“Open Government Data” - based Business Models

A Market Consultation on the Relationship with Government in the Case of

Mobility and Route-Planning Applications

Nils Walravens

, Mathias Van Compernolle

, Pieter Colpaert

, Pieter Ballon

, Peter Mechant

and Erik Mannens

iMinds-SMIT, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 9, Brussels, Belgium

iMinds-MICT, Ghent University, Korte Meer 11, Ghent, Belgium

iMinds-Data Science Lab, Ghent University, Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 41, Ghent, Belgium

Keywords: Open Data, Business Models, Mobility, Route-planning, Government.

Abstract: This paper explores the business potential of open government data in the domain of mobility. Open data is

often touted as the go-to policy for government to pursue, but the actual returns of following such a strategy

remain somewhat illusive and anecdotic. Based on a research project subsidised by the Flemish Department

of Mobility and Public Works, this paper presents the results of a market consultation with diverse

stakeholders. The goal is to better understand the attitudes, bottlenecks, expectations and requirements

related to open data of market stakeholders, so that the government can devise strategies that support

sustainable open data initiatives and its policy goals at the same time. The paper offers a framework towards

analysing this. It concludes that structural and iterative dialogue is desirable, both from the perspective of

the market and government, but that this perhaps obvious key component is often overlooked.

1 INTRODUCTION

An aspect that is deemed of particular importance to

‘smarter’ forms of governance is open data

(Schaffers et al., 2012; Townsend, 2013). The idea is

that governments are currently ‘sitting’ on a wealth

of information related to divergent aspects of life in

the city, but that this data is neither publicly

available, nor easily interpretable. This has sparked a

movement to encourage the opening of datasets in a

structured and machine-readable way, under the

‘open data’ moniker, which has gained significant

traction across local and national governments. The

Open Knowledge Foundation is one of the strong

proponents of open data and has come up with what

has become the generally accepted definition of

open data: “Open means anyone can freely access,

use, modify and share for any purpose (subject, at

most, to requirements that preserve provenance and

openness)” (OKFN, 2015).

This means that open data can be used for any

goal at no cost, with the only (potential) exceptions

being that reusers mention the source of the data or

do not in any way prevent the data from being

shared further on.

Open data has proven to be in high demand in

some specific domains, with mobility often being

one of the first application areas under consideration

(see for example Jäppinen et al., 2013). The idea

here is clear: (semi-)public transport organisations

open up all kinds of data related to their operations

and networks, with the goal of having external

developers create new services and applications

(‘apps’) based on this data. In principle, this can

mean a cost reduction for the mobility organisations

that open data, as they do not need to build and

maintain their own services and apps, an activity that

is generally accepted as being highly cost-intensive

(Walravens, 2015). The benefit for citizens and users

of the (public) transport systems is that a multitude

of different mobility services become available,

which appeals to different target audiences and

niches.

In practice however, a number of challenges

remain and ‘merely’ opening up data has not always

proven equally successful (see e.g. Peled, 2011; Lee

et al., 2014). Opening up data already entails

Walravens, N., Compernolle, M., Colpaert, P., Ballon, P., Mechant, P. and Mannens, E.

“Open Government Data” - based Business Models - A Market Consultation on the Relationship with Government in the Case of Mobility and Route-Planning Applications.

DOI: 10.5220/0005948300640071

In Proceedings of the 13th International Joint Conference on e-Business and Telecommunications (ICETE 2016) - Volume 2: ICE-B, pages 64-71

ISBN: 978-989-758-196-0

significant challenges to governments and public

organisations before any data “leaves” the

organisation (e.g. setting up internal processes to

safeguard internal data hygiene and quality control,

or implementing new or updating existing database

systems). Relevant data can also be distributed over

different government organisations or levels of

governance, and some data applicable to the public

may be under the control of private players that are

less inclined to open it. After data are made

available, the role of government is not necessarily

played out. Ensuring that data is actually reused and

relevant applications are built should also be

considered a concern for these public organisations

and open data policy makers. What the role of

government can be in supporting the reuse of open

mobility data is the main guiding question for the

work presented in this paper.

