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From page 202... ...
202 5 Task 5 – Conduct Collaborative Design Workshop with Transportation and IT Professionals The research team held a workshop on October 4th at the AEM Headquarters in Herndon, Virginia, to review the recommendations established in Tasks 3 and 4. The workshop focused on discussing the current state of each organization EIP, presenting the technology recommendations established by the team, and discussing the feasibility and ease of implementation of the recommended technologies. The research team gathered initial reactions from the workshop attendees, collected each implementation recommendation, and formalized them into a prioritized list of action items. 5.1 Attendees Out of the 12 participants originally scheduled to attend, only 11 were able to attend. Table 50 lists organizational affiliation and job title of workshop attendees. Table 50. Organizational affiliation and job title of workshop attendees. Organization Role Texas DOT Director, Traffic Analysis Section Washington State DOT Manager, Information Resource Management Utah DOT Electronic Business Project Manager Louisiana DOT IT GIS Manager Montana DOT Information Services Administrator Virginia DOT Chief Information Officer Pennsylvania Turnpike Director of Enterprise Architecture USDOT Digital Librarian - National Transportation Library Iowa DOT Director, Office of Research and Analytics DC DOT Chief Information Officer Pennsylvania Turnpike GIS Manager 5.2 Workshop Format The full‐day workshop began at 8:30am and was completed around 5:00pm. It was structured around the following primary discussion areas: Current EIP practices and issues Reactions to technology recommendations Approaches to implementing sustainable DOT EIPs Workshop findings and action items The findings from this workshop are summarized below, organized around each discussion area. 5.3 Current EIP Practices and Issues When asked about the current practices and issues encountered by their organizations when developing and maintaining EIPs, the workshop attendees discussed the following topics:
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203 5.3.1 User Identification and Expectations Attendees talked about the difficulty to identify and define DOT EIP user's requirements prior to design and the difficulty to modify DOT EIPs once implemented. Attendees talked about the need to publish public data and the difficulty to publish it in a fashion that is usable to most of the EIP users. Attendees mentioned a growing of number of EIP users, in particular external users, the widening of the different categories of EIP users, including non‐human users, and the difficulty to define and support each and every one of these users on an EIP within budget. Attendees talked about the ever‐growing expectation of the EIP users requiring the new capabilities to manipulate, analyze, and visualize the EIP data and the difficulty to satisfy them all within budget. Attendees debated to what extend the role of DOT EIPs should provide more than just public data in its simplest form. Attendees mentioned the higher expectation of younger DOT employees/internal EIP users and their request for more flexibility to query and analyze the portal data. Attendees discussed the difficulty for the DOT EIPs to be able to support advanced EIP users' needs without disenfranchising more modest public EIP users. 5.3.2 Data, Metadata and Governance Attendees discussed the difficulty to develop and maintain accurate DOT EIP documentation. Attendees discussed the lack of EIP governance and the lack of a data governance culture. Attendees discussed the difficulty to provide reliable data to DOT EIP users. Attendees discussed the lack of metadata in most DOT EIP datasets and the perception of adding metadata as an unnecessary burden by current staff. Attendees discussed the large quantities of data that will be coming from connected vehicles and the current inability to manage it within budget. Attendees mentioned the existence of siloed EIP datasets, developed independently within the DOT, and the subsequent impossibility to perform cross‐join analysis between DOT EIP datasets. Attendees expressed concerns about the risks of losing control of their data or compromising security by allowing EIP users to interact with the data and exchange it too openly. 5.3.3 Workforce Attendees discussed the lack of resources to establish and maintain a DOT EIP data dictionary and metadata due to a lack of skill in the current staffing or a misunderstanding by higher management that traditional DOT IT staff can perform the tasks. Attendees expressed concerns about statewide IT consolidation efforts that outsource IT and data services to contractors serving multiple state agencies, often foreign to the DOT business and data processes. Attendees also discussed the lack of skilled and qualified workforce to manage data and modern EIPs. 5.3.4 Organizational Attendees mentioned the perception by executive that portals help staff reduction by improving tasks efficiency and consequently cost, but the growing public use of DOT EIP and its associated cost is often not considered.
