Guidance for Development and Management of Sustainable Enterprise Information Portals (2018)

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10 EIPs for State DOTs Every state DOT hosts one or more web-based portals through which internal and external users conduct business and offer or receive services. A portal typically integrates management information systems, decision support systems, enterprise information systems, and other tech- nologies tailored or personalized to the intended user or groups of users. Enterprise information portals (EIPs) offer users access to a broad range of resources and services through a variety of interfaces, as illustrated in Figure 2-1. Portal users may include agency employees, contractors, the media, research institutions, universities, travelers, trucking companies, or others with an interest in accessing information or services. This section provides an overview of the services and users of DOT portals and identifies key areas of interest in the management of DOT portals. An agency may maintain one or multiple portals based on business needs and the structur- ing of the agency’s IT. Larger DOTs are more likely to host multiple, loosely connected portals, while other DOTs may offer a single portal to access the entire breadth of users and services. For example, the California DOT (Caltrans) maintains a statewide EIP, while many of the districts also maintain their own EIPs. One such EIP, the Caltrans Performance Measurement System (PeMS), was created through the University of California at Berkeley and subsequently moved to Caltrans. Ideally, a DOT should establish a framework to organize the many portals that offer varied services. An integrated framework of portals will allow for cost and data sharing among services. Section 2.1 defines services typically offered by EIPs in the context of DOTs at the state, district, regional, or city level. Section 2.2 identifies the range of EIP users, offers examples of DOT EIP use, and variances in access permission and bandwidth needs. Section 2.3 discusses priority areas, identified through broad DOT and EIP user interviews. Across the myriad of services available through DOT portals, 14 priority areas surfaced surrounding the effectiveness of portals. Portals within a state environment may be fully integrated, may have limited connections, or may be fully independent without any data sharing. The choice of technology and architecture will vary based on the size, budget, local, and state requirements. The interaction among portals is more often not a design driver; consequently, any future need for integration will typically require significant redesign and effort. The design, technology use, and governance of portals are the focus of subsequent sections. 2.1 Services Offered by DOT EIPs A broad range of services are typically offered by DOT EIPs. Figure 2-2 illustrates the Con- necticut DOT public portal, which offers links to the various modes of transportation along with its traveler website and other services, such as reporting of potholes on state roads. The homepage of this portal also includes links to news and announcements, capital plans, facts, S E C T I O N 2

EIPs for State DOTs 11 Figure 2-1. Illustration of the DOT EIP in the context of users, interfaces, and resources. Figure 2-2. Sample Connecticut DOT public portal homepage.

12 Guidance for Development and Management of Sustainable Enterprise Information Portals employment opportunities, projects, meetings, and much more. This portal is consistent with many of the public portals offered by state DOTs as well as many regional or city departments of transportation. DOT EIPs can also be private and accessible only to DOT employees and potentially a limited set of contractors. These portals offer different services than public portals and focus mostly on providing services to support DOT internal business processes such as document and library services or asset management services. Table 2-1 lists the high-level services most commonly offered by state DOT EIPs, based on interviews of DOT EIP stakeholders and an analysis of sitemaps of the public portals of 40 state DOTs and the District of Columbia DOT. This list of 10 services is ordered from greatest to least interest to stakeholders based on a survey of experts from state agencies and consultants. The types of services of greatest interest are asset management, engineering, and maintenance services; followed by GIS and mapping services. Of lesser interest are financial services, photo and video services, and public outreach services. This expression of interest is likely parallel to the areas where services may most profoundly and readily transform operations, bringing forth improvements in quality, clarity, and cost savings for DOT operations. Subsections 2.1.1 through 2.1.10 describe in greater detail the business goals for each of the 10 services listed in Table 2-1 and the broad vision for transactions and process improvements through the provision of each service within an EIP. The list presented in Table 2-1 is only a snapshot of the current and desired needs of inter- viewed DOT EIP stakeholders and should not be taken as exhaustive. These high-level services DOT EIP Services Description Asset Management, Engineering, and Maintenance Services Services pertaining to the development, deployment, maintenance, and retirement of DOT assets. GIS and Mapping Services Services such as GIS file downloads, GIS web services, mapping of traffic conditions, construction, assets, and chain stations. Operations and Performance Management Services Services pertaining to the operation of DOT systems and the measure of their performance/efficiency using indicators such as traffic speed, volume, occupancy, and incident information. Documents and Library Services Services pertaining to documentation publishing, record keeping, video and image archival, and publication and journal subscriptions. Bid and Contract Services Services pertaining to contracting process information, bid, acquisition, and project tracking. IT Services Services and topics relevant to portal hardware, software, on- premise infrastructure, cloud services, and networking. Environmental Services Services pertaining to environment monitoring and alerts such as extreme weather, flood, earthquake, and air quality. Public Outreach Services Services pertaining to public information sharing, such as 511, projects, performance and weather, and lane closure and construction. Photo and Video Services Services pertaining to the collection, storage, searching, and archiving of DOT photo and video of infrastructure from drone, satellite, or ground, as well as operation and asset pictures or video, such as inspection images or incident videos. Financial Services Services pertaining to payroll, budgeting, project funding, and accounting. Table 2-1. Common services available through DOT EIPs.

