Geospatial Information Infrastructure for Transportation Organizations (2004)

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1Making well-informed, responsible decisions iscritical to shaping the nation’s transporta-tion infrastructure. Geospatial data are a foundation for relevant and critical information for planning, engineering, asset management, and opera- tions associated with every transportation mode at all levels of government and administration. One defini- tion of geospatial data is found in the executive order on coordinating geographic information and access: “‘Geospatial data’ means information that identifies the geographic location and characteristics of natural or constructed features and boundaries on the earth. This information may be derived from, among other things, remote sensing, mapping, and surveying tech- nologies. Statistical data may be included in this defin- ition at the discretion of the collecting agency.”1 Extracting these data, transforming them, and making them available to decision makers has dramatically increased in importance as all modes and levels of gov- ernment face increasing responsibility for improving efficiency while maintaining mobility, improving safety, and anticipating and addressing security threats. The supporting information used in this project was primarily obtained from three workshops held in three cities during 2002. The first workshop, held in Chicago in May 2002, examined the role of geospatial data in the project delivery process. The second workshop, held in Seattle in June 2002, focused on safety, security, and mobility. The third workshop, held in Washington, D.C., in October 2002, reviewed current activities of the modal administrations within the U.S. Department of Trans- portation (USDOT) in using geographic information sys- tems (GIS), the Global Positioning System, and remote sensing to make decisions. Representatives of each modal administration were invited to present their perspectives. All three workshops included ample time for discussion of the issues through breakout sessions designed to provide feedback to the committee. The committee offers a series of findings that have been divided into three areas: • Institutional roles and responsibilities, • Capacity and commitment building, and • Geospatial information. Recommendations based on these findings address strategies to enhance the interoperability of geospatial information among and across modal and multimodal transportation organizations and are addressed to USDOT. While all transportation organizations need to embrace geospatial technologies to improve decision making, the committee believes that USDOT needs to take a leadership role for the transportation system as a whole. Likewise, each modal administration should develop capabilities to use these technologies and pro- vide leadership within its mode. Because the committee believes that many of the greatest payoffs can come Executive Summary 1 Executive Order 12906, published in the April 13, 1994, edition of the Federal Register, Vol. 59, No. 71, pp. 17671–17674. Amended by Executive Order 13286, published in the March 5, 2003, edition of the Federal Register, Vol. 68, No. 43, pp. 10619–10633. See also www.fgdc.gov/publications/documents/geninfo/execord.html, Coordinating Geographic Data Acquisition and Access: The National Spatial Data Infrastructure.

from improving the efficiency of the multimodal trans- portation system as a whole, coordination of geospatial technology initiatives within USDOT is essential. That is a role that the Bureau of Transportation Statistics has begun to play. The committee believes that this leader- ship role within the department and within the trans- portation community needs to be strengthened with adequate resources, formal departmental recognition, and management support. Although the recommendations resulting from this project are specifically addressed to USDOT, they can apply to all levels of decision making and should be considered by every agency and decision maker as they relate specifically to each environment. The findings are summarized below; the recommendations are discussed in detail in Chapter 4. INSTITUTIONAL ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES The roles and responsibilities of decision makers must evolve if we are to leverage geospatial information and tools to best advantage. This entails building and main- taining different relationships and enabling new and creative ways to do business. To accomplish this, • The role of government should shift from imple- menter to facilitator/enabler and role model, allowing agencies to become more flexible and responsive; • Different relationships should be established, both horizontally across functions and vertically across levels of government and the private sector, to ensure that resources are used most effectively; • The transportation sector should play an active role in national and international activities associated with the establishment of standards and other data exchange and outreach initiatives; and • Current project-based data acquisition should be transformed into a systematic activity for building and sustaining a geospatial information infrastructure. CAPACITY AND COMMITMENT BUILDING The ability of organizations to apply geospatial informa- tion technologies to improve transportation is dependent on the awareness and appreciation of an organization’s leaders, the level of knowledge of staff, the development of human capital, and the advancement of the geospatial infrastructure for use by an organization. To ensure that these abilities are leveraged, • Assistance should be provided to agencies to incor- porate technologies into their day-to-day operations and, as necessary, expand and modify their business processes to capitalize on these technologies; • Current and future transportation professionals at all levels should be well grounded in geospatial information concepts and should continually update their knowledge and skills in geospatial information technology; • Techniques, tools, and innovative approaches for using geospatial information and technologies should be disseminated to transportation professionals quickly and effectively; and • The state of the art of geospatial information tech- nology should be advanced by developing fundamental knowledge that influences long-term technological innovations in the use of geospatial information for transportation. GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION Geospatial information and technology are a critical part of the transportation infrastructure. With the emergence of GIS from static map production to near- real-time decision support, the availability and accessi- bility of hardware and software tools that manage voluminous databases, and the availability of more and more data, increased interoperability and the necessary infrastructure to support that interoperability are criti- cal to positioning agencies to take advantage of these capabilities. To advance the use of these tools, • Different levels and types of transportation orga- nizations need to combine geospatial information to improve decision making and resource allocation; and • A mechanism needs to be provided for trans- portation stakeholders to access information and poli- cies for all levels, modes, and application areas of transportation. Information, and the data and technologies that sup- port and generate it, is not without cost. However, it should be viewed as infrastructure that is just as necessary as bridges, ports, runways, rails, and roads. Its cost is min- imal compared with the potential for what one speaker described as “billion-dollar bonehead decisions” that could occur without adequate information. To ensure that we make the best decisions possible, we need to support the information infrastructure, or we will find ourselves without the means to make the necessary decisions. 2 GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE FOR TRANSPORTATION ORGANIZATIONS