During 23 and 24 February 2026, many members of the Transport Data Commons Initative and the global community of transport data stakeholders gathered at University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland.
Through intense work sessions, they discussed the need for and value of accessible, high-quality transport data, and drafted more than 100 calls to action directed at the people and organizations who can act together to realize a Transport Data Commons.
The most widely agreed and urgent actions are collected in the Glasgow Declaration on a Transport Data Commons, which has been signed by more than 50 organizations and individuals.
The final text of the Declaration and full list of signatories is available here, and repeated below.
The Glasgow participants—and all members of the Transport Data Commons Initative—welcome additional signatures from all who share the values and endorse the calls to action that it contains.
How to sign
Please visit this form to sign the Declaration. Members of the TDC operating consortium will update the official list of signatures periodically.
You can sign the Declaration (1) as an individual (only); (2) with your affiliation to an organization; or (3) ‘officially’ in your capacity as a representative of your organization. Use one of these forms:
- Full Personal Name (City, Country)
- Full Personal Name (Full Organization Name)
- Full Organization Name (Full Personal Name)
Full text of the Declaration
WE—the undersigned individuals and organizations, being experts and practitioners in transport development and data, gathered in Glasgow on 24 February 2026—
RECOGNIZING that transport and mobility are vital to the wellbeing of all people, and that accessible, high-quality data are essential to evidence-based policymaking at local, national, and international levels, serving to identify needs, set priorities, and guide investments that leave no one behind;
NOTING that the UN General Assembly, in declaring 2026–2035 the Decade of Sustainable Transport (the “Decade”), called for systematic monitoring and data-driven tracking to assess progress across the Decade’s six focus areas;
ACKNOWLEDGING that these efforts are central to advancing shared global agendas, including the Sustainable Development Goals and goals under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC);
CONCERNED that current transport data—often missing, fragmented, inaccessible or inaccurate—are inadequate for our collective ambitions for sustainable development;
FURTHER CONCERNED that these data gaps are most severe in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where transport development is most urgently needed;
AWARE that these challenges arise from systemic barriers, including limited institutional capacity, insufficient funding for data infrastructure, and misaligned incentives for data sharing;
CONVINCED that overcoming these barriers requires coordinated actions across governments, international organizations, research institutions, civil society, and the private sector;
DECLARE our shared vision of a global commons of transport data in which all can contribute to developing high-quality data and metadata as public goods, openly accessible for all to use.
We NOTE the achievements of the Transport Data Commons Initiative (TDCI) since 2022 in convening transport data users, providers, and practitioners worldwide, and in establishing common practices, infrastructure and tools grounded in open participation, established standards, and the principles of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) data;
And therefore we CALL UPON governments, international organizations, development agencies, research institutions, civil society, and individuals to take the specific actions outlined below, in order to expand and sustain the Transport Data Commons and thereby ensure that high-quality, accessible data fully support the pursuit of shared goals, increased ambition, and sustainable mobility for all.
Calls to action
We call on governments of all orders (national, sub-national, and municipal) and their units (departments, ministries, etc.) to:
- Publish openly, where feasible, transport data in machine-readable formats (e.g., .csv), recognizing that these data can be integrated in the TDC by the wider community.
- Adopt or strengthen policies that require transport data collected through public funding to be published openly and made accessible to researchers, planners, and the international community.
- Nominate TDC focal points within national transport ministries to coordinate with the TDC community on data sharing, ensure consistency of national datasets, and facilitate two-way knowledge exchange.
We call on international development organizations (IDOs), especially international finance institutions (IFIs) such as multilateral development banks (MDBs), bilateral development agencies, foundations, and philanthropies, to:
- Mandate that transport data generated through funded projects be uploaded to the Transport Data Commons in TDC-compatible formats, by including common data-sharing requirements in contracts with project consultants and implementing partners.
- Strengthen capacity in national and sub-national governments, in order to institutionalize regular collection and sharing of transport data in TDC-standard formats.
- Join as TDC Supporters in a tiered scheme of long-term financial support, in order to ensure TDC infrastructure and tools are well-maintained and developed according to needs of the global user community, and to fund ongoing work on standards development and harmonization.
- Support hackathons and similar events, for instance hosted at universities in LMICs, to support students and local users in expanding data literacy through TDC engagement.
We call on knowledge organizations (universities, think tanks, and research institutions) both global and local to:
- Contribute transport data and metadata, including transport research outputs, to the TDC based on their local knowledge and expertise.
- Partner with LMIC institutions and organizations to build local capacity in transport data collection, analysis and sharing—including through collaborative research projects, workshops, and integration of TDC methods— to strengthen data ecosystems where they are most needed.
We call on existing transport data initiatives to recognize the TDC as complementary infrastructure that can amplify their visibility and impact, and to coordinate with the TDC through dialogue and, where appropriate, technical interoperability agreements, in order to create a coherent data landscape that serves all users.
We call on all stakeholders in the Transport Data Commons to:
- Develop a governance structure for the TDCI that is inclusive with respect to geography, language, gender, race, etc., and across categories of actors in transport data, including providers, users, and supporters, in order to ensure these diverse perspectives govern the future evolution of the TDC.
- Contribute to communities of practice convened by TDCI, including on the topic of ethics and justice in data practice.
- Establish regional working groups (e.g., TDC Africa, TDC Latin America) with TDCI facilitation, to coordinate data priorities, share best practices, and address context-specific challenges in data provision and use.
We call on UN DESA and the UN regional commissions, as co-leads of the Decade, to:
- Use the TDC as a repository for transport data and metadata that underlies critical products, such as annual reports and dashboard(s), produced for comprehensive monitoring and tracking of progress within the Decade and its six focus areas.
We call on the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to:
- Receive and provide feedback on annual TDCI progress reports at the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF-SD), offering guidance to strengthen implementation of these calls to action;
- Invite additional signatories, via new or strengthened calls and commitments, to raise the ambitions of the Declaration.
Finally, we DECLARE our own commitment to advocate for these calls within our organizations and networks, to contribute data and expertise to the TDC according to our respective capacities, to participate actively in TDC governance structures and communities of practice, and to lead by example in establishing the open, collaborative practices that will sustain the commons for the benefit of all.