Local authority transport: understand data sharing
Provides an introduction to data sharing, explaining why local authorities should share transport data and what open data means.
Local authorities should consider aligning with the government and operating an ‘open by default’ data policy.
In 2012, the government published an open data white paper, setting out a vision to maximise the benefits of sharing data. This led to the government promoting a policy of open by default for public sector data, across all departments.
The Department for Transport (DfT) supports open data.
It has demonstrated the value of sharing transport data to monitor the impacts of coronavirus (COVID-19) and travel restrictions. Data sharing is also essential for the Future of Transport (FoT) agenda.
What open data means
Open data means data that anyone can freely access, use, modify or share for any purpose.
Open data should be:
- accessible
- discoverable
- machine-readable
- reusable
- shareable
Why you should share your transport data
To bring operational efficiencies
Open data can improve efficiency by reducing duplication within a local authority. one.network is a tool used by more than 98% of UK road authorities to manage lane closures and works. It estimates that for each local authority staff member adding data to the platform, up to 20 staff members access that data.
Many local authorities have saved money on traffic surveys and sensors by better sharing of data they already have.
The Open Data Handbook also reports that a senior UK government official saved £4 million when finding the data they wanted to buy already existed as open data.
To improve accountability and transparency
Sharing data increases awareness of how decisions have been made. This improves levels of confidence and trust. Raising awareness of the data you are using to help with your decision-making is good for residents.
To improve collaboration
Open data supports collaboration with neighbouring authorities and other public sector bodies.
Local authorities often have little to no understanding of their neighbouring authorities’ operations. This can create difficulties, for example, when planning roadworks or setting up a diversion near a local authority boundary.
Opening up and sharing data can foster closer connections with stakeholders. For example, by sharing speed data Transport for Greater Manchester has been able to help identify speeding hotspots.
Local authorities share data with their sub-national transport bodies (STBs) to increase understanding of transport issues in the region. This can help them to prioritise investments and submit bids to the government for funding.
To make savings and generate revenue
Sharing data could help a local authority make savings and generate revenue.
For example, there could be a reduction in the number of freedom of information (FOI) requests that are placed and processed if data is easier to access. Open data might also allow staff to respond to requests more quickly if they can link to data that has already been published when supplying a response.
Sharing parking data can also generate increased parking revenues where the public uses apps to pay for parking.
To support strategic and economic goals
Open data will help to support local authority priorities.
For example, open data about cycling routes or bus information can encourage people to use active travel or public transport. This could help reduce congestion and emissions in your area, generating economic benefits and meeting local authority objectives.
Transport for London (TfL) found that its open data is currently powering more than 600 apps, and that over 40% of Londoners use apps powered by its data.
TfL estimates that its open transport data has provided savings and annual economic benefits of up to £130 million for travellers, London and the authority.
To facilitate innovation
Open data stimulates new ideas, services and products. The power of data analytics is fast becoming realised, leading to greater insights from open data.
For example, TfL uses multi-modal predictive models for planning and managing the transport network. This is achieved by combining its data with third-party data sets and internal traffic models.
Sharing and publishing data allows third parties, such as universities, to create innovative solutions that benefit a local authority or region.
To support the Future of Transport agenda
Open data has an essential role to play in many Future of Transport (FoT) services, including mobility as a service (MaaS), micromobility and demand responsive transport.
DfT’s Future of mobility: urban strategy outlines the government’s approach to maximising the benefits of transport innovation in cities and towns.
This strategy sets out 9 principles that will guide the government’s response to emerging transport technologies and business models. One of the principles is that “data from new mobility services must be shared where appropriate to improve choice and the operation of the transport system”.
If local authorities share more data including public transport and vehicle movements with e-mobility providers, they can plan where to develop and expand EV schemes. For example, sharing data could help local authorities to provide an alternative to using cars for short journeys.
Open data for charging points is also essential to improve the take-up of electric vehicles.
To add to the public good
Local authorities collecting and opening their data can support the creation of national data sets, for example roadworks and bus open data. National data sets allow greater insights and are more valuable to third parties, such as satellite navigation suppliers.
The coronavirus (COVID-19) response led to the publication of monthly local authority transport data digests. When local authorities opened up their data to establish baselines for local traffic it demonstrated the potential that data has to benefit public interests.
Sharing data doesn’t have to be expensive
Many local transport data sets that are currently closed data can be shared by existing suppliers, for example, through urban traffic management and control (UTMC) systems.
City of York Council developed a prototype solution that shared data at relatively low cost and provided immediate benefits.
Newer solutions, such as e-mobility schemes, often provide open data by default, due to the trend towards cloud hosting and open data.
