International Transport Energy Modeling iTEM participants have come to recognize that divergent base-year and historical transport values across different models—either due to conceptual differences or different data sources—cast doubt about a fundamental understanding of the transport system today and the challenges we face, and impede the generation of useful knowledge and discussions for the transitions. In 2017, we called for the creation of a common database to form a common, public, “best available” baseline for model calibration and projections. Our immediate goal is to make publicly available transportation data easily accessible to all researchers. Our long-term goal is to create a consistent historical transportation database for iTEM modelers to use the same historical dataset across all models as an option. [1]
The iTEM-KAPSARC (IK) Open Data project intends to co-create a transparent, open-data & open-code historical transportation database for iTEM modelers as well as for the general public. The open data will be implemented by adding a comprehensive collection of the publicly available transportation data at KAPSARC Data Portal. The open code aspect will be implemented by publishing all the codes including equations, and assumptions on Github so that the transformations of these individual datasets into a comprehensive transportation database are transparent and adaptable by individuals. In addition, it will also allow other researchers to contribute their own codes for broader implementations such as to customize to country specific contexts.
There are 21 onroad transport datasets at KAPSARC Data Portal as of April 2019. All datasets are downloadable as CSV, JSON, Excel, API, and will be automatically updated as soon as the sources publish their updates. We are working on the open code concept such as equations, assumptions, and calibrations when combing these individual datasets toward creating a common, comprehensive historical iTEM database that covers all relevant transport variables for energy system modeling. We hope to give more updates at the iTEM5 workshop at the end of 2019.
| [1] | A similar example is the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP), a global network of researchers and policy makers conducting quantitative analysis of international policy issues. GTAP is coordinated by the Center for Global Trade Analysis at the Purdue University Department of Agricultural Economics. The centerpiece of GTAP is a global data base describing bilateral trade patterns, production, consumption and intermediate use of commodities and services. |