This research was part of a project carried out for

the Department of Mobility and Public Works

(http://departement-mow.vlaanderen.be) of the

Flemish Government in Belgium. This large and

complex department consists of eleven divisions that

are responsible for diverse aspects of mobility,

transport, traffic safety, road- and waterway

infrastructure and so on. Faced with the increasing

importance of open data on the regional, national

and European level (i.e., through the PSI-directive,

Janssen, 2011), the Department commissioned a

study that would investigate and tackle the

challenges related to implementing an open data

vision. A crucial part of this project was to better

understand needs and concerns that are present in

the market related to open data, as well as to their

relationship with the government. What follows are

the findings of a limited market consultation with

potential open mobility data reusers, with the goal of

identifying their needs and concerns. First, an

overview of challenges in open data business models

and reuse is provided. Next the methodology used is

presented, followed by the results of the analysis.

2 ON OPEN DATA BUSINESS

MODELS

This section will provide some considerations on

open data-related business models. Although reality

is often far more complex, this discussion starts on

the basis of a basic value chain depiction of the

process of open data reuse. Why and how this

process is far less linear in reality will be explained

further on. This ‘value chain of open government

data reuse’ starts with the creation of the data by a

public authority and ends with the consumption of a

service or product that is at least in part built on top

of that data. This basic chain is depicted in Figure 1

(Adapted from Ferro & Osella, 2013). The products

of each step in the chain are indicated at the top of

the chain, while the potential reusers of those

products are listed below it.

Figure 1: Open data value chain.

The first step in the chain is the creation of the

data, which in this scenario happens exclusively

within government. Clearly, data is also generated in

the private sector and in civil society, but given the

focus of this study, we will concentrate on open

government data. The result of this first step is raw

data. One can continue to process this data, for

example by categorizing it, indexing it and making it

searchable, opening it up in certain formats and so

on. These processes can be executed by non-profit or

commercial third-party players. The result of the

step is enriched data that is more suitable for reuse.

Although it is often forgotten, the moment in which

data are created is an ideal time to generate as much

(contextual) metadata as possible, making this

enrichment easier, cheaper and higher in quality. At

the moment of data creation, chances are higher that

a lot of metadata and information about the data is

available. We will return to this point later on. The

next step in this chain is the reuse of the data, which

for example can be done by civil society or citizens’

initiatives or by commercial parties that either do or

do not make it the core of their business model. The

results of this step are new products and services that

can be consumed by governments, citizens,

companies or other end users.

Although this figure and this value chain clearly

represent the basic principles of open data reuse and

their potential commercial opportunities, it remains a

conceptual representation of reality. Often, reality

consists of a much more complex set of interactions

that make it much less obvious to arrive at

successful open data reuse. For example, within

government, step one and two will often be closely

“Open Government Data” - based Business Models - A Market Consultation on the Relationship with Government in the Case of Mobility

and Route-Planning Applications

interlinked given that even internal government

organisations rarely work with true raw data (as

became apparent from several of our interviews

within the Department of Mobility and Public

Works). More often than not, data will be

documented in different ways, stored in different

systems in divergent formats, made available

through different channels and so on. While this

does not per se has to be a problem, it can impact the

way in which the next steps in the chain represented

above can be taken. When one moves to a next step

in the chain, the figure does not represent that

government itself can also be a reuser of this

enriched or more refined data (e.g., a different

government service or department or in the case of

intergovernmental data exchange). This could for

example happen when reports need to be made or

the government’s own data needs to be

contextualised.

In fact, the results of each step in this chain are

new data that can, in turn, be useful to all the

previous steps; a so-called feedback channel.