EIPs for State DOTs 13 are bound to evolve over time as new information and tools are needed by DOT EIP users to perform their tasks and older tools become obsolete. For example, environment services that provide users with current road weather information based on road weather information system (RWIS) station and public weather data may in the future leverage the data provided by con- nected vehicle2 windshield sensors, offering precipitation information with greater precision and accuracy. As innovations and new sources and types of data become available, DOT EIPs will want to adopt new data and offer new services while retiring legacy ones, all at lowest cost and without interrupting or affecting current services in production. To address this challenge, DOT EIPs will need to move to an architecture where each of the services offered by the EIP is more autonomous (less dependent on the EIP framework) and more extensible. A more modular and scalable architecture will then be preferable to the current tightly integrated or centralized EIP architecture to satisfy this requirement. Giving up a central- ized process and embracing modularity and scalability will greatly increase the complexity of EIP management. Alternative EIP management methods will need to be developed and followed to ensure that modular DOT EIPs will not only be able to adapt to change efficiently but also will remain capable of maintaining the quality and reliability of their services. These topics are further delineated in subsequent sections. 2.1.1 Asset Management, Engineering, and Maintenance Services State DOT assets encompass highway, bridge, transit, aviation, rail, bike, and pedestrian classes. Often, the management of physical assets is combined with surveillance of the trans- portation system, using intelligent transportation system (ITS) components. In other cases, state DOTs have established specific asset management capabilities that are completely inde- pendent of the surveillance and control functions of traffic management personnel. Regardless of the method adopted, the management of overall system performance requires data specific to individual asset location, performance, and maintenance archives. These asset-specific data assessed in the context of broader systems performance data offer better decision making. Typically, crash data are excluded from this work, but the analysis of crash data often falls into the realm of asset management and engineering services because it is used to determine system performance. General roadway asset types are presented in Table 2-2 (Flintsch and Bryant, March 2009). The classification of assets will vary based on the transportation agency’s organizational structure. Extensive unauthenticated user access is already a trend in several applications developed by agencies, and agency participation and use of third-party data and processed information require clear policies regarding privacy protection. State DOTs provide asset management and engineering services for use by agency employees, other governmental agencies, researchers, universities, engineering firms, and, less frequently, law enforcement and lawyers. Following are examples of transactions supported by asset man- agement, engineering, and maintenance service portals: • Pavement condition and serviceability indices can be reviewed by EIP users to make data- driven decisions regarding pavement maintenance activities. These data are used by both the planning and operations staff in the agency. • Access to an up-to-date inventory of available devices, such as traffic signal equipment cabinets and related devices, can help the DOT study the budgetary impacts of systemic and systematic upgrades to hardware and equipment. 2https://www.its.dot.gov/cv_basics/index.htm

14 Guidance for Development and Management of Sustainable Enterprise Information Portals • Access to a roadside inventory, which could be based on light detection and ranging (LIDAR), allows for spatial analysis of point-cloud elements, particularly to identify deficiencies in geo- metric design. • Immediate access and control of live assets, such as surveillance video feeds and surveillance systems, can be provided to authorized users, such as law enforcement, to promote quick recovery from incidents and manage the larger impacts of planned, non-planned, and emer- gency events. • Immediate access to asset condition and performance data allows the agency to competently respond to requests, media inquiries, and events. • Historical asset behavior data and systems performance data can be reviewed and analyzed by DOT asset management team to identify trends, establish a maintenance schedule, and forecast budgets. Some of these examples show how agency employees may access information provided by this service to manage the transportation system while also documenting the state of the system. Historical data can be used to create an understanding of asset performance over time by iden- tifying trends and identifying various conditions. Real-time asset data can be used to monitor system assets and respond immediately to remedy failure and avoid major system disruption. Other state, county, or city agencies may use the DOT asset management system for recording the presence of their own assets. Researchers, universities, and engineering firms conducting work on behalf of the agency will also use this service. The long-term goal of data management for asset management and engineering services includes the capability to analyze real-time, streaming data with archives of data through system integration with internal and external data sources, seamless processing of multiple data sources, and the dissemination of raw and partially processed data to thousands of users in real time, with retention of many data sources provided for ongoing performance analysis. Extensive high-resolution imagery, three-dimensional data collection, and conventional user-based condition ratings and auditing services will work together in a seamless system that Roadway Assets Definition Pavements Flexible pavements, hot-mix asphalt, Portland cement concrete pavements, unpaved roads, paved shoulders, unpaved shoulders, and other variants. Roadsides Vegetation and aesthetics, trees, shrubs and brush, historic markers, and right-of-way fence. Drainage Structures Cross pipes and box culverts, entrance pipes, curb and gutter, paved ditches, unpaved ditches, edge drains and underdrains, storm water ponds, and drop inlets. Traffic Safety Attenuators, guardrail, pavement striping, pavement markings, raised pavement markers, delineators, signs, highway lighting, etc. Structures and Bridges Overhead sign structures, structural culverts, overall bridges, sound barriers, and retaining walls. Special Facilities Movable bridges, rest areas, river and mountain tunnels, weigh stations, and the like. Fixed Traffic Monitoring and Management Traffic signals and traffic management and information system infrastructure (CCTV, dynamic message signs, communications network, roadside cabinetry, weather monitoring devices, etc.). Mobile Traffic Monitoring and Management Snowplow and traffic safety service vehicles, mobile message signs, and other mobile assets. Table 2-2. Categorization of assets for highway systems.

