Micromobility & Your City: How New Mobility Data Can Help Cities Achieve Their Policy Goals
This post is authored by Sebastian Castellanos, NUMO’s senior manager of research. You can follow him on Twitter.
The data revolution is here! The United Nations High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda acknowledged that “better data and statistics will help governments track progress and make sure their decisions are evidence-based” as well as have the potential to “strengthen accountability.” But are governments, especially municipal governments, ready to help lead the data revolution?
Until recently, working with large amounts of data has not been a core competency of government agencies, and with so much new data, it is more necessary than ever that municipal employees like planners be able to determine what is technically useful and what is not.
Not to fear, though: NUMO collaborated with over 50 partners from the public and private sectors to figure out how data from micromobility (and, in fact, most new mobility modes) can be used to achieve those city goals that we all care about: equity, sustainability and safety — more on this later, but first, it’s important to understand the context of the mobility data revolution.
Understanding the Data Revolution
Before the data revolution began shifting transportation, the digital technology revolution set the stage, starting with the first electric traffic signal in Cleveland, Ohio, back in the 1910s. From there, digital technology became an intrinsic part of the transportation sector, all the way up to food-delivery drones and smart shoes. Today, it’s hard to imagine a world in which transportation and digital technology don’t work together.
A somewhat overlooked aspect of this transformation is that, as transportation became digitized, so did our daily routines. Moving from point A to point B started generating data points that many people believe are invaluable to both cities and private companies.
The Missing Piece
Transportation planning is not an exact science. Planners rely on mathematical representations of the real world to try to understand how people move today and then predict how they will move tomorrow. These models will dictate how and where infrastructure is built and money is spent. But these mathematical models are far from exact! Planners often overestimate demand and underestimate costs, which can lead to longer than expected project execution and empty municipal coffers.
This is where mobility data can really make a difference. By having a better understanding of how people actually move instead of relying on statistical inferences, cities could, in theory, plan a bike path that would serve the most people, or increase the frequency of a bus service that gets really crowded at 5 p.m. With mobility data, cities could increase access to safe, reliable and convenient transportation for those people who have been overlooked and underserved because of traditional planning models or exclusionary practices.
Expectation vs. Reality
As we’ve seen in the news over the last few years, mobility data is a thorny issue. The data you create by swiping your smartcard or unlocking a dockless e-bike is most likely owned by the private company responsible for operating that service. So it’s not a given that cities even have access to that data. Because data is so valuable, and because of privacy implications, access is limited, even proprietary. Municipal, state or federal agencies may not be able to view and use that data at all.
Since needs must, some cities in the United States have started mandating that privately-owned mobility services share their data as a condition for operating within the city limits. Los Angeles, California, even created its own data sharing standard, which has been adopted by more than 30 other cities.
Some, including privacy experts and civil right advocates, warn that requiring access to mobility data in exchange for operating rights in a city could open the door to increased government surveillance. It may sound a bit dystopian, but do we really need or want cities keeping track of where we are and how we move at all times? Does a city really need to know where I am to plan a better bus schedule?
It only takes one breach or misuse to expose very private and intimate information that can put people at risk. Even if city officials have the best of intentions, it’s important that we design any data collection effort from cities in such a way that it cannot cause harm. To be fair, private companies face similar risks, but what they don’t have is the power of the state to surveil and expose private information and potentially endanger individuals and communities.
So What Do We Do?
The privacy debate is far too complex and nuanced to address entirely in this blog post (but will come in a later post!); however, one of the most common critiques cities receive regarding new mobility data is that they don’t really know what to do with the data they request. This is a fair assessment, as it’s impossible for anyone to know how to use all the new data being generated by all these new modes of transportation.
We know that cities put their residents’ best interests and wellbeing at the center of everything they do. We also know that cities are interested in:
- Equitably distributing the benefits of transportation services
- Protecting residents from harm (i.e., road safety)
- Focusing on sustainability
… yet few cities have actually explained how these big, important goals are connected to needing more data. Clearly articulating how your agency or company plans to use personal data is one of the basic tenets of privacy regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR for those in the know) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (or CCPA) — and to be honest, it’s just common sense. Similar to how Disney’s privacy policy tells you exactly how your information will be used to show you targeted advertisements, cities must explicitly state how they’re going to use data created by your movement patterns and choices.
NUMO wanted to figure out how to help cities make that connection. We worked with a group of experts representing cities, private mobility operators, privacy advocates and data aggregation companies to reach a consensus on how cities can make realistic progress toward these big city goals (equity, safety, sustainability) using the appropriate data points as metrics for success. For example, if a city wants to understand whether those shiny new scooters that showed up overnight are helping residents access basic necessities, we figured out exactly what type of data the city would need.
Even better news: throughout the entire process, we were extremely mindful of potential privacy issues, so none of the data we identified can be directly linked to an individual person (in other words, all the data cities need to fulfill their goals can be aggregated to respect privacy).
The result is our newest platform: Micromobility & Your City: Leveraging Data to Achieve Policy Goals. This mobility data tool showcases real-world uses for mobility data and is an easy-to-use, interactive way for cities to identify how to collect the right data that serves their needs while protecting individual privacy.
Our hope is that cities that are planning new regulations regarding micromobility (and new mobility in general) can use Micromobility & Your City to understand how their goals can be tied to data needs. If you’re a city on this path, drop NUMO a line here — we’d love to hear from you!
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