For the purpose of the round table discussion in the House of Representatives with a topical theme “Access to public transport data” Rover has determined its position. The round table discussion aims to investigate the obstacles to data sharing and possible solutions.
According to director Freek Bos of Traveler Association Rover, the traveler remains the owner of the data. A traveler is a producer of data. Data about the use of a specific traveler is produced by means of check-in and outs. It is logical and self-evident that the producer is and remains the owner of the data. One of the thoughts behind MaaS is that personal offers are made based on travel behavior.
The app where the traveler is a customer always has an advantage. After all, they know the travel behavior best. If a traveler wants to change, the other provider is always behind because he has no insight into the travel behavior. A traveler must therefore be able to take his data to another MaaS provider.
This control over one's own data should be the starting point for MaaS. Once a payment has been made, a traveler should also have the right to have all his own data deleted from the MaaS provider. This must be presented in an accessible manner.
Guarantee the privacy of the traveler
Rover wants to guarantee the privacy of the traveler. The data entrusted to a MaaS provider by the traveler may only be used in that context.
“The traveler who delivers his travel data to a MaaS party gets a travel option in return. It is important, however, to protect the traveler against the excesses of large data companies, where the collection of data is paramount rather than the travel of the traveler. ”
The traveler first needs travel information. This concerns the timetable, the current arrival times, the type of vehicles, the price of a trip, etc. This data is available to everyone via the so-called NDOV counters as open data. No data from the traveler is shared with these basic information flows.
Making this data available has made planning the door-to-door journey easier. Applications developed with open data by a non-public transport party are increasingly found in the apps of the carriers.
Examples are the train radar and information about accessibility to stops. In general, this is well organized. It is an ongoing process to make new basic information flows openly available. The main focus is improving the quality of the data in the event of disruptions.
Also read: The demand for Translink traveler data is very high
