The Australian National Transport Commission (NTC) discussion paper
Government access to vehicle-generated data comments
Vehicles are increasingly capturing a range of useful data about the road environment, the vehicle itself and the way it is used. The vehicle industry is also rapidly expanding the capability of vehicles to connect and share data. This could provide a new opportunity for governments to improve their transportation systems through access to and use of this new data. If government access is not considered in a nationally consistent way, governments risk creating a fragmented, overly burdensome or low-access data environment.
Australia’s transport agencies have identified that this new data will be important for operating more dynamic and responsive transportation systems. This new vehicle-generated data has the potential to improve road safety, optimise the road network and better inform network planning. For this report we have defined vehicle-generated data as any data generated by a vehicle that produces information about the vehicle, the environment around the vehicle or the use of the vehicle.
The purpose of this project is to develop policy options for government access to and use of vehicle-generated data for the purposes of road safety, network operations, investment, maintenance and planning.
The purpose of this discussion paper is to:
- ▪ discuss our understanding of key issues and challenges arising from government access to vehicle-generated data
- seek views on the opportunity statement and problem statements contained in this paper
- seek views on options that could address these problems.
What are the opportunities and benefits?
Improved road safety has been identified as a key need that could be addressed through greater access to vehicle-generated data. For example, sharing and reporting of traffic safety events could use vehicles to detect and warn occupants about dangerous road conditions, allowing transport agencies to respond more rapidly to incidents. It is also the area with the highest willingness among vehicle manufacturers to share data. Unlike other types of data such as vehicle movement data, this data is unique to the vehicle and cannot be as easily replicated from other data sources.
To better understand the needs of transport agencies and industry, we hosted several co- design workshops. The workshops generated 23 use cases identifying different potential uses for vehicle-generated data. Transport agencies identified significant potential benefits for road safety, network planning and optimisation. Transport agencies saw that this data could better inform decision making and reduce road trauma.
However, the detailed benefits and costs of these use cases are still unknown. We also found that further data requirement and business case development is needed on priority uses for vehicle-generated data. Further collaboration between industry and government to better understand the potential benefits and costs would be highly beneficial to achieve this and is strongly supported by stakeholders.
Australia does not lag significantly behind international jurisdictions in government access to vehicle-generated data; however, there are early international collaboration efforts that Australia can learn from. Key among these is the European Union’s memorandum of
understanding between government and industry on the exchange of vehicle-generated data to support eight safety-related use cases.
What are the barriers and gaps?
Vehicle-generated data can be costly to generate, carry, store and use, and can reveal sensitive information about users and businesses. Much of this data is not stored, broadcast or shared. There is currently a low market penetration of vehicles that can share this data. The key barriers to government access include:
- There is no compelling reason or incentive for generators of vehicle-generated data to provide this information to transport agencies (with the exception of the road access, safety and productivity benefits provided to heavy vehicle operators through regulatory telematics).
- There are trust, cost and operational barriers to the exchange of vehicle-generated data and, outside of heavy vehicles, there is no data access framework to address these issues.
- In comparison with international markets, there are currently fewer vehicles capable of capturing and communicating vehicle-generated data on Australia’s roads, with only market-based mechanisms to encourage uptake.
What are the opportunities and problems?
We have identified one key opportunity for government to access vehicle-generated data:
1. There is an opportunity for stakeholder collaboration on exchange or sharing of vehicle-data for road safety purposes to understand:
– what vehicle-generated data can be used to support road safety in Australia
– what an appropriate framework and forum might look like to support such an
exchange.
We have identified three problems that will we need to overcome to create wider government access:
1. Vehicle-generated data is currently not provided to transport agencies for purposes that may have publicly beneficial outcomes. This could be due to current vehicle capabilities and/or a lack of incentive or reason for industry and road users to provide the data (the exception to this being heavy vehicles enrolled in a current regulatory access or compliance scheme under the Heavy Vehicle National Law).
2. There is a lack of a data access framework to provide the necessary trust, data exchange systems, data standards/definitions, understanding of data needs and governance to establish data access and use (the exception to this being heavy vehicles enrolled in a current regulatory access or compliance scheme).