Indexing and storing raw data can teach one

something about the way data is captured and

initially spread. As such, the reuse of data can teach

one something about the quality of the metadata

from step two, but also something about missing

data that was not captured in step one, but may be

useful for reuse after all. The consumption of

services and products that are based on the opened

data, in a similar way provide new insights into each

of the previous steps. The difference is that with

each step taken, it becomes more complex to find

out where something may have gone wrong. That is

why it is crucial to first ensure the internal processes

are in place that can deal with this complexity,

before considering opening up. Adding detailed

provenance metadata at the moment of data creation

of course also alleviates many of these concerns.

In this context, it is important to consider that

there is not only business potential in steps three or

four of the chain, but also in steps one and two,

including for government. Where the principles of

open data mainly foresee that data are made

available for free and for everyone, this is not per se

the case for services that are based on raw data.

Without wanting to end up in a semantic debate, one

could argue that as soon as data is stored, indexed,

catalogued and made searchable in a graphical user

interface (e.g., a low threshold website that puts

GIS-information on a map), this can be considered a

service for which also government can ask a

financial compensation. How to deal with these

types of models from a government perspective will

be an important question for local and national

governments going forward.

Finally, what the open data value chain does not

capture is the motivation to start publishing open

data and how new services and products are

consumed. Often, reference is made to apps that will

be built based on top of open data, purely because

certain data sets are made available. In fact, it takes

much more than only open data to put innovative

services into the market.

First and foremost, data need to be made

available in a format that is usable. Next, there needs

to be a clear demand, which can be identified for

example by market analysis. Finally, a minimum of

incentive is required in order to stimulate developers

to get to work with open data. This final aspect

contains a lot of complexity: this incentive can

include financial compensation, media attention,

networking opportunities, expertise gain, peer

recognition and so on. Additionally, each of these

aspects can be responded to in very diverse ways.

The market could be stimulated through financial

support, but this would only be recommended when

other incentives have failed or the government

envisions a specific type of reuse that is not

manifesting in the market. Competitions and

hackathons may have their purpose, but only if

expectations are managed and goals are clearly

defined.

The goal of this research then, is to better

understand the concerns the market has related to the

reuse of open data and what the role of the

government can and should be in this regard. To

answer this question, an interview round was set up

with potential open mobility data reusers. The

following will explain the methodology used and the

results from the interviews.

3 METHODOLOGY

This section briefly details the applied methodology

(expert interviews), the sampling method and the

analysis framework that was used.

3.1 Expert Interviews

Expert interviews can be structured, semi-structured

or open ended (Schmidt, 2004) with the first usually

employed within survey research and the latter in

more explorative stages of research. Semi-structured

interviews allow for more flexibility in which topic

lists do not need to be rigorously followed and can

be modified depending on the expertise or the issues

ICE-B 2016 - International Conference on e-Business

raised during the conversation (Rathbun, 2008: p.

698). Semi-structured interviews allow us to

approach the problem from within the context of the

research subject and reveal both factual knowledge

as well as the opinions of the interviewees, thus

providing more insight into the various angles to the

research questions. Of course, the data collection is

dependent on the will of the interviewee and the

circumstances in which the interview takes place

(such as location, time limitations etc.) can have an

influence (Rathbun, 2008). However, this method

was most appropriate to gather more insight into the

benefits and challenges related to open data reuse.

The following section will briefly detail how the

market players were selected.

3.2 Purposeful Sampling

In order to gather a diversity of inputs from the

stakeholder interviews, a purposeful sampling

(Patton, 1990) was conducted: “Purposeful sampling

involves studying information-rich cases in depth

and detail. The focus is on understanding and

illuminating important cases rather than on

generalizing from a sample to a population. […]

Rigor in case selection involves explicitly and

thoughtfully picking cases that are congruent with

the study purpose and that will yield data on major

study questions.” (Patton, 1999: p. 1197). Our

selection was based on crucial differences between

the companies, which make them more interesting

for comparison. These differences were related to

the market player being national or international,

large or small, active in the mobility domain or not,

and being B2C or B2B. In agreement with the

Department that subsidised this research, 7

companies were withheld (see Table 1).