Open data principles
These principles should inform your decision and policy-making around open data.
Make your data machine-readable
Some file formats are easier for machines to handle than others. For example, TXT files are machine-readable and not specific to any operating system. However, a PDF file requires additional processing to be machine-readable, which can introduce errors.
Where possible, you should provide open data in a file format that is easily machine-readable. Example file formats for transport data include JSON, GeoJSON and XML.
Make your data accessible
Open data should be accessible to the widest range of people, including people with disabilities.
Open data should not require the user to purchase specific products to use the data and data sets should also come with adequate documentation, so that users can understand the data set.
In practice, published open data should use the current (open) standards and protocols.
This includes having accessible file formats available or provided on request. For example, data provided through Find open data is available in many file formats. The service gives users the option to request an accessible format.
Make your data interoperable
In the context of open data, interoperability refers to the ability to combine data sets. The use of appropriate data standards helps to maximise interoperability.
Make your data reusable and shareable
You should publish open data under a licence that allows all users to reuse and share the data. This includes combining your data with other data sets.
There should be no restrictions on usage. For example, there should be no differentiation between commercial or non-commercial usage.
Make your data open by default
Wherever possible, data should be considered as, and treated like, a public asset. Sometimes there will be good reasons for not sharing data – ‘open by default’ doesn’t mean ‘open every time’.
Make your data discoverable
Promote your data and provide good metadata to make it easy to find. Publishing data will be less useful if people don’t know it’s there.
Metadata is data that provides information about a data file. See DfT’s guidance about how to create metadata, and the Find Transport Data service which is a metadata catalogue that lists public and private transport data sets in the UK.
Make your data comprehensive
Comprehensive data sets provide a complete picture. This means that data is not redacted or removed from the published data set. As far as possible, you should publish data in the original, raw form.
If you know your data isn’t as comprehensive as you’d like it to be, make that clear in any accompanying documents. If you think data will become more comprehensive in the future, say that too.
Make your data timely and high quality
You should publish data sets in a timely manner, particularly where a data source’s usefulness diminishes over time. You should add a timestamp to your data.
Published data should also be accurate, reliable and high quality. The quality of open data will reflect on the reputation of the local authority publishing it.
Follow data ethics best practice
Your published data should follow data ethics best practice, where applicable. Data ethics are important, because they consider the potential for a data set to adversely impact people and society. For further details, see our guidance on data ethics.
Make a point of engaging with users
You should frequently engage with your data users. This will ensure that your data remains relevant and useful to them.
Community engagement will ensure that you are aware of errors or issues. It will allow you to identify confusion or misunderstandings about your open data. Your community will help to identify priority data sets for future publication.
Data sharing within DfT projects
This section outlines the main DfT projects which relate to open data or rely on open data for success.
Transport data strategy
DfT, in collaboration with the transport sector, has produced a Transport data strategy (TDS) that supports the discoverability, accessibility and quality of transport data. The TDS supports the government’s aims around improving journeys, levelling up the economy and decarbonisation. The strategy is based on 5 themes including:
- sharing, discovery and access
- data standards and quality
- skills, culture and leadership
- user needs and communication
- governance, protection and ethics
The TDS outlines data projects and services underway and those planned. The strategy is a live document and provides a forum for ongoing discussion and engagement on the transport data agenda.
Street Manager
This is a service for local highway authorities, utility companies or contractors within England to plan, manage and record street and road works. Street Manager must be used to:
- apply for street and road work permits
- assess permits
- record inspections
- add reinstatements (after work has been completed)
The roadworks data added to this system by companies is available for public viewing free of charge via an application programming interface (API).
Bus Open Data Service
The Bus Open Data Service (BODS) now provides bus timetable, vehicle location and fares data for every local bus service in England. This is required by the Public Service Vehicle Open Data England Regulations. The scope of the open data is:
- timetable data
- fares data
- vehicle location (real-time) data
- historic performance (punctuality) data
DfT has created new data standards and mandated existing standards and has built new freely available tools. This data source is valuable for local authorities for monitoring bus performance, bus priority and bus occupancy. In the future, it will also be useful for network control. It is a good example of a situation where a national open data set has the scale and quality to be used many applications.
Future of Transport programme
The main aims of the Future of Transport programme are to:
- stimulate innovation in the transport sector
- create new transport markets
- secure a 21st-century transport system
- secure the UK’s position as a world-leading innovator, decarbonising the transport system for the benefit of all society
Aspects of the programme relating to open data are:
- the future of mobility urban strategy which includes commitments to active travel, future mobility and open data in its 9 principles
- a regulatory review, which included a consultation on micromobility, flexible bus services and mobility as a service (MaaS) – all of which rely on open data to provide their services
- trials of e-scooters which are using open data to operate successfully
- future transport zones, which are setting up open data platforms and trialling MaaS and micromobility
Find Transport Data service
DfT is currently developing a new service called Find Transport Data (previously known as the National Access Point (NAP)) to catalogue all roads-based data nationally.