EIPs for State DOTs 15 permits access at a variety of levels, while remaining open to users for basic tasks that do not involve sensitive transportation data. The entire system will use auditing tools for reporting anomalies in data collection while also auditing external user data requests, including those of academic and local agency partners, to ensure compliance with open records acts, freedom of information legislation, and administrative rules. Providing for inventory and management of transportation data will require an enhanced ability to identify the location, condition, and functionality of fixed assets. Additionally, the measurement of transportation system performance, often relying on those fixed assets, has the potential to generate an enormous amount of real-time data, likely being distributed to thou- sands of end users using a variety of portals. 2.1.2 GIS and Mapping Services GIS services are becoming a preferred way to search, visualize, and analyze various DOT datasets for a variety of DOT user groups including DOT staff (planners, engineers, and asset management and operations) and a few external users (contractors, news reporters, emergency responders, and researchers). Sometimes, GIS services are also offered on the public-facing por- tal, most of the time through GIS layer download, or more rarely through GIS web-mapping services. Three examples of GIS data use are the following: • Technical staff input geolocated construction update data and monitor the overall progress of a project using a GIS web interface. • A DOT shares with contractors or the public the location and details of its assets through a downloadable or web-accessible GIS layer. • News reporters utilize a web-mapping tool to visualize impact of future DOT projects in vari- ous news reports and presentations. • Non-profits, commercial truckers, or private citizens can explore what DOT activities and infrastructure changes are occurring or planned through a public-facing web map. Within the DOT, GIS is becoming ubiquitous and is leading to the merging of other- wise siloed DOT datasets. GIS services have the potential to break down established barriers between DOT disciplines or locations by offering a common way to represent and visualize DOT location-based data. GIS web services allow internal and external users to search, com- bine, visualize, and analyze datasets that are currently managed and stored independently in different formats. An example of such applications would be the identification of DOT asset risks by performing an asset criticality analysis using a GIS operations layer (which provides location and asset performance data, such as average annual daily traffic) and combining the results with a GIS asset data layer (which contains data such as asset replacement cost, asset maintenance cost, and vulnerability) and a threat GIS layer (which includes the probability of threat, such as a flood, for each location). Figure 2-3 presents the Washington State DOT portal for online mapping data. This type of asset criticality analysis would be beneficial to DOT asset maintenance budgets, insurance and liability coverage, and the performance of DOT infrastructure over time. GIS services could also be used on the data collection side by allowing GIS data layers to be queried or analyzed on demand and display results either on a desktop computer or on mobile devices used in the field. An example of such a use case is the visualization of a new project or assets and the effect(s) on the surrounding existing infrastructure. Many GIS services are available, but DOTs will need to remain platform neutral when dealing with GIS data standards and portal GIS interface to preserve the flexibility and search capability of GIS data during long retention periods.

16 Guidance for Development and Management of Sustainable Enterprise Information Portals New GIS data, such as LIDAR, are also on the DOT horizon. This type of GIS data, referred to as point cloud, is extremely large and could be used to perform even more sophisticated GIS analysis; however its size presents difficulties in storing and sharing. DOT portals will need to support the ingestion, indexing, storage, and sharing of new GIS datasets. Currently, LIDAR data are so large that they are shared within a DOT district or by use of a contractor using a portable data store carried by truck. The increasing use of drones to monitor assets at a low cost will also contribute to the creation and management of many additional DOT GIS datasets. Overall, future iterations of GIS and mapping portal services will need to deal with the conver- sion of existing location-based datasets to GIS format, the different data formats used in differ- ent DOT functional areas or regions/districts to produce GIS data, the large size of upcoming GIS data, and the increasing demand for real-time GIS analysis involving many GIS layers and non-conventional clients such as mobile devices. 2.1.3 Operations and Performance Management Services State DOTs provide portals to support the use of both real-time and historical traffic data. Users are both internal agency employees who make decisions in real time and employees Figure 2-3. Washington State DOT portal for mapping services (wsdot.maps.arcgis.com).

