GER: New Mobility Data Act – Faster Travel Thanks to Better Data

Nov 1, 2024 Benn-Ibler Rechtsanwälte

The German Mobility Data Act is designed to make it easier for people to plan their travel routes. Traffic data is a valuable source of information. It can be used to optimise timetables, calculate faster routes, or meet the demand for shared services more efficiently. With the new Mobility Data Act, the German government wants to make sure that traffic data will be freely available and of a higher quality than is the case today.

The availability of mobility data of sufficient quality is a prerequisite for modern mobility services and their user-friendly, efficient, and resource-saving design. It is also the basis for the development of innovations and new business models in the mobility sector.

The provision of a wide range of mobility data, static and dynamic data such as public transport timetables, delay reports, and more, is already regulated in some EU and national legislation.

The key requirement is data accessibility via the National Access Point (NAP).

The wide range of existing requirements has led to a need for greater standardisation and legal clarity. This is particularly true for data owners who are obliged to make data available.

A Mobility Data Coordination Body will monitor data quality by providing technical specifications on how data owners must provide the data and how data can be accessed. The Federal Office for Logistics and Mobility (Bundesamt für Logistik und Mobilität) will be able to impose sanctions if data owners fail to comply with their obligations.

The law should also make it possible in future to book and pay for different means of transport, such as bus, train, or car sharing, digitally and across providers. This should also increase the efficiency of the transport system and help reduce emissions in the transport sector.

The law was adopted by the German federal cabinet on 2 October 2024.

German Federal Government Bill (25 September 2024)