Critical steps on the route to data maturity

Delivering Future Transport through DataCritical steps on the route to data maturity

A Cognizant and MuleSoft Point of View, in partnership with Nimbus Ninety

2 / Delivering Future Transport through Data: Critical steps on the route to data maturity2 / Delivering Future Transport through Data: Critical steps on the route to data maturity

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04 The Data Vision

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1314

Barriers to Value

The Route to Data Maturity

Next Steps

Footnotes & About the Author

Table of Contents

11 From Platform to Data Marketplace

IntroductionIt is a time of unprecedented challenge and upheaval for the transport sector. The extreme operating environment unleashed by the coronavirus pandemic combined with longer term decarbonisation objectives, have created a one-in-a-generation opportunity for change across road, rail and air transport.

Data is at the heart of delivering public transport systems and networks that work for everyone. Before the crisis, operators, infrastructure managers and suppliers were well on the road to data modernisation.

Today, recovery and future growth depend on stepping up a gear. Major shifts in passenger travel behaviour are driving new thinking in demand forecasting. An altered view of risk means elevating standards of safety and augmenting information so passengers have the confi dence to travel. What is clear, is that air, rail and road must build on their long history of collaboration to make data available and accessible, to accelerate the transformation to data maturity.

There are green shoots of innovation. Digital railcards1, social distancing monitoring across networks, or cross-modal route optimisation apps that adapt to new parameters such as travel risk or carbon footprint, embody the personalised, interconnected data-driven services that will shape future transport.

In the report that follows we explore an ambitious data vision for air, rail and road, and the steps operators and infrastructure managers are taking to drive this forward.

AcknowledgementsPassenger and public transport operations are the primary focus of this study. The authors thank the senior data, operations and IT leaders from the road, rail and air transport industries, Elisabeth Olafsdottir, Director of Analytics and AI at Cognizant, and Alex Evans, Enterprise Architect at MuleSoft, who gave up their time to be interviewed for this whitepaper during summer 2020. Their views, some of which are quoted directly in the following pages, have guided the direction of this report. We are grateful for their invaluable contributions and insights.

1. https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252484354/CIO-Interview-Simon-Moorhead-of-Rail-Delivery-Group-discusses-integration

1. Data-DrivenBecoming ‘the most data-driven’

or ‘powered by data’ underlines

data strategy as a major source of

competitive advantage, as well a sign of e� cient and modernised operations.

The Data VisionAdapting to a complex worldThe fi rst stop on the route to data maturity is a

bold vision. Whilst volatile demand and the many

social distancing e� ects of COVID-19 have forced a

reprioritisation of projects, ambitious data strategies

exist across road, rail and air.

Our research found fi ve common principles defi ning

data visions across the transport sector:

2. Customer ExperienceToday’s passenger expects total

flexibility, choice and information

at their fi ngertips. Advanced data

science underpinned by flexible cloud-native applications can give passengers

personalised and real-time services. Advanced

analytics and AI are harnessing data to deliver deeper

narratives and richer services for customers and

clients.

It’s about less time on the transactional stu� , and more time aligning with clients’ business plan objectives, using multiple data sources we can pull into these conversations.

Scott Reddie, GlobalHead of Account Management at Flight Centre

4 / Delivering Future Transport through Data: Critical steps on the route to data maturity

3. ComplexityDemand for data is increasing.

Operators need to answer much

more complex questions about

what’s happening in their own business or across the network in real time. “We’re

moving from optimising for single problems to

optimising systemically.”, outlines Ian Gordon, Head

of Data Architecture and Engineering at Highways

England.

4. Co-CreationDemocratising data and embedding

self-service at all levels of the

organisation is not just about

technology.

We have 6,500 people, a lot of them working remotely, out in single sta� stations, or a conductor on a train. We need to give them better tools to do the job, and we need to co-create. So rather than people sitting in head o� ce implementing systems, co-create, get people involved in the development of solutions.

incident resolution. Improving the way data is shared

between operators, infrastructure managers and

suppliers can reap big gains in operational e� ciency,

for example rapidly attributing delays.

