By 2020: Opening up of data will drive decisions – Osborne

With the release of TfL’s transport schedules into the public domain, the UK transport industry has taken a bold step forward, says Christopher Osborne,business development director at transport data management company ITO World. “TfL has opened the door to innovation and set a course that all transport authorities must follow if they are to stay relevant in the digital age,” he adds. “As a member of the Digital Advisory Board to the Mayor of London, for many months I have been working to help open up TfL’s transport data. There are multiple benefits, the most obvious of which are mobile and internet applications that give passengers better access to information.” Despite initial misgivings, the idea really hit home with TfL when the release of London cycle hire location data led to iPhone, Android, and Blackberry applications and web sites all publishing the information, Osborne notes. “Passenger information was available at their fingertips, within days, and without TfL having to pay for the development of any of them.” Embracing the open data revolution does throw up some interesting challenges about the role of the public and private sectors, and what should be provided by whom, he also observes. “However, with the upcoming spending review and the ‘Big Society’ agenda, transport agencies will have to rethink what services they provide and adjust to a role where they also enable third parties to supply services. The idea that a single web portal or single channel for passenger information is the best option has been debunked.” “Data is now a key piece of the transport infrastructure and is something we focus a great deal on at ITO World,” Osborne adds. “By exposing data to third parties, previously hidden data quality problems are exposed and new data users increase the amount of feedback. Earlier this year we released ITO Quality, an online service that automatically detects and visualises data errors for all of the UK Traveline regions. Over 175,000 data issues had already been identified and resolved thanks to our existing NaPTAN management service.”

Chris Osborne will be at the Travel 2020 Exhibition and Conference on the 29-30 September. Register to attend at Travel2020.co.uk