A CONSORTIUM APPROACH TO TRANSIT DATA INTEROPERABILITY

The report argues that interoperable transit data is essential for the realization of 'mobility as a service' (MaaS), which allows users to seamlessly combine various transportation modes. It identifies significant barriers to this goal, including poor data quality, a lack of standardization for ride-hailing and car-sharing, and misaligned incentives. The authors estimate that achieving full data interoperability could boost ridership of alternative transportation by 5% to 10%, representing a market opportunity of $3 billion to $6 billion in the U.S. To address these challenges, the report proposes the formation of a cross-industry consortium to establish and maintain data standards and innovate in user-interface design and payment technology.

• The U.S. market potential for transit data interoperability is estimated to be between $3 billion and $6 billion, with the potential to increase ridership of alternative transportation modes by 5% to 10%.
• Five primary barriers hinder data interoperability: poor quality and incomplete data, a lack of data standardization, nascent technology and design, misaligned incentives, and inadequate public engagement.
• While standards like GTFS and GBFS exist for mass transit and bikeshare, they are often incomplete; for example, GTFS-RT lacks fields for real-time vehicle capacity, and no comprehensive standards exist for digital ride-hail and carshare.
• The report proposes a multistakeholder consortium to solve global-scale challenges in data standardization and technology/design, as single stakeholders often lack the incentive or expertise to create industry-wide solutions.
• Immediate, non-consortium opportunities for improvement include transit agencies improving the quality of static GTFS feeds, bikeshare operators adopting GBFS, and municipalities promoting existing transit tools to the public.

APA

CRANE, J., & RUCKS, G. (2016). A CONSORTIUM APPROACH TO TRANSIT DATA INTEROPERABILITY. RMI. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/03/consortium_approach_to_ITD_report2016.pdf

Chicago

CRANE, JACKSON, and GREG RUCKS. A CONSORTIUM APPROACH TO TRANSIT DATA INTEROPERABILITY. RMI, 2016. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/03/consortium_approach_to_ITD_report2016.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=CRANE |first1=JACKSON |last2=RUCKS |first2=GREG |title=A CONSORTIUM APPROACH TO TRANSIT DATA INTEROPERABILITY |publisher=RMI |date=December 2016 |url=https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/03/consortium_approach_to_ITD_report2016.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{crane2016consortium, author = {CRANE, JACKSON and RUCKS, GREG}, title = {{A CONSORTIUM APPROACH TO TRANSIT DATA INTEROPERABILITY}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2016}, month = dec, url = {https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/03/consortium_approach_to_ITD_report2016.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }