What are the key challenges that limit freight data sharing? 

Many cities have started early on defining smart cities from a technological perspective, by looking at traffic, lighting, or waste management, however they are individual silos without looking at the urban ecosystem as a whole. Data-driven solutions, when uncoordinated across governments and industry, can leave much of the social, environmental and economic value on the table and exacerbate a city’s transportation challenges. While public authorities are using data to monitor and regulate urban mobility systems, complementing – and in some cases replacing – traditional methods to plan infrastructure to meet future needs, data is often limited to urban streets and passenger mobility with urban freight being something of an afterthought. 

While legal concerns often impose restrictions on the use of data by public agencies, the precautions imposed by private companies limit the applicability of data. Rooted in concerns over privacy, cybersecurity, liability, and competition, private companies are averse to data sharing. Equally, those who spend significant resources collecting data may lack incentives to share data with the public sector. In some cases, governments are placing more restrictions on delivery hours and vehicle accessibility, resulting in companies’ mistrust. Despite the increasing use of digital information, paper logs and manual processes are still the norm, particularly among smaller freight operators. Across the industry, multiple freight data standards are in use, many of which are unable to communicate with each other.

Data sharing in practice:  How operational data can be transformed into strategic data to improve decision-making?

Overcoming these challenges requires a new way of thinking about urban systems and it means finding alignment between multiple stakeholders including governments, businesses, civil society, and residents.  The Metropolitan Area of the Aburrá Valley (“Área Metropolitana del Valle de Aburrá”, AMVA) – composed of 10 municipalities and the second most populous metropolitan area in Colombia – recently published a comprehensive freight origin-destination (O-D) survey at the territory level. Based on extensive surveys and data exchange, information about how the freight transport system is used (e.g. freight volumes, vehicle use, routes used, loading/unloading operations, and parking) is consolidated and analyzed. This was made possible with the collaboration of private companies, with incentives and rules that allow them to understand the mutual benefit of data-sharing. With this information, AMVA is poised to plan and manage the road network to support efficient freight movements and create safer streets.

In China, the Suzhou Municipal People’s Government has actively explored new measures to manage urban freight by establishing an intelligent public information service platform. This platform allows efficient monitoring of delivery vehicles and identification of logistics operation hotspots by using route optimization algorithms, geofences, heat maps of loading/unloading, and of vehicle charging demand (ICLEI, 2021). This facilitates the collaboration between different public administrations and the integration of various information such as vehicle parking, charging infrastructure, delivery information, etc. Such platforms promote data-sharing across the supply chain and allow the city to analyze big data for informed decisions.

In Europe, the City of Rotterdam is working to harness collaborative solutions, particularly on data sharing, to improve freight efficiency to reach the city’s zero-emission city logistics goals.

Steps taken to preserve data anonymity help ensure freight operators can derive benefits from data sharing without subjecting to unwanted disclosures. The Centre for Sustainable Road Freight (SRF), a collaboration between universities and the industry, pulls together anonymous data into integrated sets and develops decision-support tools for the industry as well as policy-makers. ICLEI’s Self-monitoring Tool, developed collaboratively as a decision support system for local governments, is used by nine EcoLogistics project cities, to evaluate their urban freight performance, engage in uninformed urban freight goal-setting, and guide future actions.

Looking ahead, it is certain that data can unlock a wide array of opportunities for the mobility ecosystem, however, cities first have to provide a policy-guided data-sharing framework that promotes the use of data safely and collaboratively. Strong and transparent partnerships across the industry, governments, and academia offer the ability to develop innovative solutions and could help city leaders harness the benefits of new technologies to achieve a sustainable urban freight future.

References

• See a more detailed analysis of the urban freight data gaps, please visit https://sustainablemobility.iclei.org/the-data-gap-what-we-still-dont-know-about-urban-freight/
• More on Australia’s freight industry data exchange pilot projects https://www.bitre.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/freight-data-exchange-pilot-project-summary-report.pdf
• T. Moschovou, E.I. Vlahogianni and A. Rentziou. (2019). Challenges for data sharing in freight transport, Advances in Transportation Studies: an International Journal, Section B, V. 48, pp: 14 1-1 52.
• SRF’s Data management, scenario analysis and decision support tools http://www.csrf.ac.uk/research/data-management-scenario-analysis-and-decision-support-tools/
• Find out more about how the EcoLogistics Self-monitoring Tool is used in the EcoLogistics Report 2021 https://sustainablemobility.iclei.org/ecologistics/report2021/