Uber has been in trouble before for its failure to share data with the cities it operates in – but now, finally, the online transportation network is giving the cities exactly what they long for.

The San Francisco-based company has launched Uber Movement, a tool that provides access to years of anonymised data from over 2bn trips worldwide, in the aim of improving urban planning globally.

“Over the past six and a half years, we’ve learned a lot about the future of urban mobility and what it means for cities and the people who live in them,” Uber says on its Movement website. “We’ve gotten consistent feedback from cities we partner with that access to our aggregated data will inform decisions about how to adapt existing infrastructure and invest in future solutions to make our cities more efficient.

“We hope Uber Movement can play a role in helping cities grow in a way that works for everyone.”

Movement allows city officials, planners and policymakers, and – eventually – the general public to see how long it takes to get from one part of the city to another at a specific time and see how traffic has changed in the area over a period of time.

The tool currently shows data in four cities – Washington, Boston, Manila and Sydney – with more to be added soon.