Skip to main content

Detroit pilots new data standard for dockless mobility

Several organisations are coming together in Detroit, US, to pilot a new tool to analyse mobility data for dockless bikes and scooters. The aim is to allow urban authorities which work with dockless mobility providers to share and analyse trip data, including trip origins and destinations, neighbourhood availability, travel times and usage. This should give them the chance to allocate street space to sustainable transportation, improve safety and provide more equal access to transport services. Detroit M
November 16, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
Several organisations are coming together in Detroit, US, to pilot a new tool to analyse mobility data for dockless bikes and scooters.


The aim is to allow urban authorities which work with dockless mobility providers to share and analyse trip data, including trip origins and destinations, neighbourhood availability, travel times and usage.

This should give them the chance to allocate street space to sustainable transportation, improve safety and provide more equal access to transport services.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) and SharedStreets made the announcement, and will be using scooter data provided by Bird and Lime.

SharedStreets will lead the work to establish what it calls “an open-source data ecosystem that allows cities and companies to work from consistent transportation datasets while rigorously protecting personal privacy”.

“In just one year, scooters have completely transformed mobility,” says Duggan. “In Detroit, we took a forward-looking view on this new option to understand how it could make it easier for Detroiters to get around. Our next step is to use data to better inform our decisions, whether it’s providing more mobility options in more neighbourhoods or making sure scooters aren’t blocking the right of way.’”

“Our cities are open to new forms of transportation, but the public sector needs the data on how the public gets around,” said Seleta Reynolds, president of NACTO.

278 Ford Motor Company, 8336 Uber and 8789 Lyft agreed last month to %$Linker: 2 Internal <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 4 36955 0 link-external share data false /categories/utc/news/ford-uber-and-lyft-to-share-data-through-sharedstreets/ false false%> through the SharedStreets platform, saying that such partnerships “give cities unparalleled access to data, allowing them to make better planning and investment decisions”.

Related Content

  • December 5, 2018
    Columbus, Ohio is named Smart Cities Dive’s city of 2018
    Columbus, Ohio has been named City of the Year in the Smart Cities Dive website’s awards for its work on transit and electrification. The US city won the US Department of Transportation’s inaugural Smart City Challenge two years ago – and is rolling out a variety of smart city-related programmes. Smart Cities Dive said the city’s “biggest area of progress this year” has been its increased reliance on electric vehicles (EVs), including in its bus fleet and other government vehicles. City authoritie
  • September 17, 2019
    NACTO updates city micromobility guide
    The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) has updated a guide which it says helps US cities regulate and manage micromobility companies. NACTO president Seleta Reynolds says: “NACTO’s guidance provides crucial steps for cities to ensure that new mobility options benefit the public good, from best-practice data management to real-world examples on coordinating across neighbouring municipalities.” Guidelines for Regulating Shared Micromobility covers options for regulation for microm
  • October 3, 2018
    Ford, Uber and Lyft to share data through SharedStreets
    Ford, Uber and Lyft will make data sets available on the SharedStreets platform in a bid to help cities and mobility companies manage congestion, cut greenhouse gases and reduce crashes. The commitment was announced at the second annual Bloomberg Global Business Forum in New York. SharedStreets is funded by the Bloomberg Philanthropies consortium. Its aim is to make it easier for the private sector to work with cities around the world and utilise data to improve mobility. According to Ford, the partn
  • November 15, 2018
    Bird enables reports of poorly parked and damaged e-scooters
    Bird is to roll out an app feature which allows people to report poorly parked or damaged electric scooters to the company. It is an attempt to solve one of the biggest bugbears surrounding the deployment of scooters and dockless bikes – the issue of what happens when users abandon or abuse the vehicles. Bird says the app’s new ‘community mode’ will improve parking and safety in the cities where it operates, such as Portland and Salt Lake City. The company will use reports to reposition poorly parked e-