The service is currently in the beta testing phase. Data discoverability is an important element of any open data strategy. This service will catalogue all transport data sets – the first phase of development is focused on roads-based data.
Find Transport Data will be a repository for metadata and will provide a link to shareable data sets.
Digital traffic regulation orders
DfT has developed a data model and supporting service model for the open publication of traffic regulation orders (TROs). TROs set and enforce rules for the use of a road (such as parking restrictions, speed limits and planned road closures).
Since 2021, DfT has undertaken piloting and refinement of the data model with local authorities that it has grant funded. In 2023, DfT is undertaking an alpha project to analyse options around how best to manage the data. A decision will be made in spring 2023 on which option will be chosen. In all scenarios, DfT remains committed to free open data and ownership of the data model.
National Parking Platform
The National Parking Platform (NPP) is a project to digitise parking by integrating data sources and consumers to improve sharing via a simple and standard format known as the Alliance for Parking Data Standards (APDS).
NPP will be publicly owned and not for profit, ensuring data is safe and secure. Data in NPP will include details of parking locations, tariffs and where possible, real-time availability. This will help to guide a customer to the most suitable parking space to minimise emissions and congestion.
It will also support parking payment from a wide variety of sources by enabling ‘multi-vendor’ payment, which allows customers to pay using a supplier of their choice.
NPP aims to reduce local authority costs and enhance customer service. It will open the market to new suppliers and support new policies such as kerbside management and dynamic pricing.
NPP functions could be extended to integrate with MaaS, emissions zones, electric vehicle (EV) charging and connected vehicles.
DfT has funded a pilot, led by Manchester City Council, to demonstrate how data could be published in an open format using the APDS standard. A wide range of authorities, parking suppliers and service providers are participating in the project.
Active Travel England
Active Travel England is a new commissioning body and inspectorate, led by a national cycling and walking commissioner.
It is currently being established and progress on its status will be published soon. More information is provided in Gear change, which describes how policy is changing and emphasises the importance of opening up data.
Other DfT projects involving data sharing
Other DfT initiatives involving the use of open data include work to:
- model micromobility
- create digital documents for specifying traffic signal control
- determine data standards for electric vehicle charging points
Types of transport data
The following table shows examples of static and dynamic transport data frequently opened and shared by local authorities. The columns show:
- the associated standards you should or could use, where applicable, when opening data (although some data types currently have no agreed standard)
- links to further information about the data type where applicable
- common or usual data sharing methods where applicable
- whether there is potential for any personal data to be associated with the data type
The sharing methods referenced include the national data sets, BODS and Street Manager.
Data types that can be shared via urban traffic management and control (UTMC) are also shown, as this is a commonly used method.
Our guidance on how to publish your data on a data platform provides more information about UTMC and other options for sharing data.
Where a data type is shown as having potential to contain personal data, this is because it might reveal the locations of individuals. This may be because the data is based on an individual’s movements, automatic number plate recognition (ANPR), Bluetooth, CCTV, GPS data or number plates.
Our guidance explains how to consider privacy and security and provides further information about how to treat personal data.
