Uber announced Sunday that it will make its urban traffic data accessible to city officials and researchers, with plans to eventually open the data to the general public.
The data release comes as more cities seek access to Uber’s data — and are often frustrated in the process. Uber and New York City taxi regulators are currently at odds over the city’s attempts to get individual trip data, while a Boston partnership with Uber foundered over privacy concerns.
This new data release could foster goodwill between the company and city regulators and lawmakers. In 2016, the company left Austin after a regulatory and lobbying battle, which ended after the city did not cede to Uber’s demands.
The anonymized trip data, available on a website called Uber Movement, allow its users to take advantage of Uber’s vast pool of traffic information.
{mosads}To illustrate potential applications for the data, Uber posted several blogs showing how the company’s data can for urban planners and city officials.
One shows how Uber can elucidate the link between disruption and how it impacts traffic in the city. In June, Uber jumped on the D.C. area’s Metro SafeTrack initiative — a series of extensive repairs meant to jumpstart the city’s ailing Metrorail infrastructure — by lowering its prices for Washington users.
Uber, which has taken flak in the past over privacy issues, noted provisions in Movement that would protect user privacy. The release data won’t map individual rides, but only travel times between specific points. In areas where trips are sparse, maps will be grayed out to protect privacy.
In the past year, Uber has expanded its relationship with cities. In October, the town of Summit, N.J. offered commuters subsidized Uber rides, a move that could help avoid the construction of new parking.