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Smart Data schemes in transport: New government consultation

28 July 20263 min read
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Smart Data schemes in transport: New government consultation

Smart Data involves the secure, consent-based sharing of customer and business data with accredited third parties who build useful services on top of it. Following the passage of the Data (Use and Access) Act - which gave the government the power to introduce Smart Data schemes across the economy - the Department for Business, Innovation, Science, and Trade (BIST) has now published a call for evidence on the subject, with transport at its heart.  

Following on from the publication of the Government’s Smart Data Strategy earlier this year, this call for evidence is an important milestone in their work to implement Smart Data schemes across the economy, with the government estimating a possible £9.6bn GDP contribution by 2043. Whilst this work builds on the success of Open Banking, which is the most embedded Smart Data scheme, Government recognises that each sector has specific implementation requirements and appropriate governance structures.  

The transport chapter sets out ten potential use cases: 

Freight 

  • More consistent carbon reporting from logistics providers to help customers reduce manual reconciliation and lower administrative burdens; 

  • Better coordination across the network to match freight movements more closely with capacity; 

  • Improved last-mile efficiency to reduce duplicated trips, lower costs, and ease congestion; and 

  • Support electrification infrastructure to assist providers in tailoring provision to where it is most needed. 

Rail 

  • Improving journey planning to enable passengers to travel in comfort and with greater efficiency; and 

  • Better management of infrastructure to create a clearer view of the state of the system. 

Multi-modal travel 

  • Support journey planning to make multi-modal journeys easier; 

  • Support transport planning to better target investment and improvements; 

  • Integrated ticketing to better enable passengers to take multi-modal journeys with ease and confidence; and  

  • Improve reliability of EV charging to target infrastructure rollout and improve ease-of-use. 

Governance 

  • The call for evidence also recognises that effective governance is central to the success of these schemes and asks for a wide selection of evidence. 

Analysis and next steps 

From a transport technology perspective, this is another major policy proposal from government, adding to the many that have been released over the last year. This is perhaps most apparent in the creation of Great British Railways, and case for building open, standardised data here has never been stronger given the need to protect the UK tech sector and ensure that its innovations can still be developed and deployed in the context of a single, state-run operator.  

The opportunity is real, but so are the design questions that techUK has consistently raised. These include accreditation that is proportionate enough for SMEs and new entrants to participate, commercial models that reward investment in data, clear liability where data flows across many holders, and alignment with the wider data landscape. 

techUK will be responding on behalf of our members, both to the transport and the other sections in this call for evidence - property, retail, agrifood and trade. Our Rail Policy Group and the wider Smart Infrastructure and Systems programme will deal with the transport aspects of it, and other programmes in techUK will deal with the other sectors. The Call for Evidence closes on 1 October, so members who hold transport data, build services on it, or have met these barriers first-hand are warmly encouraged to get in touch and shape our response. 

techUK will be hosting a member-only drop-in session to discuss the consultation in greater depth on Tuesday 11 August. If members would like to attend the session or join techUK’s Smart Data Steering Group, please reach out to Dani or Rob below:

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