Table 1: Companies and interviewees.

Company Title

Prophets Technical Director

Prophets Creative Technologist

Ally Business Developer

Be-Mobile Chief Traffic

FlowPilots Partner

Google Maps Strategic Partner Manager Geo

InfoFarm Data Scientist

Prophets is a Belgian mid-sized app developer

and advertising agency that has expressed interest in

mobility as a domain. Ally is a German startup that

offers a multimodal route-planning app that uses

open data from international cities and is active in

Flanders. Be-Mobile is a Belgian company that

offers traffic solutions on an international scale.

FlowPilots is a smaller developer that has

participated to EU-funded research projects in the

mobility domain, but has no commercial mobility

apps. InfoFarm is a B2B company that specialises in

data science and analysis. Finally Google Maps was

also interviewed, perhaps the best-known and most-

used multimodal route-planning application. All

interviews lasted about one hour and were structured

in the same manner.

3.3 Interview Matrix and Topic List

When dealing with expert interviews, each interview

does not need to be completely transcribed and a

general topic list was composed, which was adapted

depending on the interviewee and the operations of

their organisation. In order to analyse the interviews

in a structured way, an interview matrix was used.

This matrix uses five key aspects of working with

open data that were discussed during the interview,

and places them against the three perspectives that

were followed throughout the research: internal to

the company, external to the company (e.g., in

relation to government) and technical (see Table 2).

Table 2: Interview Matrix.

Internal External Technical

Attitude

Bottlenecks

Expectations

Requirements

Business

Sustainability

This matrix was used to structure the interviews

and the topic list and discusses various viewpoints

on open data reuse challenges from different

perspectives. The themes used in the table were

decided upon with the steering committee of the

project and based on key points from the analysis

presented in Section 2 of this paper. ‘Attitude’ refers

to the general position the interviewee has towards

open data; ‘bottlenecks’ refers to the main

challenges identified by the market; ‘expectations’

identifies what companies expect from government;

‘requirements’ are demands from the market; and

‘business sustainability’ explores how business

models can be built on top of open data. This table

was filled out during and after each interview (based

on the transcripts), and allows for a structured

comparison of the opinions expressed by the market

players. The following sections will provide the

analysis of the points discussed.

“Open Government Data” - based Business Models - A Market Consultation on the Relationship with Government in the Case of Mobility

and Route-Planning Applications

4 ANALYSIS

Each of the topics discussed with the experts will be

described and analysed in an aggregated way below.

4.1 Attitude

When asked about their general attitude towards

open data, the respondents agree that the core

principle certainly holds value. The argument that is

most often used is that the data in casu are generated

with taxpayer money and should be made publicly

available. Open data can be relevant for the internal

workings of a company (e.g., projects could be

finished in a more time-efficient way if all required

data are available in open formats), as well as in the

relation to external stakeholders (e.g., using open

data as a basis to enrich data collected by the

company and placing these combined data in the

market).

The respondents do have some recurring

remarks. The first relates to the availability of

certain data (specifically, the ability to find them).

The interviewed market players do not have clear-

enough insight in where the open data they are

looking for can be found. The Flemish Open Data

Portal is also not very well known among the

respondents. A second remark concerns the

reliability of the data. Respondents indicated a lack

of understanding of the context in which certain

datasets were collected and with what purpose (the

provenance of the data). This is not always clear to

potential reusers that may have completely different

types of reuse in mind than the application domains

for which the data were collected in the first place.

Provenance metadata can certainly be a solution

here. A third aspect that impacts the attitude towards

open data relates to communication (this will be

discussed in more detail further on).

The respondents seem to differ on how to build

business models on top of open data. For startups,

open data can be a key resource towards building a

minimal viable product (MVP), or even a more

substantial one, without (high) financial costs for

basic data. There is however some risk in completely

basing a company’s business model on open data.