5. Service ResilienceHarnessing more data from assets

and incidents increases visibility of

network operations enabling better

prediction of failures and faster

Mark Powles, Commercial and Customer Director at Northern Rail

Delivering Future Transport through Data: Critical steps on the route to data maturity / 5

Barriers to ModernisationLiberate the valueData volumes are rising globally. Organisations across

many industries are engaged in a complex race to

modernise their approach to data. Our research

identifi ed three main challenges for transport

companies:

Organisational StructureLike other industries, data has naturally evolved in

the transport sector to support the changing needs

of di� erent business units. In some cases, this is

further complicated by M&A activity which has led

to fragmented systems and standards. Even within

the same organisation, data is valued and treated

di� erently by operational and commercial teams,

leading to a variety of approaches and data silos.

This leaves organisations in a conundrum over how

to make data a common language that works across

business units.

Data VolumesOperators are facing increased demand for data

internally and externally. Data is expanding in type

as well as volume, such as high-defi nition video from

CCTV across road and rail networks, or biometric data

from thermal imaging in airports. This places new

pressures on architecture, networks and storage, as

operators seek ways to control the cost of a growing

data estate.

If you were designing the airline industry from the ground up in terms of data, it wouldn’t necessarily be structured the way it is now - it’s going to have to evolve. Systems were designed with operations, not analytics, in mind.

Richard Masters, Head of Data Science & Engineering at Virgin Atlantic Airways


AccessBuilding pipelines out of legacy systems and

applications to access and connect disparate data

sets is the biggest challenge, regardless of transport

mode. Getting data out of applications that are

core to business operations without disruption is a

foundational step on the road to data maturity.

Platforms in my tenure have grown from a single server to a cloud-based plat-form. It’s grown signifi cantly. The volumes of data that we currently store have increased maybe 10-fold over the last three years. With the need to process passengers safely, the need for that data will continue to grow.

David Grant, Chief Technology O� cer at London City Airport

Platforms in my tenure


The Route to Data MaturityAccelerating data modernisationThe coronavirus pandemic has sharpened minds to

the value in becoming a data-driven organisation and

how to accelerate data modernisation when resources

are challenged.

There are fi ve stages of data maturity (Figure 1):

Figure 1: Five stages of data maturity

QualityIn a recent survey of data and

analytics leaders, 58% are using

technologies to ensure data quality².

Understanding what data exists, cataloguing and defi ning data assets is the foundation

of data maturity.

Sanchit Khandelwal,Head of Group Digital Projects at National Express Group

The data supply chain is fundamental to quality, as

data is enhanced and augmented by multiple teams

across numerous processes. Attention to touch

points is vital. “How do we simplify the di� erent touch

points that data’s going to pass through? When you

do simplify you have a much better quality overall.”,

explains Shaun Clear, Global Head of Operations at

Flight Centre.

2. The Road to Data Modernisation, Cognizant Forrester Whitepaper, September 20193. https://data.london.gov.uk/topic/transport

Quality• Discovering, rationalising,

categorising and communicating what data exists

Accessibility• Pipelines out of legacy• Cloud-native applications

Availability• Data is available to people and processes at

the time of need• A common platform • API strategy

Insight• Insight led decision making occurs in real time• Process Automation• AI Implementation• IoT readiness

Literacy• Self-serve is common and tools are used

outside of technical teams• Engagement with data science teams is high• Autonomy and enthusiasm to experiment

Sanchit Khandelwal,Head of Group Digital Projects at National Express Group

We're working with the heads of all business units to build a portfolio of digital products and services used within the group. This portfolio of products will enable us to build a catalogue of data that can be rationalised at a group level.

AvailabilityMaking data available across

transport systems is key to making

decisions faster or in real time.

Untapped opportunities for operational resilience

exist through deeper, data-led collaboration between

infrastructure and operators. In rail, trains collect

asset data that can be shared with the infrastructure

operator and enrich and augment this shared data,

to optimise data-led asset monitoring and lifecycle

management.

