented the bases of the study on the data sharing ecosystem in Spain, conducted by EIT Urban Mobility, i2Cat and FACTUAL.
- The event was attended by Rocío Báguena, director of the Transport Research and Technology Division of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (MITMA).
Madrid, 11 October 2022 – EIT Urban Mobility, an initiative of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union, in collaboration with Telpark, a leading company in the field of parking services and regulated and mobile payment parking in our country, held the first edition of Mobility DataSpaces today.
An event geared to addressing the challenges presented by data sharing in the mobility sector at the national level. To this end, the participants presented the study on “The data sharing ecosystem in Spain” and the potential of such data in the urban mobility sector, conducted by EIT Urban Mobility, i2Cat and FACTUAL.
Mobility DataSpaces Event
The opening speeches of the event were delivered by Javier Galvis, Data Science and Insight Analytics Leader at Telpark, and Daniel Serra, Ecosystem and Stakeholder Director at EIT Urban Mobility. Furthermore, the first part of the meeting was hosted by Rocío Báguena, director of the Transport Studies and Technology Division of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (MITMA), whose speech emphasised “the role of public administrations in the sharing of mobility data, and in particular the efforts of MITMA with regard to open data, through different initiatives designed to promote transparency and citizen participation, and to enhance the data economy through the generation of new services and business models.
Following this presentation by the Ministry, Josep Laborda, CEO of FACTUAL, and Rizkallah Touma, Distributed Artificial Intelligence Expert at the i2CAT Foundation, presented the data from the study they prepared on the ecosystem and the potential for data sharing in Spain, and on Data Spaces in the urban mobility sector. In this regard, Touma stressed that “data spaces facilitate the sharing of data among the different players in mobility value chains, such as Public Administrations, public transport operators, MaaS providers and third-party services. These new environments of trust, security, and sovereignty are a key basis on which to promote a data-based economy in Spain, providing not only technical solutions, but also creating new business and service models”.
In turn, Laborda pointed out that “Mobility DataSpaces will provide a technical framework to promote the use of data in an interoperable and federated environment, thereby creating value by promoting the development of data-based applications and services. Data providers will be able to specify and control the conditions in which their data can be used by third parties, creating both data sovereignty and trust, where users can be sure of the origin and quality of the data in question”.
Finally, the event ended with a round table moderated by Javier Galvis and Daniel Serra. In this regard, Serra highlighted the importance of “promoting and consolidating data sharing mechanisms designed to ensure a controlled chain of custody, as this is key to generating and consolidating relationships of trust among all the players in the mobility value chain”. In addition, Galvis stressed that “data, as an enabler and trigger for innovation and transformation, has all the potential to become one of an organisation´s most important assets. Incorporating external data enables us to multiply and unlock much of this potential and, as a result, especially in an industry such as mobility and for companies like Telpark, gives rise to benefits that go beyond the organisation itself and have an impact on the entire industry, the state and society in general. This is where the importance of promoting mobility data spaces lies”.
The study about Mobility DataSpaces that EIT Urban Mobility is developing in collaboration with i2Cat and FACTUAL will be presented during the Tomorrow.Mobility World Congress event. (DataSpaces Session. Innovation Zone. Tuesday 15 November 2022)
About the European Mobility DataSpaces
The European Green Deal places a specific responsibility on the transport sector, accounting for a quarter of the Union’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050. The Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy (2020) of the European Commission emphasises that using digitalisation and enhancing data in all modes of transport, including passenger and freight, is essential to decarbonising transport and making it safer, more efficient and accessible.
The strategy for data focuses on putting people first in developing technology, and defending and promoting European values and rights in the digital world. The European data strategy aims to create a single data market that will ensure Europe’s global competitiveness and data sovereignty. Common European data spaces will ensure that more data becomes available for use in the economy and society while keeping the companies and individuals who generate the data in control (1). It is essential to unlock the potential of mobility and transport data to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable and smarter mobility system while also offering valuable insights to policymakers.
(1) https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/strategy-data
