The BDI and alignment with European developments

Within the Netherlands, the implementation of the Basic Data Infrastructure (BDI) for Dutch logistics is being realised in a number of living labs. Collaborating companies and (semi-) governmental institutions are jointly establishing a set of agreements within which every participant shares data with another participant in a standardised manner.

Necessity of international alignment and data sharing

However, Dutch logistics companies often operate internationally, particularly within Europe. Good alignment with developments within Europe (and on a global scale) is therefore necessary to ultimately be able to create data safely outside the Netherlands as well.

The European Data Strategy and the legal framework

Europe (the EU) is working on its digital autonomy and a legal framework within which data can be shared responsibly. The EU therefore defined the European Data Strategy a few years ago. Within that strategy, a number of laws have been introduced in recent years. The Data Act and the Data Governance Act are examples of this. A key objective of this European Data Strategy is to prevent large platforms from gaining too much power, and to ensure that, in particular, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are protected and can realise value themselves from the data they generate. The EU, just like the BDI, is also based on the technology of mutual, "federated" data sharing. Data remains at the source and can be requested there; data is no longer sent to platforms or large databases (which can be hacked).

BDI follows European standards and strives for interoperability

The BDI is thus being developed according to the same principles and follows the international standards established within Europe as much as possible. The starting point is that the BDI must be "interoperable" with other sets of agreements within the European Union. Just as in the Netherlands, initiatives like the BDI have emerged in other European countries. The Dutch government, and specifically the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (I&W), which funds the BDI initiative, believes that as the Netherlands, we must actively cooperate within Europe to achieve this interoperability. For example, the Netherlands chairs the initiative to establish European cooperation between member states to collectively realise this interoperability, based on our BDI experiences and to make it as easy as possible for participants in the BDI framework to share data and create value internationally in the future.

Creating visible value as an accelerator for federated data sharing

These developments, just like the BDI, are only a few years old. This means there is still a lot of room within Europe to coordinate, learn from experiences, and contribute those experiences. A fully functioning "European Mobility Data Space" where all participants can share data with each other in a standardised manner is still a few years away. The commitment of the Dutch government and the DIL project team is to demonstrate as much visible value as quickly as possible: for the participants in the living labs, but also for the international community. Based on this value and therefore real "business cases" that show results, the acceleration of the implementation of federated data sharing can be initiated. And with the BDI framework as a basis, this gives our BDI participants a good starting point for international value creation.

_{Author: Jon Kuiper}