EIPs for State DOTs 17 who want to understand performance over time, assess the effects of past traffic management strategies, and prioritize projects to improve mobility and safety. External users also rely on these portals. Some of these are DOT peers, including private firms, university researchers, public safety officials, and local transportation agencies. Other external users are individuals or organizations that utilize the data to meet discrete goals and include the traveling public, news media, and, at times, lawyers in crash litigation. Examples of service use include the following: • Operations staff rely on sensor data and camera video and image feed to monitor road condi- tions and respond to incidents, often in partnership with Highway Patrol and other agencies and organizations. • Corridor operations staff use traffic data at a corridor level in support of Integrated Corridor Management (ICM) goals to support switching to different signalization schemes. • DOT operations employees perform regular performance reporting activities to describe oper- ations of freeways in the region. • DOT planners research and use warehoused traffic data as a resource to develop new projects and resolve performance problems. • News media representatives use traffic and incident data for specific stories and traffic report- ing, such as using camera feeds within live reporting to relay travel time, construction, or incident queuing. • Commuters use the portal, maps, interactive voice system and alerts of DOT travel data, and 511 services to avoid areas of delay or construction or to budget time for a commute. • Researchers search and download traffic and incident data to study or model traffic behavior to estimate potential benefits from traffic management and infrastructure investments. Currently, different functional areas within a DOT frequently use unique formatting for data, which causes difficulties in importing and displaying data in the portal. Support from external authorities, such as FHWA or the IEEE would be beneficial in addressing these challenges. This support could take the form of recommending data formatting and sharing standards and not the form of hardware or software choices. Operations activities will increasingly become more focused on “in the loop,” real-time deci- sion making (incorporating historical data), and traffic management analytics will need to keep up with these changes. Figure 2-4 presents the status of travel time reliability and other metrics for CalTrans’ PeMS system. DOTs also increasingly get data from partner organizations including individual cities, coun- ties, and other agencies, and these data include traffic data and signal data. This larger scope of data will require increased management and increased use of forecast modeling. There is also growing concern with, and interest in, connected vehicle3 and infrastructure data specific to the need to prepare for connected vehicle use and management amidst questions about the value, cost, privacy, security, and evolution of connected vehicles and the need for sustainable technology decisions. Bureaucracy, cost, and legal requirements are not keeping up with operations decision making and slowing down needed technology transformation. The storage and sharing of data among agencies and vendors across state borders raises questions of cost sharing and security. Often, DOTs are restricted from sharing or using data or from using external data services such as cloud storage due to divergences in different state privacy laws. This creates difficulties for future effi- ciency and scalability. 3https://www.its.dot.gov/cv_basics/index.htm

18 Guidance for Development and Management of Sustainable Enterprise Information Portals 2.1.4 Documents and Library Services DOTs maintain written documents and other kinds of document repositories (images, video, engineering drawings, reports, etc.) containing information about their equipment and infra- structure. Internally, DOT staff may need to access these materials for engineering or planning purposes or to respond to public information requests. The number of DOT employees who use this system may be in the thousands and includes a mix of frequent and occasional users. Documents stored may number in the hundreds of thousands or millions. Often, dedicated librarians are charged with the processing and indexing of new documents, digitizing of legacy materials, and responding to requests from the public. The following are a few document and library services use examples: • DOT engineering employees want access to plans and documentation to make corrections, modifications, or perform maintenance activities. Figure 2-4. Caltrans Performance Management System Portal (PeMS, pems.dot.ca.gov).

EIPs for State DOTs 19 • DOT planning employees use existing documentation to plan for new projects. • A civic or community organization may request information through public disclosure chan- nels; for instance, the public may see new highway projects and have questions. • DOT librarians ingest and index new and old documents into the DOT repository for future referencing and research. They receive document requests and requests to search and retrieve documents for other DOT employees. DOT librarians also analyze the content of the DOT documents repository and identify documents that are corrupted, not indexed appropriately, or have the wrong permissions. Document and library services portals will benefit from the automation of document capture and indexing. Large or complex projects can produce documents across multiple entities at a rate that may result in a backlog in the import processes. Often, paper documents that need to be retained have not been digitized or indexed and, consequently, have not been added to the digital repository. Manually digitizing documents is cost and time prohibitive. Documents are continually added, and the ability to keep up with the capture process is tied directly to resource and technology availability (i.e., funding). This backlog ultimately affects service to users. User interface design and document tagging are also important considerations. Various improvements to usability can be implemented for occasional users and to maximize the odds of a user finding the required document when searching. Forethought should be given to leverag- ing user activity data to optimize search criteria and prioritize results individually. On the data-capture side, DOTs are moving toward mobile tools for their engineering staff, as well as automated and remotely operated tools (e.g., drone devices). This means that engineers will be creating documents and associated information in new ways. This will change how data are produced and how documents are created and stored. Thus, library services portals will need to consider new data types or document formats and consider how these can be stored and searched. 2.1.5 Bid and Contract Services The provision of design, construction, policy, operations, and management services by state DOTs is typically accomplished by means of contracted services. Administering these contracts, from screening and advertisement to bid and execution, is a process that must be highly docu- mented, tightly controlled, and is subject to a myriad of legal code administrative rules. Within larger agencies, bidding and contract portals are hosted and administered by general services personnel who may serve all statewide agencies. Figure 2-5 illustrates the North Carolina portal for “Bidding & Letting.” Bidding and contract portals must be readily accessible and secure, providing access to a wide variety of external users of varying size and location, while also permitting internal users access and communications regarding the contracting process. In many cases, non-bidders will access contract documents using a portal, merely for the purposes of document review, often in the public interest. Some departments have a strict policy concerning what can be accessed following a solicitation or bid response, even requiring that inquiries are handled by analysts and limiting automation for certain types of requests. The following are a few bid and contract services use examples: • DOT acquisition employees manage a bidding portal that can handle all bids statewide for all transportation agency projects, offering a consistent interface to all bidders and a single source for project information. This supports a compliant process with consistency across the agency, reducing costs for local agencies and optimizing the use of transportation funding. • Bidders securely upload bids and submit questions and receive confirmation of receipt of entries.

