The transport sector is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions - transport-related GHG emissions are projected to increase by 57% (2005-2030) and by over 80% by 2050. Working together, REEEP, the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) and the World Wide Web Foundation intend to harness the power of Linked Open Data to improve decision-making and planning to ensure low carbon, sustainable transport systems.
Linking and opening up data will help the urban transport sector in a number of ways:
- unlocking political support and investment decisions
- improving local transit service planning
- improving operational performance
- increasing passengers’ access to information
The intervention will target Jakarta, Johannesburg, Mexico City, and one city each in India and Brazil. The idea is to work with the local government, transport planners and operators in each city to collect the data they hold and share it via an open data platform, and then to develop tools and analyses based on the data to compare outcomes.
The Urban Transport Data Exchange will initially build on ITDP’s existing work in developing the Bus Rapid Transit Standard and sharing data on design characteristics of BRT systems in 36 cities via ChinaBRT.org.
