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Nic Cary, Head of Data Policy, Department for Transport:

 “In this rather scary new world, where a lot of data is available for free, it’s difficult to understand how to build a business when the raw material is free. The point is, and it can’t happen overnight, but one has to move to a model where the value is what is added to turn data into information.”

“The data revolution is key to what we want to achieve. There is an immense amount of data to be had. It’s being generated by and held by multiple different organisations that don’t tend to talk to each other. I continue to be a bit frustrated about where the big steps [to address this] are going to be. When are we going to get to the point where we have a single, national, free, open geo-referencing of our highways assets?  Without this we’re going to be hampered forever more. Yes to more open data, more widely available.” 

 “We need to get our heads round the problem that data has to move across boundaries and be permissioned. Many organisations, including local and strategic highways authorities, logistics companies, satellite navigation companies are all part of this ecosystem. All this information needs to be recognised, permissioned and in real time.  To do that, one needs to set up an enabling mechanism, and to do that, you need to understand all this conceptually.”