Web conference notes, 2024.08.01 (MDS Working Group)

Web Conference

MDS Working Group

• Monthly on Thursday at 9am PT, 12pm ET, 5/6pm CET

Conference Call Info

Zoom Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAscOmhpjIuHNakPx6CNbACpjUjw1Gsucr4

One tap mobile: +19294362866,,84170989462#,,,,*612987# US (New York) - though we encourage Zoom

Agenda

Meeting Agenda

State of MDS Survey Results

1. Intro and announcements (5 min)
2. Survey Results and Analysis (20 min) - Mitch Vars, OMF
3. Discussion and feedback (20 min)

WGSC Meeting Organizers

• Host: Pierre Bouffort, Blue Systems
• Facilitator: Michael Schnuerle, OMF
• Preparation: Mitch Vars, OMF
• Outreach: Michael Schnuerle, OMF
• Note taker: Gene Leynes, Chicago

Action Items and Decisions

1. Add list of survey cities and their reports to the blog post - OMF
2. Read the State of MDS Survey 2024 blog post, which now includes
   • Cities who took the survey are listed
   • Reports, Dashboards, Presentations from the cities are linked

Minutes

• 41 Attendees
• OMF Slides
• Recording via YouTube (thanks to Sami Salinas from ITS America)
• Transcript

Notes

• OMF Summit coming November 12, 2024
  • http://openmobilityfoundation.org/omf-summit-2024/
• State of MDS Survey
  • How are public agencies using MDS
  • Blog post on details: https://www.openmobilityfoundation.org/announcing-the-state-of-mds-survey-2024/
• Data Standards: Summary of Currently Using vs. Planning to Use
  • Largest use in Scooters and Bicycles
  • Taxis and Uber and Lyft is lower due to being newer and preemption (theory)
• API Usage Summary
  • Large increase in usage,
• MDS Version use summary:
  • Good adoption of version 2, but older versions in use simultaneously
• Requirements by ordinance / law:
  • Procurement requirements: More than half of the cities are requiring MDS
  • Many users are requiring providers to update to recent versions
• Reporting:
  • More than 75% of the cities responding use MDS for reporting in some capacity
• CDS - Curb Data Specification
  • New specification with low adoption
  • Many cities are "planning to use"
• Question: Is the city level data available?
  • No, some records are publicly available
  • It was part of the overall survey design to not share data to promote responses
• Question: Are cities interested in 2.0 for micromobility?
  • 2.0 - most of the features were for new modes, so micromobility might not need the new standard
  • Would be good for policy enforcement; e.g. riding on sidewalk
• Question: Why are cities not adopting new versions?
  • Summary: The old versions work for many use cases.
  • Comments that it's very helpful to have people on the same versions, and future modes drive adoption.
  • Related post on new functionality / modes: https://www.openmobilityfoundation.org/taxi-avs-mds-policy/
• Discussion:
  • Need for communication for "rules of the road"
  • For example: nuance of "where to stop" at a stop sign has regional differences
  • We are now wesigning policy for robots as much as humans
  • One reason Policy API can work very well for AVs is because they have a very detailed base map
  • Strong consideration evaluation of MDS with events like Olympics
  • Looking at things like bluetooth beacons to improve accuracy.
  • Related post on passenger services: https://www.openmobilityfoundation.org/data-digital-policy-how-mds-is-used-for-passenger-services/
• Discussion: Aggregated metrics
  • Related post on report data types: https://github.com/openmobilityfoundation/mobility-data-specification/blob/main/data-types.md#reports
• What does OMF look for in the open-source community as contributions? Is there any low-hanging fruit that third-party developers can work on to help?
  • We also have an Open API schema here https://github.com/openmobilityfoundation/mobility-data-specification/tree/main/schema