At INRIX, we ingest billions of GPS data points each day – with nearly 50 petabytes (50M GBs) stored in our data lake. Within our myriad data sources, from connected vehicles to Internet of Things (IoT) devices, from mobile phone data to freight telemetry, the primary unit of measurement at INRIX is a “trip.” When we acquired Ride Report last year, the vision has always been to leverage INRIX’s multimodal trip data and visualize it in the share mobility tools, creating never-before-seen insights across different trip types.
One of the much-discussed byproducts of shared micromobility was the emergence of a data standard called the Mobility Data Specification. While operators resisted its implementation at first, it has become the default format by which cities and private companies exchange data around the world. The industry has come a long way, as there are now public dashboards and even evaluations on the impacts of new infrastructure projects using the scale of big micromobility data. In Denver, a strong handle on the data has allowed its program to scale, surpassing pre-pandemic numbers for micromobility trips and filling a critical transportation gap.
As part of Portland’s Strengthening Mobility and Resilience in Transportation (SMART) grant project to implement the country’s first regulated zero emission delivery zone, INRIX partnered with B-Line to deliver the first ever microfreight MDS integration. As part of this effort, INRIX ingests B-Line GPS data in real-time through its standard GPS Data API and then converts those points into MDS format, thereby creating a standard way to share trend data on this emerging trend. We call this new product MDS as a Service (MDSaaS).
As the former CEO of Ride Report, I have worked with our engineering team and dozens of shared mobility operators to integrate MDS data feeds. These operators, big and small, can have a hard time building to the specification and maintaining the APIs on an ongoing basis. With VC funding less available and the need for private companies to show profitability, companies have fewer resources to build compliance tools and need to find efficiencies wherever possible. By creating MDSaaS, we allow smaller operators with fewer resources (e.g., taxi companies) and larger enterprises who are trying to focus their technical resources on operations and profitability.
Figure 1: Microfreight Deliveries within Portland’s Zero Emission Delivery Zone
In early September, INRIX held its 4th Innovation Week, a 3-day hack-a-thon – coupled with a lot of work ahead of time — for employees to explore new ideas of interest that may not fit into the standard roadmap. This year, one of the winning projects leveraged the newly released MDSaaS to bring INRIX’s traffic, freight, and pedestrian trips data into MDS and visualize them in Ride Report. Within a week, we had multiple customers with specific requests related to this new functionality, including use in a submittal for a Stage 2 SMART grant. The team worked deep into the night to deliver value on the Innovation Week proof of concept. By the end of the week, the tools were visualizing where freight fleets travel to and from, while also overlaying B-Line microfreight MDS data. Soon, another customer wanted to convert robot food delivery data into MDS. By making it easy and beneficial to share data within the broader mobility ecosystem, INRIX is helping to grow MDS as the standard.
Figure 2: Truck Freight Routes Overlayed with Microfreight Delivery in SE Portland
To complete the technology ecosystem, B-Line has now ingested on-street curb information via the INRIX Curb Data Specification (CDS) API, which integrates real-time parking availability and zero emissions restrictions and permits. This proof of concept leverages existing resources (e.g., the City of Portland’s subscription to citywide curb data via INRIX) to create large value for private operators with a modest level of effort, creating a pathway to scale these types of curb policies to broader geographies and across private operators.
Figure 3: Internal B-Line Application Reutrning Curb Policies for Zones Within 20M of E-Trike Vehicles
I recently returned from western Europe with a handful of SMART grant recipients. We witnessed innovative city agencies overseeing a surge in cycle-based logistics, including the soon-to-be launch of the zero emissions zones prohibiting new internal combustion engine delivery vehicles from entering city centers starting on January 1, 2025. These European cities, including Paris, Brussels, Utrecht, Eindhoven, and Amsterdam, will leverage camera-based license plate readers and transponders to enforce the zones and understand what is happening in particular curb areas. However, they will not have access to the granular data that gives a sense of where new microhubs could be built, where the most conflicts are for e-cargo trikes and other vehicles, and where to build new infrastructure to support the logistics solutions that improve air quality and health for surrounding cities.
In a session at the Urbanism Next Conference in Amsterdam, participants agreed that while Europe is ahead of the US in implementation of zero emissions zones and pollution-free logistics, the US is ahead of Europe when it comes to transportation data standardization and sharing. INRIX will continue focusing on bringing the smallest of transportation trips into the MDS ecosystem, integrating them with our digital curb rules in 125+ cities to create a full operational understanding of the rules and users of the public right of way.
Are you an operator interested in or required to share data in MDS but lacking the resources to do so? Please reach out about our new MDSaaS. Are you a public agency who wants to understand multimodal data in our shared mobility dashboard? We would love to show you our new tools.
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