The interviewed startups indicated being aware of

this risk, but pointed out that this risk is a calculated

one and that there are only very few known cases in

which a government organisation suddenly stopped

providing essential datasets. The larger companies

that were interviewed indicated that using a business

model based exclusively on open data would be too

high of a risk factor, at least without formal

guarantees from the data provider in terms of data

availability and reliability.

Globally speaking, the attitude towards open data

is positive and the interviewed stakeholders agree

with the basic principles behind the concept. From a

more practical perspective, some bottlenecks remain

that will be discussed in the following section.

4.2 Bottlenecks

As mentioned above, some companies voiced

concerns about finding the required data. The

interviewed stakeholders indicate there are too many

open data portals (partly as a result of Belgium’s

federated governance structures) and there is no

overview or catalogue of available data. A number

of respondents were not aware of the Open Data

Forum of the Flemish Government that links to open

data of various government organisations and local

governments. A single portal containing (links to) as

much data as possible appears to be important to the

market stakeholders, combined with clear

communication on the topic. Once the available data

is found, interpretation of the data becomes the next

bottleneck. Understanding the context in which a

dataset was created is not always obvious, nor is it

something that can be completely captured in the

metadata according to respondents. Reusers want to

understand why certain data were collected, why

certain data were not measured or why particular

outliers are seen in the data and so on.

This brings us to another issue that came to the

foreground in each interview: dialogue. The market

is eager to engage more strongly in a dialogue with

government to avoid some of the issues presented

here. Today, an ad-hoc approach is mostly in place,

in which departments, divisions, cabinets, agencies

and so on only communicate with the market on a

case-by-case basis. There is a clear appeal of

organising these meetings on a more structural basis.

Besides missing out on a fundamental dialogue

on open data, the interviewees would welcome more

communication with the data provider in day-to-day

practice. A more operational type of communication

was suggested with a single point of contact at

government level that provides support and answers

questions on certain datasets. This of course requires

effort. It also requires internal effort to cultivate and

support an open data culture within the different

administrations and divisions of government. The

interviewed stakeholders believe that such an open

data culture is not present in most government

organisations at all today or only beginning to

appear very slowly and gradually.

ICE-B 2016 - International Conference on e-Business

The market players indicate there is little that is

not possible from a technical perspective and that

there are no specific technical barriers related to

starting to work with open data. What does become

apparent however is that the data itself often still

needs to be processed before it can be integrated into

a product. The stakeholders stress the idea that once

data are made available they can be used as such, is

wrong and that government should not assume this

is the case. This can turn out to be problematic for

startups that want to integrate certain data directly

into a product, but for several of the interviewed

companies, their business model at least partially

relies on cleaning up, enriching or improving open

data and then reselling it to third parties or in some

cases even to the organisation that initially provided

the data. In summary, the idea is that reusing open

data is, in most cases, also not ‘free’ for reusers,

even when the data is available at no cost.

A final bottleneck that was mentioned is the fact

that Flanders (and Belgium) lacks real-time open

data, which are extremely important for mobility and

route planning services.

4.3 Expectations

The biggest expectation from the market players is

that government does not impose any restrictions on

open data reuse (apart from those imposed by the

PSI directive, the open definition or other existing

legal frameworks of course). The market

respondents conclude that several government

bodies claim to pursue an open data policy, while in

practice, a number of barriers remain. This mainly

refers to the requirement posted by some public

organisations to sign a one-on-one contract between

the data provider and the company or organisation

that wants to reuse the data (i.e., in the case of the

Flemish and Brussels public transport companies).

An additional issue that is brought up in this context

is that data reusers do not have insight into the

agreements made with other companies, since a bi-

lateral contract is used rather than an open data

license (e.g., CC0).

A second expectation that was mentioned links

back to the idea of operational communications

between government and market, mentioned in the

preceding section. When open data is core to the

functioning of a product or service, companies

expect to have some guarantee that everything will

simply keep working. The market looks favourably

on service level agreement (SLA) models in which

the administrative organisation for example foresees

a 24/7 point of contact for technical problems or

questions on opened data. In such an SLA model,

most market players would be willing to compensate

the government, which does not necessarily go

against the principles of the PSI-directive or the

open definition. The government still makes raw

data available to anyone for free and for whatever

purpose, but can be compensated for any services it

offers on top of that raw data.