| Data category | Data types available | Standard | Further information | Common sharing method (where applicable) | Is there potential for personal data? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active travel | Safety data for active travel modes | No commonly agreed standard | Yes | ||
| Active travel | Cycle counts | No commonly agreed standard | Yes | ||
| Active travel | Cycle detectors | No commonly agreed standard | Yes | ||
| Active travel | Cycle lane usage counts | No commonly agreed standard | Yes | ||
| Active travel | Pedestrian counts | No commonly agreed standard | Yes | ||
| Active travel | Secure bike parking locations | No commonly agreed standard | No | ||
| Air quality data | AQ locations | UTMC | No | ||
| Air quality data | Values | UTMC | No | ||
| Air quality data | Thresholds | UTMC | No | ||
| Cycle / e-cycle / e-scooter hire | Station locations | GBFS / MDS |
GBFS MDS |
No | |
| Cycle / e-cycle / e-scooter hire | Station status | GBFS / MDS |
GBFS MDS |
No | |
| Cycle / e-cycle / e-scooter hire | Vehicle types | GBFS / MDS |
GBFS MDS |
No | |
| Cycle / e-cycle / e-scooter hire | Vehicle locations | GBFS / MDS |
GBFS MDS |
Yes | |
| Cycle / e-cycle / e-scooter hire | Vehicle status | GBFS / MDS |
GBFS MDS |
No | |
| Cycle / e-cycle / e-scooter hire | Prices | GBFS / MDS |
GBFS MDS |
No | |
| Bus | Real-time bus locations | SIRI-VM version [Profile of CEN EN15531] |
Bus Open Data Service (BODS) Publishing location data through BODS using SIRI-VM |
BODS | No |
| Bus | Timetables | TransXChange | TransXChange | BODS | No |
| Bus | Bus stops | NaPTAN | NaPTAN | BODS | No |
| Bus | Fares | NeTEx [CEN/TS 16614] | BODS Data formats | BODS | No |
| Electric vehicles | Locations of EV charging points | There is no agreed technical standard for electric vehicle charging point locations, but this is under consideration by OZEV. OCPI is an existing standard which may be appropriate | OCPI | No | |
| Freight | Freight routes | No commonly agreed standard | No | ||
| Freight | Freight counts | No distinct agreed standard for freight traffic – DATEX II Part 5 (Measured and elaborated data publications) covered traffic counts in general [CEN EN 16157-5] | DATEX II | No | |
| Freight | Historic freight counts | No distinct agreed standard for freight traffic – DATEX II Part 5 (Measured and elaborated data publications) covered traffic counts in general [CEN EN 16157-5] | No | ||
| Street information | Street names |
OS Open USRN FindMyStreet |
No | ||
| Network performance | Vehicle count sites | DATEX II Part 5 (Measured and elaborated data publications) [CEN EN 16157-5] | DATEX II | UTMC | No |
| Network performance | Vehicle counts | DATEX II Part 5 (Measured and elaborated data publications) [CEN EN 16157-5] | DATEX II | UTMC | No |
| Network performance | Journey time data | DATEX II Part 5 (Measured and elaborated data publications) [CEN EN 16157-5] | DATEX II | Yes | |
| Parking | Parking spaces | APDS – the Alliance for Parking Data Standards is the emerging global standard for parking data. APDS publishes in specifications. APDS is also embedded in an ISO standard [ISO/TS 5206-1], due to be published in early 2023, and the CEN DATEX II Part 6 (Parking Publications) [CEN/TS 16157-6:2022] | APDS | UTMC | No |
| Parking | Parking tariffs | APDS – the Alliance for Parking Data Standards is the emerging global standard for parking data. APDS publishes in specifications. APDS is also embedded in an ISO standard [ISO/TS 5206-1], due to be published in early 2023, and the CEN DATEX II Part 6 (Parking Publications) [CEN/TS 16157-6:2022] | APDS | No | |
| Parking | Parking occupancy | APDS –the Alliance for Parking Data Standards is the emerging global standard for parking data. APDS publishes in specifications. APDS is also embedded in an ISO standard [ISO/TS 5206-1], due to be published in early 2023, and the CEN DATEX II Part 6 (Parking Publications) [CEN/TS 16157-6:2022] | APDS | UTMC | No |
| Park and ride | APDS – the Alliance for Parking Data Standards is the emerging global standard for parking data. APDS publishes in specifications. APDS is also embedded in an ISO standard [ISO/TS 5206-1], due to be published in early 2023, and the CEN DATEX II Part 6 (Parking Publications) [CEN/TS 16157-6:2022] | APDS | No | ||
| Roadworks | Live and planned roadworks | Street Manager | Street Manager | No | |
| Road safety data | Historic collision data | Road Safety Data | No | ||
| Traffic signals | Signalised junction locations | Emerging DfT Digital Controller Interface Specification | No | ||
| Traffic signals | Faults | Traffic management systems – Status, fault and quality requirements [CEN/TS 17241] | No | ||
| Traffic signals | Vehicle counts | No commonly agreed standard | No | ||
| Traffic signals | GLOSA | ISO 19091? | No | ||
| Traffic regulations | TROs | DfT are developing a TRO data digitisation specification | No | ||
| Traffic regulations | Temporary TROs | DfT are developing a TRO data digitisation specification | No | ||
| CCTV | Camera feeds | No commonly agreed standard | UTMC | Yes | |
| VMS | VMS locations | DATEX II Part 4 (VMS publications) [CEN EN 16157-4] | DATEX II | UTMC | No |
| VMS | VMS messages | DATEX II Part 4 (VMS publications) [CEN EN 16157-4] | DATEX II | UTMC | No |
Who to contact for advice on data sharing
The Transport Technology Forum (TTF) has technical working groups for community discussions:
Talk-mobility is an online community for collaboration.
Your sub-national transport body (STB) might be also able to provide assistance with opening up data: