Stephen Ladyman goes datamashing

Technology is vitally important to modern transport - and the use of real-time and archived data is helping to transform the way transport is planned and managed in the 21st century.

Rapid advances in processing are not only producing greater amounts of data, but also enabling the resulting information to be acted upon more effectively. 

Over the past decade, for example, these advances have led to the introduction of smart card transport payment systems, the successful London Congestion Charge, and increasingly affordable satellite navigation units for cars.

Transport Direct

The Department for Transport (DfT) achieved a world first with the development of Transport Direct – an internet service that enables travellers to plan door-to-door journeys anywhere within Britain across different modes of transport. 

The data come from more than 100 individual sources. To provide accurate information on bus connections across the country, for example, it was necessary to survey more than 330,000 bus stops, allocating a unique name and number to each one. A similarly exhaustive approach was applied to rail stations, airports, ferry terminals, taxi ranks and other transport locations.

To monitor congestion, the Highways Agency is using data from satellite navigation systems, traffic cameras and motorway detectors that control speed-limit signs.

Datamashing software

The Department has also been helping develop software that brings together transport, economic and social data from many different sources to inform the planning of local services, including transport, and help ensure that more vulnerable members of the community can access local services.

Imagine a place with two hospitals. If one is closed, people living around it will have longer journeys to the remaining one. Accession software will enable the local authority to mine data from public transport data, maps (Ordnance Survey) and from the census (Office of National Statistics) to see, for example, how many people aged 65 or more will have longer journeys from where they live.  They can then plan a new bus route which will be convenient for those people, to take them to the remaining hospital. 

In future, new data technology will help take the guesswork out of travel. For example, it will be able to provide us with the exact location of buses and trains via our mobile phones. Instead of waiting at bus stops or stations, we would be able to time our arrival to coincide with transport services.

Or we might want more sophisticated information. If we were going to meet a friend, the system could offer us different options – for example based on how quickly we needed to arrive, or how much we wanted to pay for tickets.

Many of the potential benefits offered by new technologies can only be realised if data is combined or 'mashed' with information from other sources. The development of more sophisticated and easy-to-use software is helping to remove technical barriers to data mashing applications. Such initiatives are no longer the exclusive reserve of the big IT companies or university research departments.  Instead they can involve a highly diverse range of groups from the public, private and voluntary sectors. 

Grand Data Challenge

Because of our experience with data technology, the DfT is leading work on the Science and Innovation Ministerial Committee's Data Grand Challenge. As part of the challenge, we are exploring ways of working with non-government sectors to improve data mashing and associated applications even further. 

However, successful mashing requires a degree of experimentation with data that can be very difficult to access.  The current obstacles should not be underestimated. They include intellectual property rights, problematic administrative procedures, a complex regulatory framework and commercial barriers to data access.

While government is not necessarily best placed to deliver new information services or applications, it can help to remove such barriers.

Making data available is not cost-free, but as work progresses on the Grand Challenge, I look forward to proposals that will improve access to data from a wide range of government sources.

Of course, government has a vital duty to perform as a regulator of public and private sector use of data. It is essential that we do not lose sight of the genuine concerns that people have about how data is used and the information that can be obtained from linking data. 

In the future we can expect more powerful, flexible and user-friendly technologies to make travel more effective and efficient – for example pay-as-you-drive insurance, and faster, easier transport ticketing systems.

With such rapidly-growing potential, this is a fascinating sector in which to be involved – and we look forward to realising some of that potential in future through the Data Grand Challenge.

Dr Stephen Ladyman is Minister for Transport