A final point in this section builds on this idea

and boils down to a fundamental interpretation of

the open data concept. Interviewees told us that,

when government indeed expects open data to lead

to the creation of new applications in the mobility

space, the role of existing mobile apps that are

offered by public transport companies should be

revised. A number of existing websites and apps

owned and operated by the different public transport

organisations in Belgium today offer multimodal

route planning information (e.g., De Lijn, NMBS,

MIVB, and TEC). A number of market players

expressed that it is extremely difficult to compete

with these services, especially given the strong

marketing power of these public companies (e.g.,

through advertising in the public space and brand

recognition). Despite the fact that these apps are

often criticised and receive poor ratings in the online

apps marketplaces, it is argued that the marketing

and communication power of these public

organisations is very difficult to compete with, for

companies that want to enter the same market. If

government claims to fully pursue an open data

strategy, the market stakeholders feel that public

organisations should stop commissioning, building

and maintaining these types of apps.

4.4 Requirements

When asked about the requirements the market

players would expect from government, opinions

were more varied. There was no consensus on the

measures government should take to stimulate the

reuse of open data or the development of innovative

mobility apps. This could be related to the different

types of companies that were interviewed (with

professional developers building commissioned apps

for customers whereas startups may be more

inclined to develop their own products or services).

Whatever supporting measures government

would take to stimulate open data reuse, they will

then need to be adapted to the type of developer or

reuser they are trying to reach. For students,

hobbyists, and even startups a competition model in

which some basic requirements are detailed and a

limited award is made available, may suffice to kick-

“Open Government Data” - based Business Models - A Market Consultation on the Relationship with Government in the Case of Mobility

and Route-Planning Applications

start the development of some innovative apps (or

concepts). More professional companies may be less

inclined to participate in such a competition, as they

would prefer cost-covering measures to create new

applications and services. A proposed example could

be that the government guarantees to use a service

for the first five years after development, or assigns

a bonus when the developer reaches certain KPIs or

goals (e.g., a certain amount of users, access to

enriched data based on the app’s usage, …).

There was consensus among the interviewed

companies that there should be one basic criterion in

whatever supportive initiative government would

undertake: the business plan. In order to arrive at

solutions that can improve mobility on the long term

while providing an interesting value proposition to

the end user, the basic requirement is a solid

business plan with a coherent business model behind

it. The final aspect that was discussed with the

respondents goes more in depth on this matter.

4.5 Business Sustainability

A theme that ran through all the interviews with the

market players was the challenge of building a

business model on top of open data that is

sustainable on the long term. Regarding the payment

models of the apps and services, the market players

seem to agree that the consumer will no longer be

willing to pay for the app itself. Other research also

suggests that the value is higher up in the value

chain (see, e.g., Walravens, 2015). The interviewed

experts also stated that advertisement-based models

are trickier on mobile devices and perhaps even

more so in the domain of mobility. Freemium

models are applied more in mobile apps and seem to

pay off in certain categories, but market players are

also actively exploring models in which an app with

full functionality is made available for free to the

public and the additional data that the use of the app

generates, is recombined with other (open) data, to

be sold on to interested parties. Through this

approach, the buyers of this data get additional

insight in the actual use of apps and services, and by

extension the behaviour of the people using them.

When such an app is based on open data, it may also

be interesting for the data provider to receive an

enriched version of that data set back (for free or on

the basis of a paid agreement), as it can provide

more insight into the data that is already being

collected by the organisation. If the data provider is

a public body in such a case, this enriched

information may also support evidence-based policy

making. As mentioned earlier, open data can also

create a direct financial return for government, by

offering SLA’s on top of the data. On the other

hand, this would also require rather significant

investment from government, mostly related to

training and availability of people. Next to models

that directly leverage the data, the market also sees a

lot of opportunities in further supporting government

through consulting and technical guidance. The

respondents indicated that currently a lot of

consultancy on open data is asked for, which is a

different type of commercial opportunity tied to

open data.