Making data available through open data policies,

such as Transport for London’s data store3, enables

partnerships with third parties such as Google, Waze

and Uber and the wider supply chain. Partnerships

and data-led collaboration are driving innovative

opportunities to unlock new knowledge for

passengers and businesses, and extra revenue for

operators.

AccessibilityThe biggest challenge in our study

was getting data out of legacy

systems, some of which are decades

old.

You can end up with a segregated data environment. For example core databases running on older technical solutions, and peripheral systems built on more modern platforms, with little communication between the two. It’s about making sure that you can access data and treat data as a holistic entity.

Ian Gordon, Head of Data Architecture and Engineering at Highways England.

data and treat data as a holistic

You can end up with a

InsightDeriving insight from data across

the business is a hallmark of data

maturity. In our study, pockets

of innovation existed in most

There is a wide variation in how data is accessed

and shared, even for well-established cross-industry

processes such as incident reporting or delay

attribution. APIs are modernising some of these

processes, making data accessible to operators,

customers, regulators and the supply chain for

innovative new services.

Shaun Clear, Global Head of Operations at Flight

Centre underlines, “We already have a couple of

customers that we’re connecting into by APIs today,

and I can only see that type of connection increasing

in the future.” Sanchit Khandelwal, Head of Group

Digital Projects at National Express Group, agrees,

“It’s important to build a complete API-driven strategy

for the business, to facilitate data and functionalities

sharing among di� erent business units within the

organisation and to other external parties.”

organisations (Figure 2). Most data is ‘owned’

by process owners, which can lead to complex

negotiations around change. With the right

architecture, multiple owners can co-exist as teams

share and aggregate data to produce new digital

assets and deliver a deeper level of insight.

Centralised data teams or global data science teams

also defi ne quality and uphold standards. Richard

Masters, Head of Data Science & Engineering, Virgin

Atlantic Airways explained how e� ective this can be,

“It’s great when teams test things with us, rather than

just assuming things about the data, because it means

4. 11 Insights for Getting and Staying Ahead in the Digital Economy, Cognizant, November 2019

LiteracyA recent survey of global data

leaders found 83% were focused

on recruiting people with advanced

data skills5. Enterprise-wide education is a core and

often cost-e� ective element in building data literacy.

Andrew Sephton, Head of Data at the Civil Aviation

Authority outlines the virtuous circle propelled by

investing in these skills, “We’ve been doing a lot of

work on education, and have about 30 people on

a data apprenticeship across the organisation. So

data literacy is increasing. And as that increases, the

demand for data across the organisation moves up a

level.”

Other initiatives can be just as vital in building trust as

Dr Ben Dias, Director of Data Science and Analytics

at easyJet explains, “We have a function called IT,

Data and Change that was set up by our CDIO. It’s

really important to have a change function. A lot of

companies try to deliver new algorithms and new

innovations. But if you don’t have the additional

business change element, you end up with situations

where things get released and they just don’t deliver.”

Most data-driven

Predictive Asset Maintenance

Timetabling

Yield Management

Pricing

Ticketing

Signalling

Workforce Planning

Monitoring passenger flows

Corporate Services, HR, Finance

Operations with older assets

Least data-driven

Figure 2: Opportunities to boost data maturity in transport

5. The Road to Data Modernisation, Cognizant Forrester Whitepaper, 2019 op. cit

we’re certifying that data. It mitigates the risk that

people will interpret things in the wrong way, without

the full context of the data.”

COVID-19 has exposed gaps in information and

highlighted opportunities for automation and

machine learning, such as expediting refunds or

complex queries relating to travel changes. A recent

global survey on digital maturity found the biggest

gap between leaders and beginners in AI4. The most

advanced operators are looking to exploit AI and IoT,

using predictive capabilities to manage fluctuations

in demand and IoT to monitor passenger flows and

behaviours.

From Platform to Data MarketplaceAdopting a modern and future-proof approach

The pressure is on to modernise data quickly and

e� ectively, to withstand the volatility ahead. A recent

survey of data leaders found that 83% are focused

on modernising and organising data infrastructure6.

For many transport companies, implementing a

data platform provides a scalable environment that

can interrogate and integrate growing amounts

of data, in the most flexible and cost-e� ective way.

Elisabeth Olafsdottir, Director of Analytics and AI at

Cognizant explains, "COVID-19 has fundamentally

impacted every aspect of our personal and working

lives. Everything that we relied on before needs to be

validated or augmented by new sets of conditions.

In many cases, historical data, albeit of su� cient

quality, cannot be relied upon for predicting business

outcomes”.

"Cloud platforms already play a key part in many

organisations’ data strategies, often employing a

‘hub and spoke’ model which helps to monitor

consumption across the applications estate and

support internal ‘charge backs’ where appropriate.

Modern cloud platforms help to reduce consumption,

saving revenue by moving away from ‘always on’

virtual machines to PaaS models. The PaaS approach

gives IT and data teams the flexibility to support

rapidly evolving priorities as businesses respond to

uncertain operating conditions and volatile demand.

6. The Road to Data Modernisation, Cognizant Forrester Whitepaper, 2019 op. cit

“The resulting cleansed data estate can then be made

available for consumption using the appropriate

APIs, analytics and BI tools. Features can also be

extracted and made available for advanced work

by data scientists and analysts, a so-called ‘Feature

Engineering’ platform. This can be further enhanced

by the use of API calls to Git Hub, other repositories or

open data sources to drive innovation."


12


12

Building the data marketplace

From our research, connecting disparate data

sources, some deeply lodged in heritage technology,

was the top challenge across the transport sector.

API-led connectivity can play a crucial role in making

data available and delivering richer, data-led transport

services.

The data marketplace (Figure 3), where actors are

either data consumers or data producers, liberates

the value of data within an organisation or more

impactfully, across an entire transport system. Alex

Evans, Enterprise Architect at MuleSoft outlines,

“The Data Marketplace should be the place all data

consumers go to build new capabilities, processes

and experiences. It’s not just a technology solution,

but a� ects people and processes too”.

Figure 3: The Data Marketplace

Producers• Publish details of the process/data source and

method of access

• Apply process to govern who can access the data

source

• Extend the data source in a controlled manner that

does not impact existing consumers

• Engage with consumers to promote use and

understand evolving needs

• Protect the data source (and consumers) from

spikes in demand that may degrade performance

Consumers• Search in a single location to fi nd data that is timely

and trustworthy

• Easily understand how to use data sources without

the need to understand the underlying technology

or process

• Self-serve access to those processes/data sources

• Trust that the data source will behave tomorrow the

way it behaves today

• Communicate and collaborate with the owners of

the data source

From data to digital product

Turning data into an asset is a way of thinking and

organising. Data becomes an asset when people

engage with it. Trust in the source and the governance

will drive engagement.

Each data asset is treated like a product to form

a digital product catalog. Digital products are

managed by a Center for Enablement (a federated

cross-industry team) who publish and manage the

lifecycle of these digital products. Digital products

are designed with the consumer in mind. Products

are reusable; system APIs, process APIs or specifi c a

customer segment or channel.


Delivering Future Transport through Data: Critical steps on the route to data maturity / 13Delivering Future Transport through Data: Critical steps on the route to data maturity / 13

Next Steps Delivering the data-driven transport system

The coronavirus pandemic is changing how, when

and why people travel. Data is fundamental in

adapting to these new conditions, whether through

giving passengers enhanced information to manage

travel risk and feel safe, or enabling operators to

plan and deliver the right services in unprecedented

operating conditions.

Despite market conditions that are pushing many

transport companies to the brink, business-wide

perceptions on the value of data and the work of data

and IT teams have substantially improved. This shift in

attitude presents a vital opportunity to build trust and

modernise data.

Recommendations• Level up data standards, governance and capability

across the business. A board-level champion,

centralised data or data science functions and

a federated community of data partners within

di� erent business units will enable data culture to

radiate across the organisation.

• Collaboration and data sharing is already a key

component of industry safety and success and

will be just as vital for long-term recovery and

growth. Making quality data available internally and

externally in real time, will deliver the innovation

and personalised service that gives passengers the

confi dence to return to travel.

