This urban mobility shared data space is designed for both passenger and freight transport as a blueprint for harmonising an ecosystem-based mechanism to provide urban mobility data. It collects and sorts quantitative and qualitative (raw) data relevant to the Sprout tools. Some of the data are used to calculate relevant indicators, which are used by one of the Sprout tools. By applying these tools, the user will receive crucial knowledge for their decision-making processes to guide mobility transitions sustainably. In collecting data for different but similar purposes, the data space provides urban mobility data harmoniously. During the Sprout project lifetime, it has already been populated with data from the Sprout 1st and 2nd layer cities.
The data space collects data for the following Sprout tools (see Figure 1 below):
- Urban mobility transition inventory
- Cost-based assessment
- Innovation readiness assessment
- Liveability assessment
- Action tracker
This inventory can be used as a common framework for cities to collect and integrate data in order to construct a comprehensive overview of their respective current and future mobility status, and to understand as well as to anticipate the urban mobility transition.
The main outcome of this analysis is the calculation of the costs generated to each cities’ sustainability area (economy, environment, community and the mobility) by a chosen set of policy responses and to compare those with do-nothing scenarios.
SPROUT developed a self-assessment to evaluate a city’s capability and readiness to enable and to deploy mobility innovations. The assessment explores the innovation readiness by looking beyond the mobility system, inter alia analysing the degree of inter-departmental coordination, the procurement processes for innovative solutions, planning practices and stakeholder involvement, public investments, cooperation with academia and private actors, the collection and use of data, or the level of intelligent transport services and infrastructure, or the availability of skilled personnel.
The Liveability self-assessment identifies strengths and weaknesses that relate to a city’s mobility system. It uses greenhouse gas emissions, air pollutants, trip lenghts, costs of mobility options, the availability of shared mobility offers, the number of accidents, the availabiltiy of infrastructures, or modal shares of public transport.
The Sprout action tracker derives relevant and feasible indicators to assess cities’ progress towards the achievement of specific policy goals and towards an innovative and sustainable mobility system.
Sprout tools and their connection with SUMI
Sprout tools use data that partly overlaps with SUMI data (Sustainable Urban Mobility Indicators). In order to have a complete approach, the data space collects all SUMI data. The SUMI is a useful tool for cities and urban areas to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their mobility system and to focus on areas for improvement. By collecting data for SUMI, European cities will increasingly harmonise data collection efforts.
The concept of SUMI has been promoted by the European Commission. As cities and urban areas continue to develop Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) and work towards EU policy goals, it is important for this progress to be documented to ensure that such achievements become visible. More information on the SUMI concept can be found here.
The following Sprout cities have provided SUMI data:
Minimum set of data
The data space contains a minimum set of data needed to drive urban mobility policy making in general, and make informed decisions about the implementation of innovative urban mobility solutions in particular, customised to the data capabilities of both rich- and poor data environments, as represented by the variety of the project cities. The two main criteria to define a minimum set of data are
- availability and
- relevance
In terms of availability, the Sprout project cycle has revealed a mixed picture. Many cities do have a lot of quantified data available, thanks to their data collection tools, monitoring efforts and cooperation with private actors. However, many cities are only starting with systematic data collection.
Sprout has therefore developed an approach of data collection, which mainly relies on data from self-assessment surveys. This allows cities to apply the Sprout tools even in data-poor environments. The innovation readiness assessment, the liveability assessment and the action tracker manage to mainly rely on such self-assessments, as illustrated in Figure 1. However, some components of the liveability self-assessment and the action tracker are enriched with input data from external sources and thus go beyond a pure self-assessment.
The cost-based assessment relies on a combination of local and national statistics. Again, limited data access is of minor importance, as the cost-based analysis essentially requires one main variable: the total distance covered of passengers or freight per mode in the respective city (measured in vehicle kilometres in both cases). This variable has to be found for the current state and for each policy scenario, be it a do-nothing scenario or the Sprout policy response.
In terms of relevance, the most important added value of the Sprout tools is their ability to assess the innovation readiness of a city, and to assess the impact of the Sprout policy response. Therefore, the a) self-assessment on innovation readiness and b) the cost-based assessment are crucial. As these two tools also rely on available data (as explained above), they can therefore be defined as minimum set of data.
As explained above, the liveability assessment and the action tracker partly rely on external data sources. City administrations are encouraged to collect as many data as necessary. Many such data should be available in-house. However, they can apply both tools by exclusively relying on self-assessments. Validity will be strengthened with an increasing amount of data.
Minimum set of data: 3-tiered approach
| Minimum set of data, crucial and available | Additional data, generally available because of self-assessment | Additional data, available with effort |
|---|---|---|
| Questions from innovation readiness assessment | 23 from 46 questions of the liveability assessment | 23 from 46 questions of the liveability assessment |
| Data from cost-based assessment | 8/37 questions of the action tracker | 28/37 questions of the action tracker |
