With current policies in place, the transport sector's CO2 emissions will grow almost 20% by 2050 according to the International Transport Forum Transport Outlook, and even more in developing countries. Many stakeholders working to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transport need, use and collect such data but they are not available in a commonly known and accessible place.
Since May this year, UNECE and other key stakeholders forming the Transport Data Commons Initiative have been working to create an open data platform to share the existing data on CO2 emissions in the transport sector. On 9 December 2022, UNECE was chosen by the initiative to host a prototype database to be developed by May 2023.
The database will be hosted under the umbrella of UNECE's For Future Inland Transport System (ForFITS), a model meant to foster sustainable transport policies.
Key features of the Transport Data Commons will include free, publicly available, centralized and transparent data access. The database is expected to include intuitive, state-of-the-art data visualization, with data imports and export capabilities, to benefit the whole transport community.
The initial focus will cover transport and climate change, but it may be expanded to air quality and road safety at a later stage.
In addition to UNECE, the Transport Data Commons gathers the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Climate Compatible Growth (CCG), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), FIA Foundation, German Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), German Credit Institute for Reconstruction (KFW), International Transport Forum (ITF), Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), Institut für Energie- und Umweltforschung (IFEU), International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), the International Road Federation (IRF), MobilizeYourCity, University of California Davis, University of Oxford, Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport (SLOCAT), and the World Bank.
