Uber previously released to certain municipalities a veritable treasure trove of data to help city governments and city planners improve traffic conditions and commutes. After that initial debut, which was exclusive to urban planners, Uber has now officially set Uber Movement live for the general public.
At the beginning of the year, the San Francisco-based company made available a tome of data based upon countless rides taken by its millions of customers each and every day.
Uber Movement includes data that provides “detailed historical insights [that] make it possible to measure the impact of road improvements, major events, new transit lines, and more.” Now, Uber has made this information available for residents of a number of cities, including Bogota, Colombia; Manila, The Philippines; Sydney, Australia; Boston, and Washington, D.C. If you check out the web app, you can look into average travel times between neighborhoods, and also take a closer look at ETAs depending on time of day and day of the week.
While the data has technically been available since Uber first launched in 2009, aggregating all this information has been no small feat. For the last year or so, a team of about 10 engineers has devoted itself to putting together information on three major cities — Manila, Philippines, Sydney, Australia, and Washington, DC. Dozens more cities are expected to be added to Movement before the site is made publicly available in February. When it’s complete, Movement will contain data for every city in which Uber is active, beginning in early 2016.
Uber notes that this data can help planners and policymakers conduct “complex analysis on transportation patterns,” which will allow for “better decision making around future infrastructure investments.”
“We don’t manage streets. We don’t plan infrastructure,” said Andrew Salzberg, Uber’s chief of transportation policy. “So why have this stuff bottled up when it can provide immense value to the cities we’re working in?” Noting that the company is collecting a “constant stream of data,” Salzberg added, “Some of this data is treated as digital exhaust, when in fact it’s immensely valuable.”
Uber isn’t the only company to be sharing what it knows with governments. Waze has a “Connected Citizens” program that provides city officials with data they need in exchange for early notice of construction and road closures to add to its maps. And Strava, the cycling app, lets cities know where residents like to bike.
But when it comes to certain valuable information, it’s unclear just how much Uber, or any of these companies, are willing to divulge at this point.
“I think cities need to be very clear about what they want,” Gabe Klein, a former head of the Detroit Department of Transportation, told the Washington Post.
Update: Uber Movement has now been made available to the public in some cities.
