Ambitious Climate Action Needs Better Transport Data

With a prototype database up and running to demonstrate the vision, an effective organisational structure and initial seed funding from Germany, the UK and the US, the Transport Data Commons Initiative is ready to move into full operation and attract more funding in its second year. 30 organisations support the idea of open and robust data collection and management to enable transport decarbonisation and sustainable mobility.

What is the problem? 

A year ago, the idea for the Transport Data Commons (TDC) was born at a co-creation workshop on the sidelines of the International Transport Forum Summit in Leipzig, Germany. Publicly available transport data remains, at best, difficult to access in many fragmented databases. Sometimes transport data exists, but it is not openly accessible. Often it is not collected regularly, or it is difficult to compare and aggregate because it is not harmonised. This is the case across countries and is particularly acute in low- and middle-income countries.

As a result, many international development organizations with their partner governments step in to collect data for a given objective or transport sub-sector. While this is a wonderful job that supports policymaking and research; it leads to a variety of indicators, websites, PDF documents from which it is difficult to cross-check data and compile consistent time series. It also implies extensive resources that are spent on extracting, adjusting, checking and using data. Often, efforts are duplicated.

The vision: A common, shared and frequently updated database for transport

The people behind the Transport Data Commons want to develop a common data platform where all participating organisations can both contribute and extract data on the transport-climate nexus. It includes three elements that differentiate it from other ongoing efforts:

1. A space for storing and accessing open transport data from around the world (starting with greenhouse gas-related national datasets), with a strong focus on data standards and interoperability of existing databases;
2. Active, ongoing and partially automated data cleansing, including transparent documentation on GitHub and access to original data;
3. A mutually beneficial exchange of information between organisations collecting and providing data, and a joint effort by donors to avoid duplication of effort.

Everybody will benefit – especially those who want to raise climate ambition

While modelers and researchers could save a lot of time, as data collection and cleansing is extremely time consuming, the participating development organizations and donors could save money in the mid-term. This is why TDC partners extend a warm invitation to join this collective endeavour to like-minded entities and individuals.

In the medium term, the Transport Data Commons will reduce data gaps and improve the quality of modelling, evaluation, impact assessment and reporting of transport projects. It will enable more effective support to low- and middle-income countries in their efforts to increase climate ambition. Donors, national and local governments, researchers, data analysts and civil society will all benefit from more accessible data.

How does it work?

Seed funding from Germany's GIZ and the UK's Climate Compatible Growth Programme has supported the prototyping efforts. UNECE is providing the infrastructure to host the database. To accelerate implementation, the partners have established three working groups over the last 12 months on (i) strategic issues, (ii) data architecture and (ii) user perspectives. All partners have been meeting regularly as a full group. The group is now refining the prototype database, establishing a formal organisational structure and identifying funding.

Check out the prototype database here and share your feedback!

You may want to take a look at the prototype and get involved, whether by providing comments and feedback, data, or even considering supporting the initiative with in-kind or financial contributions. So, sign up for updates if you want to be kept informed.

And now take a look at: www.transport-data.org.

Have a look at our resources on YouTube to learn more about the Transport Data Commons:

1. Introduction to the prototype (by Paul Natsuo Kishimoto , IIASA)
2. Introduction to Transport Data Commons at Transforming Transportation (March 2023, Washington DC, by Maruxa Cardama and Paul Natsuo Kishimoto )

If you are interested to learn more, please contact the current project managers Kirsten Orschulok and Verena Knöll .

You may also contact a member of the current strategy group (in alphabetical order) Daniel Bongardt , Maruxa Cardama , François Cuenot , Holger Dalkmann , Reiner Koblo and Jamie Leather .

Partners of Transport Data Commons are: Asian Development Bank (ADB) , CAF -banco de desarrollo de América Latina y el Caribe- , Climate Compatible Growth #CCG , EBRD , La Fabrique des Mobilités , FIA Foundation , Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH , Global Network for Popular Transportation , ifeu - Institut für Energie- und Umweltforschung Heidelberg gGmbH , The International Council on Clean Transportation , The World Bank , International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) , International Road Federation (IRF Global) , Institute for Transportation and Development Policy , ITF - International Transport Forum , Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission , KfW , Loughborough University , MobiliseYourCity , Ricardo Energy & Environment , SEI — Stockholm Environment Institute , SLOCAT Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport , Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative , University of California, Davis , Chalmers University of Technology , United Nations Economic Commission for Europe , Center on Global Energy Policy .