As cities grow and evolve, managing urban data becomes essential for sustainable development and social cohesion. In this context, Hamburg’s Urban Data Initiative is pioneering a collaborative approach to data sharing, bringing together public and private sectors to enhance mobility.

Cities are at the forefront of environmental and social responsibility, acting as epicenters for population, economic activity, and resource consumption. As urban areas continue to expand, their environmental impact grows, making it crucial for cities to drive the green and ecological transition while maintaining social cohesion. Many cities are already investing in sustainable initiatives such as electric mobility, expanding cycling lanes, and reclaiming public spaces from cars and traffic. Additionally, these cities are improving building efficiency, enhancing waste recycling systems, and integrating renewable energy sources.

To successfully implement these initiatives, cities need to develop robust digital infrastructures capable of collecting and managing data on traffic, energy usage, water management, and pollution. This urban data, which encompasses information gathered in public spaces or through city-related activities, is essential for shaping public spaces and improving urban living.

Inaccessibility of urban data as a challenge for sustainable development

However, in many cities, urban data is either not collected or remains inaccessible to local administrations, as it is primarily held by private corporations. To address this issue, the city of Hamburg partnered with The New Institute in 2023 to launch the Urban Data Challenge Hamburg. The goal of this challenge was to built a digital public infrastructure that would enable the collaborative use of urban data from both public and private sources In the first part of the challenge new methods of data sharing and data governance models that serve the public interest were developed. This was a crucial process, as it guaranteed that data was allowed to be shared, which was necessary for the digital public infrastructure to be successfully built. The Hamburg Urban Data Challenge focused on mobility data as a case study to enhance the micromobility infrastructure and to improve traffic planning for citizens.

A novel aspect of this approach was the inclusion of private mobility service providers’ datasets, alongside Hamburg’s public data from its Urban Data Platform. This partnership involved companies like Bolt, which offers e-scooters and e-bikes, and IoT Ventures, which develops and markets GPS trackers.

Integrating Public and Private Data

The central question posed by the Urban Data Challenge was how to gain insights into cycling and micromobility flows in Hamburg to make the city more livable and sustainable. Specifically, the Call for Participation sought solutions to analyze micromobility flows in specific neighborhoods of Hamburg based on shared public and private data. Among over 30 submissions, the “MoveAI” proposal by the University of Bremen won the competition and is now in the process of being developed into a prototype. This prototype aims to create a dashboard that graphically displays micromobility flows, using a combination of statistical analysis, AI-based methods, and quantitative surveys.

Legal Hurdles and Data Accessibility: Key Takeaways from Hamburg’s Urban Data Challenge

One of the major takeaways was that these multi-stakeholder processes, which involve both public and private actors, require significant time and effort. Bureaucratic differences, varying work cultures, and legal uncertainties are factors that make these endeavors particularly time-consuming. Moreover, the project showed that there is an increasing availability of reliable data on micromobility, even though it is still primarily owned by private corporations.

A key lesson from the challenge is the need for a paradigm shift in how urban data is managed. Too often, data remains exclusively with the parties that control technical access to it. One of the key recommendations from the organizers of the Urban Data Challenge was that cities should apply more pressure to make urban data available by default, perhaps by leveraging procurement agreements or public tenders. However, city administrations must also become more adaptable. Legal uncertainties were among the key challenges, highlighting the need for cities to better balance the interest in keeping data confidential with the public interest in making data accessible.

Experimentation with data sharing is extremely challenging but also vital. The Urban Data Challenge Hamburg serves as a valuable case study and could be a blueprint for other cities aiming to leverage urban data for sustainable and democratic urban development.

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