3. The level of uptake and penetration of connectivity across the Australian vehicle fleet may delay the benefits of vehicle-generated data, particularly related to safety-critical events.
What are we proposing to address the opportunity and problems?
Recognising that vehicle-generated data is still at the nascent stage of development in Australia and that stakeholders remain unclear on priorities, there is an opportunity for governments to adopt a new policy approach. We propose that a new collaboration between industry and governments begin with a focus on road safety data as the priority and common mission. This approach is in line with the European Union’s approach and has early consensus from industry and government. We propose:
For future development on government access to vehicle-generated data, road safety is the priority for exchanging vehicle-generated data between industry and government. Industry and government should collaborate on identifying opportunities for exchanging road safety data and adopt a principle of non-commercial sharing or exchange.
We have identified three options to address problems 1 and 2, which are:
–
Option 1: Rely on existing arrangements between government and industry, with no changes to existing legislation or frameworks.
Option 2: Establish a data exchange partnership between industry and government that will identify opportunities for exchanging vehicle-generated data as well as develop standards and consider proof of concept.
Option 3: Introduce new legislation requiring industry to collect, store and retain vehicle-generated data while providing access to government.
The NTC’s preliminary preferred option is option 2. We believe this option can provide the best opportunity for government to better understand how to maximise the potential benefits and opportunities of vehicle-generated data while actively collaborating with industry. This option has received general early support from government and industry.
To address problem 3 – a lack of stimulus to bring forward vehicle connectivity – we are proposing that the Commonwealth considers the costs, benefits and system requirements to require vehicles to send automated crash notification system messages and have these received and actioned. Europe has achieved this through introducing its eCall system. This would bind all vehicles to a capability to send data messages over private networks. This proposal could be enacted through the Commonwealth government considering adoption of international standards into an Australian Design Rule (with consequential amendments to the relevant state and territory in-service vehicle standards) and infrastructure and capability to receive and use emergency notification messages. This would result in a significant increase in the fleet penetration of connected vehicles in Australia.
List of questions
1 Do our problem and opportunity statements accurately define the key problems to be addressed, and do they capture the breadth of problems that would need to be addressed?
2 In our table, have we accurately captured all the regulatory and legislative mechanisms government could currently use to access vehicle-generated data?
3 Are there other major local or international jurisdictional developments providing further access powers or arrangements for vehicle-generated data?
4 Do you agree with our assumptions on the currently low uptake and limited availability of technology that supports the generation of vehicle data and that there are few and limited current government access arrangements for vehicle-generated data?
5 What issues do you believe will be created if ExVe is adopted and that would need to be considered in Australia?
6
Is there value in establishing a national data aggregator or trust broker? Could good data definitions, practices and cooperation between entities achieve the same outcome?
7 Can you provide us with more information on either the costs or benefits for government access to vehicle-generated data for the use cases listed in Appendix B?
8 Are there relevant international standards that should be adopted for vehicle- generated data? Are there any standards that could be locally developed? .
9 Have we accurately described the key barriers to accessing vehicle-generated data? Are there additional barriers?
10 Do you agree that road safety data should be considered the priority purpose for which we seek to exchange data with industry?
11 What are the key data needs of transport agencies beyond those already identified?
12 What further benefits from vehicle-generated data should be considered?
13 We contend that a prioritised starting point should be established from which data for other purposes can be further developed. Are there other approaches that could achieve this?
14 Do you agree with the analysis presented in Table 7? What other opportunities are there for vehicle-generated data, and why?
15 Have priorities changed for land transport policy and for data access from vehicles with the onset of COVID-19?
16 Should road safety be adopted as the priority for developing use cases for government use of vehicle-generated data? If not, what other approach should Australia take?
17 Can data other than for the purposes of road safety be exchanged on non- commercial terms?
18 Does the NTC’s preferred approach (option 2) best address the problems we have identified? If not, what approach would better address these problems?
19 Does the NTC’s proposed approach best address the problems we have identified? If not, what approach would better address these problems? .
