The EU co-funded deployEMDS project was officially launched during the Tomorrow.Mobility World Congress in Barcelona on 7 November. deployEMDS responds to the challenges outlined in the EU Digital Europe Programme and will help make the common European mobility data space a reality. The initiative will cultivate a broad European ecosystem of data providers and users, facilitating the adoption of common building blocks. Over 20 use cases from nine EU countries will contribute to the development of innovative services and applications, which will ultimately promote sustainable alternatives across different modes of transportation.
Aligned with the European data strategy and the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy, deployEMDS will support policymaking by enabling data sharing and reuse for efficient multimodal mobility and traffic management, as well as for measuring progress of sustainable urban mobility across Europe. “The common European mobility data space (EMDS) aims to facilitate data access, pooling and sharing for more efficient, safe, sustainable and resilient transport. It builds on initiatives and applications related to transport data and will be supported by initiatives to boost interoperability, security, and the availability and provision of data and services.”[1]
To support the initiative, a communication by the European Commission is planned for this year: it will announce the objectives and the proposed way forward for the EMDS. Specifically, it will describe the main features, objectives, governance, milestones and supporting measures for the EMDS.
deployEMDS consortium partners
What is it about?
deployEMDS is a three-year project that will run from 1 November 2023 until 31 October 2026. The project consortium comprises 38 members and 7 associated partners from 11 EU countries and is coordinated by acatech. deployEMDS aims to support the European Union’s digital sovereignty, notably by reinforcing EU critical digital capacities involving the preparation of a data infrastructure, governance, and processing. Building upon the groundwork laid by the preparatory action PrepDSpace4Mobility, the deployEMDS project’s primary objective is to deploy an operational data space and common governance mechanisms.
This data space will facilitate decentralised, trusted and secure data sharing. The project will actively support real-life implementation projects in nine cities and regions within the EU, including Barcelona (ES), Île-de-France (FR), Milan (IT), Lisbon (PT), Flanders (VLO), Sofia (BG), Stockholm (SE), Tampere (FI), and Budapest (HU). These initiatives will focus on developing innovative services and applications while assisting in policymaking through the sharing and reuse of data.
Kick off in Barcelona
The public launch in Barcelona officially kicked off the collaborative work for the project consortium and set the course for the initial months of the project.
Lucie Kirstein, Project Coordinator at acatech, has expressed enthusiasm for the start of the project. “We are excited that we will now be able to demonstrate the data space concept in practice with so many important cities and regions across Europe. This will be an important basis for understanding the benefits of a currently very abstract concept and support local stakeholders in taking a step further in their thinking and urban data practices and governance”, says Ms Kirstein.
In the Open Session “Data Revolution in Motion: deployEMDS Transforming Mobility”, which took place on Tuesday 7 November, representatives from different sectors were invited to highlight their vision of the data space concept, data sovereignty, legal and regulatory challenges, as well as benefits of urban data management. The session touched upon the balancing act that may be required between data owners and data users on one hand, and between the goals of the public sector and the private sector on the other.
ERTICO’s Vlad Vorotovic moderates the panel discussion with Anna Forsell (Stockholm City), Steven Logghe (movias), Alexandre Durand (Instant System) and Lucie Kirstein (acatec, deployEMDS project coordinator)
In a recorded video message, Kristof Almasy, DG CONNECT’s Project Officer, expressed his and the European Commission’s expectations for the deployEMDS project. “deployEMDS will bring concrete benefits for cities, transport authorities, for mobility service providers and transport operators showing how using the data space can make it easier to combine different data sources in a secure way. This is not a simple demonstrator project: it will rather deploy sustainable and long-lasting infrastructure and services that will create the first brick towards the deployment of a EU-wide data space”, says Mr Almasy.
deployEMDS consortium at the Tomorrow.Mobility event during the project Open kick off
ERTICO will lead the Communication, Dissemination, Exploitation and Stakeholder Engagement activities. Emin Aliyev, Project Manager at ERTICO, will coordinate event organisation, training preparation, conferences setting, among the other activities that will guarantee that this relevant project will receive the most visibility and will provide parties with guidelines and lessons learned to build the European mobility data space.
Emin Aliyev presents ERTICO’s plan for the project
[1] EC, https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/13566-Transport-data-creating-a-common-European-mobility-data-space-communication-_en
