How Open Data is Improving the Lives of London’s Citizens
And what this means for the future
Transport for London’s (TfL) provision of free, accurate, and real-time open data is helping London’s economy by up to £130m ($171m) a year, according to research commissioned by TfL and conducted by Deloitte.
Before we dive into the findings, let's first discuss what open data is. By definition, open data is data that is openly accessible, exploitable, editable, and shared by anyone for any purpose. Open data is licensed under an open license. With an open license, others can reuse another creator's work as they wish indefinitely. Now, just imagine for a moment the power open data can put in the hands of people everywhere. That is where Transport for London’s (TfL) open data comes into play; putting information in the hands of transportation developers.
Deloitte’s study shows that by providing open data to developers, TfL is improving journeys, saving people time, supporting innovation, and creating jobs.
What does this mean exactly? TfL has been releasing open data such as timetables, service status, and disruption information in an open format to the public for almost 10 years. This allowed developers and partners working with TfL to bring new customer-centric products and services to market quickly within stations, at bus stops, and online. Now more than 42% of Londoners use over 600 different apps powered specifically using TfL’s open data feeds.
All parties, including customers, road users, and TfL, stand to benefit from this initiative. Developers now have access to over 80 data feeds through a free, unified API, which guarantees accurate, real-time data that is available from a single source for more than 13,000 developers. TfL held a digital accessibility summit earlier in the year to collaborate with digital innovators and stakeholders on using technology to improve accessibility for customers. The summit resulted in developers partnering with TfL to enhance the availability of accessibility information, including step-free access at stations and wheelchair accessibility at bus stops, on apps and websites.
The reports' findings provide the following benefits:
Saving time for passengers
- TfL’s open data enables passengers to plan their journeys more effectively by providing them with real-time information and guidance on how to alter their routes via apps. This increased accuracy in planning results in greater predictability for the arrival of buses and trains, potentially saving up to £90m annually in saved time.
Improved accessibility to information to plan travel
- By utilizing apps, customers are able to plan their trips more efficiently, allowing them to make use of TfL services on a more consistent basis and access other modes of transportation. The conservative estimate for the value of these additional trips is £20m per year.
Commercial opportunities for 3rd party developers
- Various companies, many located in London, are utilizing TfL’s open data to generate revenue commercially. The availability of this data at no cost and with real-time updates, increases the economic contribution of these companies to London’s economy, both directly and through the supply chain, by an estimated £12m to £15m annually as measured by Gross Value Add, which is similar to GDP.
Leveraging value and savings from partnerships with major customer-facing technology platform owners
- TfL obtains valuable data from areas it does not typically collect, such as crowdsourced traffic data, which allows it to gain a deeper understanding of travel patterns in London and make improvements to its operations.
What lessons can the construction industry learn from this?
Given all of this positive information in the transportation industry, it might come as a shock to learn that not all other industries have this kind of success with open data. The construction industry is one of those who still, in this day and age, lack access to accurate and structured open data. There is almost an unwillingness to share information publicly in the construction industry given how many different people profit from the inaccessibility. What we fail to see as a society is the amount of productivity, innovation, and progress that could come from open data in the engineering and construction industry.
When you are at university studying engineering, every project and assignment is done in a group setting because eventually, that is what the job is, working and contributing together. It makes no sense that the industry as a whole would not want to operate the same way. We are better when we put our heads together and open data would introduce a golden era of construction. For example, site-specific open data could save hundreds of dollars spent on reinvestigating soil and identifying groundwater tables. Having access to past inspections and reports could help engineers make more informed design assumptions saving time spent on calculations and drawings too. This would snowball into the construction of a structure because the sooner the design is complete the sooner the construction can begin.
So, how is civils.ai contributing to the open data era? Civils.ai is dedicated to harnessing the potential of data in construction projects, with a special emphasis on geological information. Our aim is to create a Google Maps-like platform for underground data, allowing engineers to access crucial information before starting a project. We are developing cutting-edge tools that can effortlessly convert PDF site investigation reports into digital format and present them in 3D alongside open data and other relevant digital files such as AGS data.
Don’t just take if from us, here’s what others have to say about the value of open data:
- The Chief Digital Officer of London, Theo Blackwell, stated that the power of open data has been demonstrated by recent research and that the city aims to put technology and innovation at the forefront of making London a better place to live, work and visit. He also expressed his enthusiasm to work with TfL and other public services to make the most of data.
- The Managing Director of Customers, Communication, and Technology at TfL, Vernon Everitt, highlighted the importance of providing accurate and timely travel information to the public and how open data can benefit both London and the wider economy.
- Simon Dixon, Global Transportation Leader at Deloitte, said that open data is crucial for cities to keep pace with urbanization and population growth and enable innovation.
- The CEO of the Open Data Institute, Jeni Tennison, stated that open data is changing the way organizations operate and has enormous rewards such as reducing unnecessary waiting time and energy consumption.
