Data Driving New Approaches to Transportation
To collect the digital stream in a form useful to all, the Mobility Data Specification, or M.D.S., was created by the Los Angeles transportation department.
As an open-source software platform built on a set of application programming interfaces — the communication protocols between parts of a computer program — M.D.S. is now used by more than 50 American cities and dozens more around the globe. It is governed by the Open Mobility Foundation, chaired by Ms. Reynolds.
M.D.S. in Use
Hoboken, N. J., could serve as the ideal petri dish for testing micromobility. A mile square, with 55,000 residents and little elevation change, it is home to thousands of commuters who connect to buses, trains and ferries that will carry them to workplaces in Manhattan, directly across the Hudson River. City Hall is a showcase of environmental virtue signaling, with a green roof, rain-banking cisterns and permeable pavement.
Hoboken’s six-month e-scooter pilot, which began in May 2019 with Lime (and Ojo for the initial months), fit perfectly with existing sustainability goals. A revenue sharing arrangement brought 35 cents per ride to the city, which paid for dedicated micromobility code-enforcement officers. A survey at the program’s end showed that some 82,000 unique riders traveled 613,000 miles; more than half of the respondents said that scooters let them reduce their use of taxis, ride-hailing services or personal cars. The pilot ended in November, and although city officials were enthusiastic about its success, no date has been set to bring the scooters back.
Ryan Sharp, the city’s director of transportation and parking, said that the data from the pilot program — route volumes and popular ridership corridors — informed moves like installing protected bike lanes (separated from car traffic by flexible bollards) and designating preferred parking zones.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/technology/data-micromobility-electric-scooters-mds.html?emc=rss&partner=rss