Interoperable Transit Data

The document outlines the transition to Mobility as a Service (MaaS), where on-demand, multimodal transportation replaces the dominance of personally owned vehicles. It identifies interoperable transit data (ITD) as the critical infrastructure needed to enable seamless trip planning and payment. The report details barriers to this transition—including regulatory gaps, payment fragmentation, and inconsistent data standards—and proposes solutions such as public-private partnerships, the development of integrated payment portals, and the implementation of 'commuting as a service' pilot projects.

• Personal mobility in the U.S. is heavily reliant on personally owned vehicles, which account for over 80 percent of trips and consume 27 percent of income for median-income households.
• A full transition to a mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) model could reduce annual U.S. emissions by 1 gigaton and unlock $1 trillion per year in business and consumer value.
• Interoperable transit data (ITD) is the necessary foundation for MaaS, enabling multimodal trip planning, seamless one-stop payment, and real-time route optimization.
• Significant barriers to ITD implementation include the lack of backend payment integration, inconsistent data licensing, and a lack of regulation covering data sharing.
• Public transit agencies face obstacles to adopting new data standards due to variability in internal resources and knowledge, as well as operational budgets and skillsets that are not aligned with private sector ROI goals.
• Regulatory disparities exist between public and private transit; for example, private providers are not recognized as fulfilling Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 accessibility requirements, making them ineligible for certain public funding.
• The report proposes several high-level solutions to achieve interoperability, including the creation of integrated payment systems, the establishment of transit data best practices, and the promotion of public-private partnerships.
• The report suggests implementing 'commuting as a service' (CaaS) pilot projects along specific corridors to demonstrate the viability of multimodal systems and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
• Providing real-time transit data to public mass transit users has been shown to increase ridership and can offer up to a four times return on investment in the first year.

APA

Carlin, K., Rader, B., & Rucks, G. (2015). Interoperable Transit Data. RMI. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_RMI-Mobility-InteroperableTransitData-FullReport.pdf

Chicago

Carlin, Kelly, Bodhi Rader, and Greg Rucks. Interoperable Transit Data. RMI, 2015. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_RMI-Mobility-InteroperableTransitData-FullReport.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Carlin |first1=Kelly |last2=Rader |first2=Bodhi |last3=Rucks |first3=Greg |title=Interoperable Transit Data |publisher=RMI |date=October 2015 |url=https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_RMI-Mobility-InteroperableTransitData-FullReport.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{carlin2015interoperable, author = {Carlin, Kelly and Rader, Bodhi and Rucks, Greg}, title = {{Interoperable Transit Data}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2015}, month = oct, url = {https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_RMI-Mobility-InteroperableTransitData-FullReport.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }