In this edition of Partner in the Spotlight, we’re proud to feature the Luxembourg National Data Service (LNDS), a government-initiated, not-for-profit organisation driving responsible data sharing and reuse across sectors. LNDS plays a central role in turning Luxembourg’s national strategies in research, innovation, and digitalisation into practice by enabling trusted, secure, and large-scale data collaboration.
The ERTICO team had the pleasure of meeting the LNDS representatives in person at our Brussels office this October, a great opportunity to exchange on shared priorities, explore synergies, and discuss how data-driven collaboration can advance smart and sustainable mobility in Europe.
In this interview, Peiman A. Sarvari (PhD), Innovation and Partnerships Lead at LNDS, shares how LNDS is empowering cross-sector innovation through responsible data governance, supporting interoperability, and contributing to the European data ecosystem, with mobility at its heart.
Could you provide a short introduction to your organisation and its mission?
Luxembourg National Data Service (LNDS) is a government-initiated, not-for-profit organisation (brand of PNED G.I.E., founded in 2022) that enables responsible secondary use of data for public and private partners. Our mission is to turn Luxembourg’s national strategies in research, innovation and digitalisation into practice by providing trusted data services - governance, platforms, tooling and know-how, so that high-value data can be shared and reused securely and at scale.
What led your organisation to join the ERTICO Partnership, and what have been the most valuable benefits you’ve gained since becoming a member?
Luxembourg is a regional mobility hub connecting France, Germany and Belgium with strong multimodal freight (e.g., CFL multimodal’s rail–road–warehousing network and rail-motorway links). Joining ERTICO – ITS Europe aligns our data-sharing mandate with a pan-European community that drives deployment of intelligent transport systems (ITS). With becoming a member (Oct 2025), we hope to gain; Immediate access to a cross-sector network (industry, public authorities, research) to co-develop data-driven mobility services; A platform to align with EU policy and standards and accelerate real-world pilots; Clear collaboration paths for Luxembourg actors into EU-level initiatives.
From your perspective, what makes the ERTICO partnership unique in the intelligent transport systems space, and what aspects of the collaboration are you most excited about for the future?
ERTICO’s uniqueness is its public–private architecture and its focus on deployment, not just research. It engages OEMs, suppliers, cities, ministries, network operators and users under one roof and gives them a route to influence EU policy while rolling out services. We’re especially excited about joint work on AI in mobility management and harmonised data governance that can make cross-border, multimodal services actually interoperable.
If you could describe the ERTICO partnership in one word or sentence, what would it be and why?
“Bringing together the right skills.” Because to solve the puzzle of mobility in Europe, having engaged the right pieces together and having them working would be essential. ERTICO does is through creating the right partnerships to build and turn promising pilots into operational, standards-aligned services across Europe.
LNDS plays a key role in building Luxembourg’s national data infrastructure. Could you tell us more about how LNDS facilitates data sharing and governance across sectors — and what makes your approach unique?
We operate as a trusted linking entity: neutral governance, privacy-preserving tooling, and repeatable processes that let institutions share and reuse data confidently. Concretely, we provide:
- Data governance frameworks (policies, agreements, DPIAs) and stewardship support;
- Shared services & platforms for secure data access, pseudonymisation, and audit;
- Project co-creation with data owners so solutions match real operational needs;
- Alignment with European Data Spaces so national assets plug into EU ecosystems.
- Our uniqueness is the combination of public mandate + hands-on service delivery, enabling cross-sector reuse while staying compliant and accountable.
How is LNDS contributing to data-driven innovation in mobility, and are there any projects or collaborations that demonstrate this impact?
We focus on making mobility data findable, usable and safe to reuse—the foundation for services like multimodal planning, traffic optimisation and logistics efficiency. Recent examples of where we’re contributing and preparing to scale:
- National enablement for multimodality: Luxembourg runs integrated public transport (free since Mar 1, 2020) and a single trip-planning stack; we work to make the underlying data more reusable across actors.
- Ecosystem support for operators and research: We’re positioning data services that can interoperate with players like Luxtram (tram network now linked to the airport, 2025) and CFL multimodal (rail–road logistics), and research bodies such as LIST and University of Luxembourg MobiLab—so pilots can reuse data under common rules.
- LNDS played a key role in advancing public transport data management by delivering automated, high-quality, and legally compliant data services that support strategic planning, enable data-driven decision-making, and enhance travellers' information across regional networks within the mobility project called NeTEx, with Observatoire digital de la mobilité.
- National “Data & AI Factory” support: We contribute to the government’s Data/AI Factory concept to coordinate secure data reuse across use-cases, mobility included.
(Where partners agree, we’ll publish project case studies via our annual impact reporting.)
LNDS has rapidly positioned itself within Europe’s data ecosystem. What are your main priorities for growth and collaboration over the next few years, both nationally and at the EU level?
1. Make data reuse routine in priority domains (mobility, health, energy, space, environment, economy) with clear governance templates and shared services;
2. Plug Luxembourg into EU Data Spaces so local solutions scale and EU solutions land locally;
3. Strengthen public transportation solutions as well as cross-border pilots that leverage Luxembourg’s location and freight role (multimodal corridors, rail-motorway links );
4. Open, high-quality metadata and APIs to reduce integration time for public and private developers;
5. Skills and stewardship for supporting data owners so therefore, quality, security and ethics are built in from the start.
6. Providing the right architecture for the secure processing environments (SPEs) that both mobility related research and industry could benefit.
How do you see emerging technologies like AI influencing LNDS work in the future — especially regarding data quality, interoperability, and ethics?
- Data quality: AI-assisted profiling, entity resolution and anomaly detection will raise quality while lowering curation cost—under human oversight;
Interoperability: Foundation models can help map heterogeneous schemas to common vocabularies (e.g., data-space ontologies), accelerating cross-border reuse; - Interoperability: AI and LLMs will enhance LNDS’s work by improving planning accuracy, streamlining data quality checks, supporting seamless data integration, and reinforcing ethical data practices.
- Ethics & governance: We’ll pair AI with risk-based controls (traceability, bias testing, model cards) and align with EU guidance emerging from the ITS community;
- Operationalisation: In mobility management, AI needs standardised, well-governed data. Our role is to provide that substrate and the guardrails to use it responsibly.
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Curious about our European foothold and initiatives? Take a closer look at the ERTICO Partnership video and download our Partnership Brochure to learn more about the offers and benefits.