20 Guidance for Development and Management of Sustainable Enterprise Information Portals • DOT acquisition managers analyze the bidding portal’s dataset to visualize overall contract activities, such as number of requests, request provenance, unit prices, quantities of materials, and other information. This removes the need for manual audits by DOT acquisition analysts, reducing the significant cost of ensuring bid compliance and allowing adjustment of DOT resources and budgets to support acquisition demand. • DOT acquisition employees generate reports on bidding inquiries, requestors, and bid infor- mation submitted and processed, allowing policy analysts to identify bidders of interest that agency officials are anticipating including in the process, particularly women’s business enter- prise and disadvantaged business enterprise entities. • DOT employees submit an acquisition request to the acquisition portal, the request is auto- matically inspected for completeness and compliance, and alerts and warnings are sent to the DOT employee as the request progresses through the acquisition process. Figure 2-5. North Carolina DOT portal for bid and contract service (https://connect.ncdot.gov/letting/pages/ default.aspx).

EIPs for State DOTs 21 • DOT acquisition team members track, update, and complete requests with drawings and engineering documents as the requests progress through the acquisition process. • A DOT employee communicates with DOT acquisition staff to remedy errors and non- compliant requests. • A DOT acquisition manager tracks overall request processing and manages the performance of the DOT acquisition team. Agencies are seeking to streamline operations for both clerical and IT administrative needs, particularly in the case of data-intense operations such as contract development, cost estimates, and bidding. The integration of automated or semi-automated advertisement, bid, and con- tracting compliance systems can reduce the need for duplicated effort in data entry and tracking. The ideal system will allow for seamless, secure interaction with external users and analysis of requester behavior. The use of the secure system to prepare and disseminate bidding documents could include all phases of the project development and administration process, including plans preparation, reviews, estimating, bidding, and procurement. Real-time request inspection and tagging and alert services can help track requests, bid timelines, and other milestones, commu- nicating with all relevant personnel to improve the efficiency and responsiveness of the acquisi- tion process. Data analysis of bidding activity is key to understanding trends and ensuring bid integrity, with long-term retention and version control capabilities for records, correspondence, and other key documents. 2.1.6 IT Services DOT IT services are typically bridged across multiple functional areas, responding to the needs of each area while ensuring that broader DOT and state government policy and security initiatives are adequately addressed. The IT infrastructure of modern DOTs can sometimes lose sight of internal and external customer needs, particularly regarding responsiveness to new tech- nologies. This is because the IT responsibilities of system reliability and security typically require strict adherence to established IT procurement and operations protocols and extensive testing and deployment work for all new hardware. The joint goals of security and system reliability are supplemented by secondary goals of con- sistency (aiding in procurement and reducing costs) and serviceability (allowing fewer staff to adequately maintain a wider range of equipment). Achieving these goals across DOT functional areas with vastly differing IT needs can be difficult in an environment of limited funding or inflexible policies. The following are a few IT services use examples: • An external user desires more speed in accessing and downloading information related to project development and procurement for the largest project in DOT history. Consistent upgrades to network hardware and the planned T-3 connection to the Internet enable near- immediate responsiveness to changing needs. • An internal user recognizes that a cloud-based solution is familiar to consultants and desires to share information with external users. The internal user quickly makes this happen by following easy-to-understand instructions in a special policy memo created by IT services precisely for this purpose. • The GIS operating unit within a DOT has been given the responsibility for incorporating data from internal users for external and internal access. They procure cutting-edge IT equipment to support the high volume of data they expect to process. • Updates to a DOT’s traveler information portals and mobile device application have signifi- cantly increased adoption and impacted network demand. Prior to launching a new product, performance testing is conducted on infrastructure supporting the new product. • An internal customer is moving from a legacy platform to a new system for managing large, real-time data inputs and is looking for commercially available scripts for identifying and

22 Guidance for Development and Management of Sustainable Enterprise Information Portals correcting data feed flaws while also ensuring data integrity and some integration with legacy storage systems. • An internal DOT employee is looking for a quick way to set up a web application in support of his new project and turns to a ready-to-use application stack/template designed by IT services. • The DOT IT team responds to a cyber security alert by rerouting suspicious traffic and shut- ting down suspicious servers. DOTs will benefit from a change in IT services’ mindset toward building reusable, inter- changeable, loosely coupled layers of business logic that are well documented and discoverable. DOTs will need to develop and maintain services that will be highly dependent on each other and rely on similar or common data. New IT services will need to be able to interact with each other; be easily assembled to form a workflow; and rapidly adjust to new user needs, threats, and changing data. The middle-term view for IT services will be to modularize and standardize the various IT com- ponents and services across the agency so that they can be later integrated and dynamically managed. This transformation will allow the IT services to become more easily scalable, remain manageable, and be deployed either on premise or on cloud. The long-term goal of IT services is to shift away from in-house development of proprietary architectures, which can impose significant costs in the maintenance/upgrade of systems, and move toward quickly deployable cloud services. Supporting the long-term view will require quick and efficient deployment of structural network systems and network hardware to meet the needs of interactive IT services and large dataset transfers. These changes will be constrained by the traditional IT policy models and data dissemination restrictions imposed at the agency and state level. Responsive agencies will move toward becoming data providers for functions of the DOT and limit their development of portal interfaces by relying on third parties. 2.1.7 Environmental Services Environmental services encompass data and analytics related to geotechnical, road weather, flood, and other information specific to managing air quality, land use, and water quality as they pertain to transportation systems. Environmental data have primary value to DOT staff as part of long-term investments (e.g., building projects), near-term roadway projects, or in acute situ- ations (e.g., monitoring road conditions during a blizzard). Engineering firms, external agencies, and news media use these data as well in service of DOT projects or other building projects. External agencies (e.g., National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) sometimes adopt and reuse products generated by DOT environmental services. The following are a few environ- mental service use examples: • A geotechnical engineer working for a DOT will enter design criteria to determine the seismic loading for a structure, i.e., its ability to resist the effects of an earthquake. The geotechnical engineer will then transfer these findings to the bridge engineer. • A construction firm is planning a roadway infrastructure project near an environmentally sensitive region and uses the geotechnical data portal to check the effects of their design cri- teria on water runoff. • A DOT employee will upload a United States Geological Survey (USGS) seismic dataset using the portal and a new seismic calculation model to the portal. • A DOT employee will add a new visualization layer to the environmental services portal map- ping interface. • RWIS station data are ingested through the environmental portal application programming interface (API). • Motorists register for DOT environmental service alerts such as pavement freezing or flooded road alerts.

