Academic Access Framework for GOFS Data

[hdia]

Hello MobilityData team and GOFS community,

Thank you for creating this space to discuss academic access to GOFS data. As a researcher working at the intersection of transportation technology and sustainability, I'm excited about the potential of GOFS to advance evidence-based transit policy and climate adaptation strategies.

Research Program Context

My research focuses on leveraging open transportation data standards to address critical sustainability and equity challenges in urban mobility. I've been actively working with MobilityData's standards across multiple projects:

Current Projects Using MobilityData Standards:

LLM_PT_Alerts - Natural language processing of GTFS-Realtime service alerts

• Demonstrating AI applications for transit communication
• Processing real-time disruption data for accessibility
• GitHub: https://github.com/hdia/LLM_PT_Alerts

equimobility - Global micromobility accessibility and equity analysis using GBFS

• City-level availability and infrastructure assessment
• Examining spatial equity in shared mobility systems
• GitHub: https://github.com/hdia/equimobility

Forthcoming Project Requiring GOFS:

Climate-Resilient Transit Systems - Analyzing on-demand services as resilience enhancers

• Service continuity during extreme weather events (polar vortexes, hurricanes, heat waves)
• Comparative analysis: fixed-route vs. on-demand service modes
• Integration with weather data and grid carbon intensity
• Quantifying how flexible transit maintains mobility during climate disruptions

This progression from GTFS-RT → GBFS → GOFS represents the natural evolution of understanding modern, multimodal, climate-adaptive transportation systems. Access to operational GOFS data would enable us to complete this comprehensive analysis framework.

For more details on my open-source transportation research, please see: https://github.com/hdia

Academic Access Use Cases - Broader Context

Access to GOFS data would enable researchers to complete the picture of modern urban mobility systems. Building on established patterns with GTFS and GBFS academic use, GOFS access would unlock:

1. Climate Resilience and Adaptation Research

• Quantifying how on-demand services maintain mobility during extreme weather
• Identifying service patterns that enhance community resilience
• Modeling future scenarios under increasing climate volatility
• Understanding modal shifts during infrastructure failures

2. Multimodal System Integration

• Analyzing how on-demand services complement fixed-route transit
• Understanding first/last-mile connectivity in various conditions
• Evaluating system-wide resilience across service types
• Assessing real-world MaaS (Mobility-as-a-Service) implementations

3. Equity and Accessibility Analysis

• Understanding who benefits from on-demand services during disruptions
• Analyzing spatial and temporal service coverage
• Evaluating on-demand as an accessibility tool for underserved communities
• Examining affordability and availability patterns

4. Technology and Sustainability Assessment

• Calculating carbon footprints across service modes
• Optimizing fleet operations for emissions reduction
• Evaluating AI/ML applications in on-demand dispatch
• Comparing environmental impacts of different operational models

5. Methodological Advancement

• Developing standardized metrics for on-demand service evaluation
• Creating reproducible analysis frameworks
• Building open-source tools for the research community (following our GTFS-RT and GBFS work)
• Establishing best practices for privacy-preserving transit data research

Suggested Academic Access Framework

Drawing from successful data sharing models with GTFS, GTFS-Realtime, and GBFS—standards that have enabled thousands of academic studies while protecting agency interests—I'd suggest a similar approach for GOFS:

Tiered Access Approach:

• Public/Historical Data: Anonymized operational data >6 months old, suitable for research
• Research Partnership Data: Current operational data via data use agreements for IRB-approved research
• Privacy Protection: Clear guidelines on anonymization and aggregation requirements (building on GBFS privacy practices)

Academic Benefits:

• Peer-reviewed publications citing GOFS data (increasing visibility)
• Open-source analysis tools shared with the community (as demonstrated in our GTFS-RT and GBFS projects)
• Research findings shared back with data providers
• Student training on modern transit data standards
• Benchmarking and comparative analysis across systems

Agency Benefits:

• Independent evaluation of service effectiveness
• Benchmarking against peer systems
• Evidence base for funding and policy decisions
• No cost for research and analysis
• Academic validation of service innovations

This model has worked exceptionally well for GTFS and GBFS, enabling innovation while respecting operational constraints.

Track Record and Commitment

My work with MobilityData standards demonstrates a commitment to:

• Responsible data stewardship - Appropriate privacy protections and ethical use
• Open science - Public GitHub repositories with reproducible methods
• Community contribution - Sharing tools and findings that benefit agencies and researchers
• Long-term engagement - Ongoing projects across multiple standards (GTFS-RT, GBFS, GOFS)

I understand that GOFS is still young and agencies are working toward public feeds. As an active user of your standards, I'm committed to:

• Working with early data sharing frameworks as they develop
• Providing feedback on data specifications from a research user perspective
• Sharing our analysis frameworks as open-source tools (continuing the pattern from our other projects)
• Being a responsible data steward and early adopter
• Contributing to academic access best practices that benefit the entire GOFS ecosystem

Having successfully leveraged GTFS-RT and GBFS for research, I'm excited to extend this work to GOFS and continue contributing to MobilityData's mission of improving mobility through open data.

Thank you for considering academic access as part of the GOFS ecosystem. I look forward to contributing to this important initiative.

Kind regards,

Hussein Dia
Professor of Transport Technology and Sustainability
Swinburne University of Technology
Melbourne Australia

[carlfredl]

Excellent use case. Thank you for sharing details about your use case.

@hdia how have you found access to GBFS? GOFS is currently modelling data sharing after GBFS. The next steps under way are:

• Continue to encourage first producers to share data in GOFS systems.csv.
• Add an open data licenses file to encourage that GOFS be published as open data #38