Challenges for data sharing in freight transport

The quantity and quality of data is considered as a critical factor that directly affects the potential output of freight transportation analysis. Reliable and sufficient data enable the detailed analysis for future planning, for both, infrastructure and operation of transport network. Although the significance of transport data is widely acknowledged by researchers and policy decision-makers, several issues still exist, limiting the proper collection but above all the use and sharing of freight data. The existence of various stakeholders and authorities, ranging from national statistical offices to shipping companies and logistics firms as well as the evolution of other non-traditional data sources as key-production “tools” for freight transport data make data collection and sharing a complex and timely consuming procedure. The present paper aims to provide a critical overview of existing sources of data for freight transportation, as well as of existing schemes for sharing these data between public and private sector. Findings reveal the complementarity between public and private sector roles in data collection and sharing data for freight transport. The combination of their roles and activities under a clearly defined partnership could result to mutual benefits for both sectors. The review results to a structured procedure with the form of a framework, which could enable an efficient cooperation among relevant actors for collecting and sharing data for freight transport.