EIPs for State DOTs 23 DOT portals often integrate environmental services in very traditional ways. Engineers respon- sible for environmental services, many of which are still conducted using paper and pencil approaches, are at times expected to code models, input data, or update processes for migration of services via an EIP without guidance from data architects. Often, DOTs try to migrate non- web-based data analysis or prediction models on portals to simplify and share their capabilities. These advances will significantly affect long-term portal scalability. Within the environmental realm, new data, models, and analysis will potentially affect the kind of information that will need to be available through the portal. For instance, in geotech- nical portals, it might be helpful to allow users to specify hazards that affect near-fault perfor- mance. USGS researchers are developing other tools that support more accurate seismic analysis. The potential for new methods and data should be considered during portal development insofar as the portal architecture supports modular inclusion of services. Figure 2-6 presents Kansas real-time RWIS data, an example of the types of environmental data that can be made available. 2.1.8 Public Outreach Services Public outreach services can have significant effects on traffic operations along with agency perception within the community and among state legislatures. When done well, external access can create user confidence in department policies and practices, reduce the staffing requirements related to information access, and result in additional public involvement that has the potential to significantly improve department operations and project outcomes. Services pertaining to public information sharing, such as 511, projects, performance and weather, and lane closure and construction may be offered through GIS and mapping services or through operations and performance management services. Figure 2-7 is an example of a traveler information service in the state of Georgia. The following are a few environmental service use examples: • DOT employees post “thank you” messages from travelers aided by safety service patrol. • Travelers access 511 portals to check on traffic conditions before leaving work by viewing closed-circuit television (CCTV) video and reading estimated travel speed or travel times. • A community reviews planned versus actual progress on a roadway project. The future of DOT EIP access for external users hinges on the simplicity and speed with which external users can discover, access, and use the DOT information. The continuing evolution of DOT websites will begin to consolidate the multiple portals spread across several subdivisions of the state DOT. External users who wish to find information and access it in usable formats will be able to quickly gain an understanding of department structure and function. A centralized source, perhaps based on a GIS mapping tool, will allow immediate access to a wide variety of data from a single portal. Users will be able to explore the GIS mapping tool with both limited and enhanced functionality and select among a suite of GIS layers and information to display. GIS layers, shown using the mapping tool, may have screen objects or links providing direct access to additional information and resources. The overall function of the external user GIS mapping tool is to discover and access all transportation data that can be referenced spatially, including asset data; system condition and performance data; and information related to the programming, planning, design, and construction of projects. 2.1.9 Photo and Video Services Photo and video services from CCTV cameras, in-vehicle video or cameras, satellite imagery, wearable video devices, unmanned aircraft systems (UASs), and other infrastructure generate video and photo content that is invaluable in real-time, responsive state DOT practices and

Figure 2-6. Real-time RWIS data in Kansas (http://rwis.ksdot.org/).

EIPs for State DOTs 25 fine-tuning policies, as well as long-term planning. The following are a few photo and video service use examples: • State police, fire, emergency medical services, and transportation agencies review video of on-scene incident response captured by CCTV to assess the safety and efficacy of scene setup and clearance for improved future coordination. • Lawyers representing an individual involved in a crash request access to video of the crash. • State employees access high-resolution orthorectified images that combine the image charac- teristics of an aerial photograph with the geometric qualities of a map for use in planning as a part of broad surveying and mapping services. • Developers submit requests to purchase orthorectified images to identify property boundaries. • Images of the underside of bridges are reviewed by state DOT employees and contractors to identify deficiencies and assess the state of infrastructure. The size of data generated by these services can quickly overwhelm state DOT EIPs without clear retention and removal policies. Many state DOTs only maintain CCTV video for a rolling 1- to 2-week horizon. With the expansion of the use of in-vehicle, UAS, and CCTV devices, the need to define and manage provision of photo and video will become more important. Future DOT EIPs will need to implement photo and video services capable not only of storing and publishing photos and videos but also automatically augmenting their value and discov- erability by processing photos and videos using advanced algorithms capable of guessing the content of each image and tagging it with the detected information. For example, analyzing traf- fic incident pictures and automatically detecting in each picture the number of vehicles, their type, and their state, etc. Additionally, services capable of parsing, searching, and grouping the videos and images using the created metadata could be developed to help support DOT business tasks—such as operations and planning—by allowing DOT users to mine the large number of videos and photos collected over the years and extract videos or photos sharing common fea- tures—such as an incident location—or retrace the progress of a completed construction project. Figure 2-7. The Georgia Navigator Traveler Information web portal (www.511ga.org).

