Federated data sharing (2022)

The catalogue information was compiled by the ARCADE project in 2022, then extended by FAME.

To address data access for large scale data collection, and to enable less open data to be processed for research purposes, the principle of federated data sharing is on the rise. The principle is to allow data access within module in a controlled environment within the organization holding the full dataset. This means that the data owner and maintainer have control over which data that can be access by this module, and which scripts that can operate on the data.

The possible upside is to have more data being shared since data owner have greater control over the data (being within their own environment). To this aspect some dataset might be too large to transfer from one part to another why this would help sharing the results of data processes rather than the full dataset. From a research perspective this is still a great challenge, not having control over the raw data. The researcher must trust the result of the data processing and the preparatory work of describing the data to be understood, preliminary analysis on-site or support to do so by the data provider might be needed to ensure the quality of the result.

GAIA-X

GAIA-X is an initiative to form a specification for data exchange. The initiative came from the German and French government, attracted many industrial stakeholders to join, and has been picked up by the EC. There are more than 300 stakeholders in the GAIA-X partnership working on defining these protocols. Later, the protocols can be adapted by a software module or infrastructure. The aim is to boost data sharing on a new level, needed for Europe to be able to compete on a global scene.

https://gaia-x.eu, accessed on July 8th 2022.

International data spaces

International Data Spaces (IDS) is one of the software frameworks implementing the GAIA-X principles, founded by Fraunhofer and maintained by International Data Spaces Association. IDS is an open source framework already with a reference implementation in 2018. There are close links between IDS and GAIA-X in terms of the development and management. There are numerous applications using IDS in various domains.

https://internationaldataspaces.org, accessed on July 8 2022.

Mobility data space (MDS)

The German MDS is applying IDS as a live demonstrator of mobility data, including real time traffic information. MDS was launched in October 2021 at the ITS World Congress.

https://mobility-dataspace.eu/, accessed on July 8 2022.

Catena-X

Catena-X is the automotive implementation of GAIA-X, built on IDS implementing the Eclipse data space connector.

https://catena-x.net/en, accessed on July 8 2022.

https://projects.eclipse.org/proposals/eclipse-dataspace-connector, accessed on July 8 2022.

X-roads

Another software framework implementing the principles of GAIA-X is the Estonia/Finnish collaboration project X-roads. X-roads have many implementations on open government information.

https://x-road.global, accessed on July 8 2022.

Data for road safety

Data for road safety implements Safety Related Traffic Information (STRI) following a commitment by the Data Task Force during the High Level Conference on Connected and Automated Mobility in Amsterdam 2017. It is a B2B network where all partners get access to messages related to traffic safety, based on reciprocity (you get something, you give something). The applications are similar to some of them within the MDS.

https://www.dataforroadsafety.eu, accessed on July 8 2022.

National access points (NAP)

The road authorities are mandated to provide NAP by a common regulation in the EU. There are though different approaches by the member states to NAPs where the required, most common and basic is to provide a metadata repository over datasets the road authorities make available. These datasets are not necessarily available for free and there are different models.

Two of the more advanced are the Dutch NDW and German MDM (the latter to be replaced by mobilithek.info).

NDW is a data warehouse hosting numerous datasets available from one entrance. It is also possible to request customized datasets.

https://ndw.nu/, accessed on July 8 2022.

MDM, is a data market place for mobility data. It is a platform to publish and subscribe to relevant data. It also includes search functionalities on metadata of the published datasets. MDM is to be shut down by 2024 and is now in the transition from the current service to the new, Mobilithek.info.

https://mdm-portal.de, accessed on July 8 2022.
https://mobilithek.info, accessed on July 8 2022.