As the world’s mobility options increase, cities are finding it more and more challenging to manage transportation, and in response, a worldwide coalition of such entities has united to form the Open Mobility Foundation (OMF).
OMF acts as a sort of public-private forum. It may host membership from across the country and beyond, but it has one primary goal: putting experts together with city officials to develop, deploy, and govern digital mobility tools.
“Cities are always working to harness the power of technology for the public good. The Open Mobility Foundation will help us manage emerging transportation infrastructures, and make mobility more accessible and affordable for people in all of our communities,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said.
The endeavor was founded through a mix of cities and public agencies throughout the United States; Bogotá, Colombia; the Rockefeller Foundation; and companies including Microsoft, Bird and Blue Systems.
“Technology can play a strong role to transform the relationship amongst multi-modal transportation, retail, hospitality, real estate, and a smart city with a common digital map and understanding of infrastructure usage,” Tara Prakriya, Partner Group Program Manager of MCVP and Mobility at Microsoft, said.
The group’s founding principles include four areas of focus: increasing safety, ensuring equity, improving the quality of life, and protecting privacy. It’s also making a platform known as Mobility Data Specification (MDS) free and open. That platform creates standard communications between cities and private companies, while also allowing them to collect data that will inform real-time traffic management and public policy discussions.