Data Sharing Seen as Crucial to the Future of Public Transit

Fortuitously, as Alexis Stoymenoff reports, for cities and transportation agencies strapped for funding, improvements to transit systems can be made relatively simply, with better use of information that is already at hand.

"By opening up data collected by different municipal departments and agencies, cities can offer new and creative services (like transit apps) with little cost to taxpayers."

According to Gordon Feller, Director of Cisco Systems' Urban Innovations program, "It's not something that the city has to spend money to develop. Third parties will develop it, and the city can take advantage of it."