Federal planning bureau tests MOTUS in view of better mobility data

In 2017, the Federal Planning Bureau called for the creation of a Mobility Data Working Group. The objective of this working group is the collection and processing of mobility data, as well as the coordination of various policy levels and domains.

Today, detailed and up-to-date information is needed for themes such as salary cars and the organisation of public transport.

Answering current policy questions poses new challenges for policy officers. Both collecting new data is a necessity, but also understanding the underlying dynamics why people move around is necessary. Movements are part of the daily pattern of people and households, and are thus subject to time-space factors.

Within this framework, the working group Mobility Data led by Statbel has evaluated the MOTUS platform. Within the ESSnet project ‘Smart surveys’, the classic Time Use Survey was reformed into a travel survey and the new tool ‘GeoService’ was used. This tool makes it possible to follow respondents during their participation in a survey and to ask them targeted questions depending on their location.

(Newsletter Interfederal Institute for Statistics, no 1, October 2021)