Uber is rolling out a new publicly available data tool that can help cities with traffic studies.
The company said on the new Uber Movement website that it is providing free access to anonymized data from more than 2 billion Uber trips in order to help the world improve urban planning by helping to inform infrastructure investments.
The tool’s “detailed historical insights make it possible to measure the impact of road improvements, major events, new transit lines and more,” according to Uber.
For example, a use case from a March 16th Metrorail service disruption in Washington D.C. visualizes abnormal travel travel times experienced that day. Movement compared the data to the city’s average weekday travel times from the first half of 2016. The tool showed precisely where in the capital travel times increased dramatically due to a particular Metrorail line’s shutdown.
According to The Verge, the tool currently has data on some cities, but Uber plans to expand Movement to every major city where the company operates.
Watch the video announcement:
