A Charter for the Transport Data Commons Initiative

Timeline for discussion, feedback, and adoption

February 2026

The Glasgow Declaration called on TDCI stakeholders to develop a governance structure, and sets out its key values and principles.

30 October 2026

This first draft of the Charter is shared with the TDCI community.

23–25 November 2026

Open question & answer (Q&A) sessions for the TDCI community to ask about and discuss the governance structure laid out by the Charter, and how it would operate in the short, medium, and long term.

There will be three sessions:

• Monday, 23 November at 13:00 UTC (compare time here) for Africa, the Middle East, and Europe
• Tuesday, 24 November at 07:00 UTC (compare time here) for Asia and the Pacific.
• Wednesday, 25 November at 16:00 UTC (compare time here) for the Americas.

December 2026

The TDCI founding contributors meet to discuss and incorporate community feedback.

January 2026

First meeting of the TDC Partner Forum, the most inclusive governance body described in the Charter. All members of the community will gather together to formally adopt the Charter.

Ways to ask questions or give feedback

Feedback is welcome by any route you find suitable.

1. Join one of the Q&A sessions listed above.
2. Join the TDC Zulip chat and add to or start a discussion topic.
3. E-mail contact@transport-data.org.
4. Reach out to any existing contact from the TDCI community.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

Why is a Charter needed?

In the start-up phase of the TDCI, stakeholders and participants acted in an ad-hoc or “birds of a feather” manner—brought together by shared interest in the TDCI vision.

After launching in 2026, the TDCI enters a new phase where steady flows of resources (people's time and money) are needed to support continuous and sustained work on the TDC infrastructure, tools, standards, community processes, (meta)data, etc. In order to collect and use these resources responsibly and effectively, the TDCI needs to institutionalize: to become an organization with clear, well-defined structure, duties, responsibilities, and procedures.

Why is the Charter so long/why are there so many different bodies and units?

The TDCI itself brings together many types of actors, each of whom must do different, complementary things in order to make the TDC a success.

During the 4+-year start-up phase of TDCI (from 2022 through 2026), those involved have talked to hundreds of stakeholders in transport data from around the world. After many hours of discussions, the structure in the Charter has evolved as the best way to handle two facts:

1. Stakeholders and their organizations are extremely diverse, and have diverse roles and interests; and
2. There are many different kinds of contributions (Appendix A1) that need to come together to achieve the TDCI mission.

The Charter must provide a description of these people and groups; how they interact; and who is responsible to whom in what way. So the text is written to:

• Give the simplest, clearest explanation of each of these bodies, how they relate, and essential TDCI activities.
• Be specific and unambiguous, to avoid confusion or disputes about how it is interpreted.
• At the same time, be general, inclusive, and permissive, avoid trying to limit the decision-making power of people who will fill the roles and bodies.

How is the Charter structured/organized?

• Sections are all numbered. References to sections use the section mark: §. There is no hierarchy of sections.
• Paragraphs and subparagraphs (“items”) are all numbered like 1.1(a)(i). References to items use the paragraph mark: ¶.
• Key terms are underlined on first use.
• Abbreviations written in full on first use (“United Nations (UN)”).
• We avoid repeating “TDC” or “TDCI” except: (a) at the start of a section or (b) to avoid ambiguity.
• We use present simple tense (“X does Y”) unless otherwise necessary.