Open data policy
We've committed to making our open data freely available to third parties and to engaging developers to deliver new products, apps and services for our customers.
Over 17,000 developers have registered for our open data, consisting of our unified API (Application Programming Interface) that powers over 600 travel apps in the UK with over 42% of Londoners using apps powered by our data.
This enables millions of journeys in London each day, giving customers the right information at the right time through their channel of choice.
Why are we committing to open data?
- Public data - As a public body, our data is publically owned
- Reach - Our goal is to ensure any person needing travel information about London can get it wherever and whenever they wish, in any way they wish
- Economic benefit - Open data facilitates the development of technology enterprises, small and medium businesses, generating employment and wealth for London and beyond
- Innovation - By having thousands of developers working on designing and building applications, services and tools with our data and APIs, we are effectively crowdsourcing innovation
Deloitte's report on value of our open data
Research by Deloitte shows that the release of open data by TfL is generating annual economic benefits and savings of up to £130m a year. Read the report:
How is our open data presented?
Data is presented in three main ways:
- Static data files - Data files which rarely change
- Feeds - Data files refreshed at regular intervals
- API (Application Programming Interface) - Enabling a query from an application to receive a bespoke response, depending on the parameters supplied. Find out more about our unified API.
Our Unified API is available in JSON and XML. Other data feeds and data sets are provided in a number of different formats.