26 Guidance for Development and Management of Sustainable Enterprise Information Portals 2.1.10 Financial Services Financial services may include employee-centered services including payroll, budgeting, proj- ect funding, and accounting. Financial services may also include vendor payment history and other financial data. Traditionally, financial departments do not possess well-defined and inte- grated services that they can rely on. They source and manage financial data from distinct and siloed data sources spanning both front- and back-office systems. Often, the integration of these datasets is ad-hoc and lacks consistent accounting rules and data standards. This inconsistent integration results in complex financial IT systems tied together using custom code, spreadsheet data marts, and extensive manual effort. Fulfilling any request that requires drilling down to a financial transaction level and access to granular data becomes very labor-intensive, requiring access to multiple systems and reliance on people across different teams. Significant effort is also spent on reconciliations, manual journal entries, and managing multiple accounting represen- tations of a single financial event. The processes cannot scale with the changing DOT environ- ment, which focuses the organization’s attention on managing transaction processing rather than the strategic needs of the business. DOT EIP financial services need to be developed to allow financial departments to reproduce these complex processes without a significant amount of effort and resources and allow these processes to be performed on a larger scale, at a more granular level, and as often as requested. The key to financial services is the maintenance of authentication and roles for service users. The following are a few financial service use examples: • Financial department staff builds an expense forecast by querying and analyzing the planned expenses of each ongoing project. • Accounting staff searches through granular project transaction records to reconcile mis- matched records. • Project managers can track their project expenses using role-based dashboards and auto- mated reports. • Financial department staff can access up-to-date financial data through self-service web access to a single source of financial data for instantaneous visibility. Financial services will need to establish various levels of data synchronization and standard- ization of financial data across all DOT functions to build a trusted, reconciled financial source of truth at the various stages of DOT finance. Once established, that trusted source of truth will be maintained by financial services implementing common accounting rules across the entire dataset and ensuring data consistency. Once consistency is achieved, the source of truth could be used by additional financial services, enabling consistent, straight-through processing of granu- lar data for reporting and analytics for near real-time visibility. 2.2 DOT EIP Users It is fundamentally important in designing and developing an effective EIP to understand the users of the data and information provided by the EIP. Table 2-3 shows a list of typical DOT EIP users with examples of how they use EIPs. This list is not comprehensive but is meant to dem- onstrate the variety of user perspectives, goals, frequency of use, and needs for interacting with DOT data and information. These differences drive requirements related to user access policies. The diversity in this list of users suggests a need for different levels of access. Internal and external users clearly require different levels of access depending on the context. In most cases, external users require read- only status. However, some areas, such as acquisitions, require the ability to receive input from external users (i.e., bidders). Internal users will also need a variety of permissions. For example, traffic operations staff may need to monitor and manipulate assets (e.g., cameras and sensors)

EIPs for State DOTs 27 DOT EIP Users Category Examples of Users and EIP Functionality Commercial Traffic Data Providers External HERE is a company that provides cellphone- based real-time traffic data to the DOT Construction Contractors External Access computer-aided-design plans for a project Use geotechnical data to check the effects of design criteria County/Local Employees External County zoning office accesses plans for state facility-widening project to assess local implications or variance requests DOT Acquisition Internal Centralized management of all bids statewide, to visualize overall contract activities, such as number of requests, request provenance, unit prices, quantities of materials, and other information DOT Business Leaders Internal Collaborate with content managers and other employees to develop a shared language across the agency and improve discoverability DOT Content Owners Internal Use functional-area technical knowledge to allocate resources to information maintenance and governance activities DOT Contractors External Direct access to traffic data for traffic signal timing analysis instead of working through a DOT project manager and referrals DOT Data Governance Team Internal Establishes and maintains the various portal user roles and data/service privileges for each of these roles DOT Employees Internal Access agency staff directory online to locate human resources contact information or submit timesheet at the end of the week DOT Engineering Internal Plan and document engineering studies and activities to design, make modifications to, or perform maintenance activities DOT Executive Internal Ensures that DOT business goals and user needs are met Supports the development and management of data governance across the entire agency DOT IT Team Internal Responds to cyber security alerts by rerouting suspicious traffic and shutting down suspicious servers Internal Intakes, digitizes, indexes, and sets permissions for documents. Receives document requests, searches, and retrieves documents for employees DOT Traffic Operations Internal Uses traffic data at a corridor level in support of ICM goals DOT Planners Internal Gather data from road sensors archive to feed into demand-forecasting model DOT Policy Team Internal Defines access rights, archiving processes, data retention rules for governance of EIPs and DOT processes Emergency Responders External Real-time incident information can inform a response and facilitates communication back to traffic operations staff DOT Librarian (continued on next page) Table 2-3. DOT EIP users and use examples.