• Advance API strategy to liberate data from legacy

systems and connect disparate data sources.

Build cross-industry communities around the data

marketplace that manage the lifecycle of data assets

in the form of digital products.

• Lay the foundations for automation. Look critically

at which processes can be automated to deliver low

touch services on the frontline and remove friction

from high volume industry-wide processes, such as

refunds.

• Prepare for a growth in Internet of Things (IoT) data.

Innovation in CCTV analytics, sensors, imaging

and other remote monitoring technologies is

already underway in the transport sector. Increased

monitoring and management of spaces such as

airports and rail stations is particularly important in

a socially distanced world.

The actions of today will shape transport and

travel both now and in the longer term, laying the

foundations for the sustainable and connected

transport system that can adapt to whatever lies

ahead.


14


14

Footnotes1. CIO Interview: Simon Moorhead of The Rail Delivery

Group discusses Integration,

www.computerweekly.com, 2020

www.computerweekly.com/news/252484354/CIO-Interview-

Simon-Moorhead-of-Rail-Delivery-Group-discusses-

integration

2. The Road to Data Modernisation Cognizant-

Forrester Whitepaper, September 2019

3. Transport for London Datastore

https://data.london.gov.uk/topic/transport

4. 11 Insights for Getting and Staying Ahead in the

Digital Economy, Cognizant, November 2019

www.cognizant.com/whitepapers/11-insights-for-getting-and-

staying-ahead-in-the-digital-economy-codex5163.pdf





7. From Chaos to Catalyst, Cognizant Whitepaper,

2020

www.cognizant.com/whitepapers/from-chaos-to-catalyst-

codex5607.pdf

Delivering Future Transport through Data: Critical steps on the route to data maturity / 15Delivering Future Transport through Data: Critical steps on the route to data maturity / 15

About the AuthorRonnie is leading Cognizant’s long term digital growth strategy for the

Manufacturing, Logistics and Transport sectors in the UK. With over two

decades of delivering transformation programmes across a multitude of

industry sectors such as Healthcare, Travel, Rail, Aviation, Construction and

Manufacturing in a variety of technical and business facing roles; Ronnie

is fi rmly of the opinion that People, Process, Technology and Culture need

to be harmonised to drive digital transformation. In the context of data

led initiatives, he believes a human centric approach, to understand the

‘decision making’ needs of the end user - i.e. what data is needed to help

the individual make the best decision and how can it be delivered in a

secure, visually appealing manner at the point of need - is a crucial aspects

to address before scaling technology.

He can be reached at:

Email: [email protected]: www.linkedin.com/in/rabraham77

Ronnie Abraham,

Client Partner, Manufacturing,

Logistics and Transport,

Cognizant


About Cognizant

Cognizant (Nasdaq-100: CTSH) is one of the world’s leading professional services companies, transforming clients’ business, operating and technology models for the digital era. Our unique industry-based, consultative approach helps clients envision, build and run more innovative and e� cient businesses. Headquartered in the U.S., Cognizant is ranked 193 on the Fortune 500 and is consistently listed among the most admired companies in the world.Learn how Cognizant helps clients lead with digital at www.cognizant.com or follow us @Cognizant.

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About MuleSoft

MuleSoft, the world’s #1 integration and API platform, makes it easy to connect data from any system to create connected experiences, faster. For more information, visit www.mulesoft.com.

About Nimbus Ninety

Nimbus Ninety is a vibrant and diverse community of forward-thinking business and technology leaders. Since 2005, we’ve been connecting innovators, change-makers and disruptors from all sectors to enable them to share their expe-riences of disruption and move forward together.

Our community is made up of senior stakeholders from global blue-chip organisations, SMEs and the public sector, who are responsible for driving digital innovation across their businesses and industries. At the heart of what we do is a passion for driving value creation across the community. We foster engagement and collaboration between our members, our solution providers and our partners through our highly-engaging activities, in-depth research and thought-provoking content. For more information, visit www.nimbusninety.com or follow us @NimbusNinety.

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Critical steps on the route to data maturity