The most important distinctive feature (and

perhaps business potential) of mobility apps

themselves was stated to be the intermodal aspect of

route planning applications, as well as integrating all

kinds of contextual data into the travel advice

provided to end users. The idea is that a user plans a

route in the app and receives travel advice that truly

combines different kinds of transport options (rather

than the separate modes of transport presented in

many apps today) and also dynamically and in real-

time adapts its travel advice based on road

conditions, weather and so on. In general, the

interviewed market players still see a lot of potential

for innovation in this domain and believe

opportunities exist to create value that is currently

not being captured.

5 CONCLUSIONS

The conclusions we can draw from this market

consultation are not univocal. In that sense, it has

proven interesting to follow a purposeful sampling

approach and interview divergent types of potential

reusers of open data that have different customers,

business models, or activities in mobility. It does

make it slightly more challenging to provide a

universally applicable recommendation with regards

to the role government can play in stimulating the

uptake of open data. This is in fact the first

conclusion: each governmental department or public

body will have its own specificities or ways of

operating, which in some cases will also be tied into

the application domain it has competences over.

This means that tailor-made plans of approach will

likely need to be developed. Additionally, whatever

supporting or market-stimulating initiatives

governments may want to undertake, they will need

to be adapted to these specific contextual factors.

What has become clear is that the concept of

open data is generally perceived as positive by the

interviewed stakeholders. There also is a demand for

ICE-B 2016 - International Conference on e-Business

more and higher-quality (richer and more correct)

open data, on the condition that this is made

available in an accessible way and not as the result

of one-on-one contracts. Good communication about

what is available and where, is key in this, together

with the organisation responsible for providing the

data.

To further stimulate interesting reuse, the market

would like governments to consider ways in which

the latter can provide some basic guarantees that

mainly pertain to availability of data, to technical

support and to a single point of contact with high

availability. Next to the freely available open data,

some market players would be willing to pay for a

SLA. However, early feedback from government

seems to indicate the cost would likely be too high

in relation to the return.

Another conclusion is that the sector of mobility

remains very interesting and still has high potential

value that is currently not unlocked. Route planning

services still have a future according to the

respondents and there is still room for innovation in

this domain. This progress is mostly identified in

true intermodal route planning that can take the

context of the user into account in innovative ways,

as well as the predicted situation on his trajectory.

One condition for all of this to come to fruition

would be for government to reconsider the position

of its own mobility applications and services,

according to the market players. These existing

public body apps are said to hinder the market

potential of new and innovative apps.

Next to this, any stimulating measures

government may want to take to increase open data

uptake will need to be adapted to specific and

diverse target audiences. It will be of high

importance to consider both the audience, but also

the end goal and the type of applications or services

governments would like to see created, when

considering any stimulating measures.

Perhaps one of the most important conclusions of

this research ties into the idea of ‘dialogue’. Each of

the market players indicated it would look forward

to more structural dialogue between government and

market players (as well as other stakeholders from

civil society for example). Not only from an

operational perspective, but much more to

understand why certain decisions are being made,

why certain data sets are open or closed, what the

government’s roadmap is and so on. This process is

of course also beneficial to government as it can

better indicate and explain the types of reuse it

would like to see and for what reasons, or more

effectively gather input on which data are important

to open to the market, thus ensuring that its

investments in opening up data have not been in

vain. There are many different practical ways in

which such a dialogue may take place, but these are

secondary to the overall goal of increasing the

efficient and more purposeful reuse of open data.

Future research should explore the impact the form

of dialogue has on the results it achieves.

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“Open Government Data” - based Business Models - A Market Consultation on the Relationship with Government in the Case of Mobility

and Route-Planning Applications