Leveraging Big Data to Manage Transport Operations
Big Data in Transport
Next Steps with LeMO project 
Rajendra Akerkar
Western Norway Research Institute
LeMO project
Leveraging Big Data to Manage Transport Operations (LeMO) project 
Grant agreement no: 770038
• H2020‐EU.3.4. ‐ SOCIETAL CHALLENGES ‐ Smart, Green and Integrated Transport
• In order to meet this challenge, LeMO:
• identifies methodological and technological issues to allow for effective data 
mining and data exploitation
• analyses the barriers and limitations of the transportation system to exploit 
big data opportunities
• designs a research and policy recommendations for big data in transport
Project details
• Nov 2017 – Oct 2020; 36 months
• 5 Partners
• 5 Countries
LeMO objectives
• To produce research and policy roadmap towards data openness,
collection, exploitation and data sharing to support European transport
stakeholders in capturing and addressing issues, that range from technical
to institutional, including legitimacy, data privacy and security.
• To involve European transport sector actors in order to identify and
analyse concrete opportunities, barriers and limitations of the
transportation systems to exploit big data opportunities.
• To disseminate the LeMO findings, recommendations and the
contribution of the LeMO to evidence–based decision making by
improving knowledge on methodological and exploitation issues taking
also into account economic, legal, social, institutional and technical
aspects.
Transport themes 
The LeMO project will 
study and analyse big data 
in the transport domain 
with respect to these five 
transport dimensions. 
Source: Transport Research & Innovation Portal
Big data
LeMO project is uniquely positioned 
to help stakeholders capitalize on 
the power of big data to:
• Significantly improve the customer 
experience
• Enhance services to increase revenue 
and manage capacity
• Maximize the availability of assets 
and infrastructure
• Improve operational efficiency
5 Vs
Case studies – Overview (1)
Issues to be addressed: innovation in infrastructure, 
efficiency in transport routes, resource management and
supply chain, environmental impacts, vulnerability in 
potential crisis and data protection.
Issues to be addressed:  enabling ‘mass 
mobilisers’ (training journalists and civic 
groups) to disseminate and make data 
understandable by the general public, not just 
data scientists.
Rail transport data
Open data 
and transport sector 
Case studies – Overview (2)
Issues to be addressed: discuss a methodology to 
estimate passenger demand for public transport 
services using social media and mobile phone data. 
Issues to be addressed: innovative big data 
acquisition procedures;  test the capability to 
reach an alternative, less expensive and faster 
administrative procedure of acquiring 
stakeholder‐specific big data. 
Real‐time traffic 
management
Logistics and 
consumer 
preferences
Case studies – Overview (3)
Issues to be addressed: Use 
Inland AIS to track vessel 
movements in and around locks
Issues to be addressed: explore various 
network models for efficient 
transportation planning that eliminates 
service delays. 
Issues to be addressed: 
Multimodal, multiagency approach 
to provide useful suggestions on 
the prerequisites of successful big 
data implementation in ITS
Smart inland 
shipping
Optimized transport 
and improved 
customer service
Big data and 
intelligent 
transport 
systems
Case studies
LeMO will use an overview of 
opportunities‐limitations‐barriers, 
which will be filtered through the 
case studies, resulting in key 
recommendations and roadmap.
Expected impacts
• LeMO recommendations and roadmap can help policy makers at the 
EU, national and regional level, as well as relevant decision makers to 
take informed decisions
• Contribution to evidence–based decision making by improving knowledge on 
methodological and exploitation issues taking also into account economic and 
technical considerations
• Support to industry in capturing benefits (efficiencies, new business models, 
etc.) and addressing limitations before beginning a project, initiative or 
programme
• Contribution to an early identification of critical issues linked to privacy, data 
security, legal and institutional aspects
Thank you
• Any questions?
• Key contact:  
• Rajendra Akerkar rak@vestforsk.no
• LeMO website: 
• lemo‐h2020.eu/

Rajendraakerkar lemoproject