28 Guidance for Development and Management of Sustainable Enterprise Information Portals and share data with outside users (e.g., emergency responders) on an as-needed basis. Alter- natively, engineering, construction, and contract documents need to be maintained with write privileges limited to a very small number of staff such as acquisition managers, engineering staff, or librarians. User differences also dictate bandwidth requirements. Some users will require intermittent use (e.g., inquiries from researchers, law firms, or outside engineering firms). In other cases, user access peaks on a somewhat regular basis (e.g., inquiries related to snow management assists or related to operations during community events). Finally, some use is predictable and relatively consistent (e.g., 511 services and traffic incident management). As DOTs start integrating new technologies, such as connected vehicle4 assets and their related services, new services will need to be developed and implemented as part of DOT EIPs and with each of these services new internal or external users will need to be added and managed. But the most significant growth in DOT EIP users in the coming years may not be human users but “machine users.” Smart assets such as variable speed limit signs responding to changes in pave- ment surface temperature, precipitation measures, or the weather forecast will need to access other dynamic datasets exposed by the DOT EIPs. Contrary to human users, machine users will not require the design of graphical interface and will use EIPs through machine interfaces such 4https://www.its.dot.gov/cv_basics/index.htm Table 2-3. (Continued). Engineering Firms External Technical experts, such as surveyors or planners, utilize mapping/GIS data to place a model on a certain spot on a highway system Federal Agencies External Provide federal data (e.g., flood data) or pull data specific to operations performance General Public External 511 services inform travelers of travel times, construction activity, and incidents Highway Patrol External Similar to Law Enforcement Lawyers and Law Firms External Inquire about specific traffic data, generally related to the location of specific vehicles on a route Local Law Enforcement External Surveillance video feeds can be provided to authorized users, such as law enforcement, to promote quick recovery from incidents and emergency events Local Transportation or Transit Agencies External Access documents related to a DOT’s strategic initiatives related to congestion management News Media External Traffic and incident data are used for specific stories and traffic reporting, showing camera feeds, or sharing travel times Public Safety Officials External Study crash trends or evaluate crash reduction in the area and access the DOT’s crash records portal to learn about crashes State Employees External State employees review DOT portals to gain access to job vacancy information University Researchers External Use traffic and incident data to study traffic behavior, develop models, or develop new traffic management methods DOT EIP Users Category Examples of Users and EIP Functionality

EIPs for State DOTs 29 as web services; however, DOT EIPs will need to be designed to handle machine users’ requests for information, which are more numerous than humans’ requests and occur much more often. 2.3 EIP Areas of Interest to DOTs Fourteen technical considerations came to the forefront among agencies as they developed their portals and designed the architecture to support internal and external users to promote EIP sustainability. These 14 considerations are culled from interviews with public-sector portal providers, consultants, and vendors. The considerations are summarized in Table 2-4 in order of Technical Topics Topic Description Search and Discovery DOT portals need effective search and discovery capabilities. Search and discovery strategies define how content organization and searching will need to be implemented. Data and Metadata Explores the data needs of DOT EIPs and helps identify how portal data should be collected, refined, explored, organized, and maintained. Reliability Explores how reliable DOT EIPs need to be and helps identify the various failures and potential failures that portals/services could be subject to and what is needed to minimize their impact. Business Service Adequacy Focuses on extracting the business objectives and business requirements of DOT EIPs. It is important to understand objectives and requirements early so as not to make erroneous assumptions that could affect the accuracy of future deployments. The goal is to ensure portal offerings meet customer needs and interests. Performance Explores the performance that will need to be delivered by DOT EIPs. It helps understand scalability, capacity, and high availability. Maintainability Explores how DOT EIPs will need to be administered and maintained and how portal/services are currently being managed and helps identify DOT EIP maintainability requirements. Front-End System Flexibility Explores the front-end systems that will be used for access to DOT EIPs. Identifies how users will connect to a portal and what kinds of devices they will use (e.g., browser type, tablet, and mobile device). Availability Explores and identifies the portal needs to successfully provide DOT EIP services over time and understand the availability requirements for each of these services. Different services might require different levels of availability. Security Explores how DOT EIPs will need to be designed and operated to circumvent both internal and external security threats from simple data corruption and compromised services to large Denial-of-Service attacks. Scalability of Back- End Systems Examines the current and future DOT EIP back-end systems to assess what will be needed to support the current and future needs of the DOT EIPs. Scalability, performance, and data center organization are among the factors explored. User Behaviors and Patterns Focuses on extracting information related to the people who will use the portal. Information such as when they will use the portal, how they will access it, and how they have used previous portals are key to identifying new requirements. Technical Goals Focuses on how a portal is implemented. It is used to define target population, performance standards, and other factors related more precisely to goals. Future Growth Focuses on assessing what capacity will be needed in the future. It helps establish DOT EIP growth expectations, upcoming changes, and the needs to accommodate them. Funding Explores the funding and acquisition of DOT EIPs. It helps identify the ways sustainable DOT EIPs need to be funded, acquired, and retired. Table 2-4. Topics of greatest interest among state DOTs for sustainable DOT EIPs.

30 Guidance for Development and Management of Sustainable Enterprise Information Portals greatest interest to least interest, based on needs identification, with a research panel composed of state DOTs and consultants. Topics pertaining to improving executive understanding of the purpose of the DOT EIPs, internal and external communication, and enterprise culture and processes are also of interest to DOT EIP managers and proponents. However, at the forefront of interest is the ability to search and discover the data of interest. Often heard during interviews was frustration with the poor quality and usability of the portal, leading to difficulty in finding what is needed (e.g., a specific engineering drawing).