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204 Attendees mentioned the difficulty of using current EIP to calculate performance measures required by new legislation to show maximal funding use. Attendees discussed the inadequacy of legislation restricting the ability for DOTs to efficiently communicate their performance to citizens. Overall, the attendees presented a series of concerns that were sometimes associated with the limitations of traditional EIP design, such as the inability to support sophisticated ways to access or analyze the data or the inability to scale data storage or user base. More often attendees expressed concerns associated with EIP management and the environment in which the DOT EIP operates. For example, lack of qualified workforce, lack of data governance culture, and coarse cost reduction practices. 5.4 Reactions to Technology Recommendations Following the discussion of the current practices and issues of the DOT EIPs, the workshop attendees were presented the recommended IT strategies identified in Tasks 3 and 4. The attendees were shown a high‐level and less detailed version of the IT recommendations in order to fit into the single‐day schedule of the workshop. The presentation was augmented by the whiteboarding of examples implementing the recommended IT strategies when the subject was unknown to the attendees. The attendees were asked to note what was clear and unclear to them as well as what they perceived to be the advantages and disadvantages of the presented IT strategies. Overall, the recommendations were very well received, and no direct objection to the technologies themselves and their use as part of a DOT EIP was expressed. Rather, the reactions focused on current DOT EIP environment being inadequate to the implementation of the technologies. The reactions to the recommendations are summarized below: The use of cloud‐based infrastructure and software as a service (SaaS) was accepted and some attendees (Utah and Texas)
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From page 205... ...
205 -- Both the Utah and DC DOT representatives expressed the need for a DOT data strategist to coordinate the work of a cross‐functional team. Attendees concurred on the need to develop allies in finance and legal, along with the technical areas (e.g., traffic operations) prior to the introduction of microservices architecture. Attendees also perceived that the microservices architecture will allow them to regain control over IT services migrated to state‐level consolidated IT teams by leveraging the creation of a tight and independent cross‐functional team as part of its implementation. Some legal issues currently impacting DOT IT systems were also mentioned as potential problems for microservices, for example: -- The restriction of public data storage within state geographical boundaries. Attendees believed that legislation is currently not synchronized with IT practices and creates unnecessary obstacles in the deployment of common practices, such as disaster recovery plans. -- Legal requirements that DOT data must be kept and maintained in the format in which they were originally generated; these requirements prohibit the reformatting of content to fit existing SaaS storage offering requirements. Attendees discussed their understanding of the limited capabilities of traditional architecture and the need for new alternatives. Geofencing was mentioned as a very difficult service to run well on traditional EIP architecture that could be better implemented using a microservices architecture. Attendees expressed the need to embed security requirements within each of the components of the microservices architecture during the design phase. "Security should be considered as a fundamental design criterion and requirement for portals." The open source recommendation was not well understood at first by attendees. It was perceived as emerging and difficult to implement due to a lack of skilled staff to operate and maintain it in‐house. The benefits of open source software, in comparison with current commercial license software, when deploying auto‐scaling portal applications and considering portal application sharing and modifiability, was presented and led to an understanding of the recommendation. Attendees also mentioned concerns about the inherent risks and large investments necessary to migrate an existing EIP to a new architecture. Attendee concerns were mitigated when they learned about the capability of microservices architecture to support component‐by‐component migration. 5.5 Approaches to Implementing Sustainable DOT EIPs From the reactions of the workshop attendees, the research team identified nine challenges to the implementation of the recommended sustainable EIP technologies. Following the identification of these challenges, the research team asked workshop attendees to prioritize them. Table 51 shows the results of this effort.
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From page 206... ...
206 Table 51. Ranking of main challenges to implementing sustainable information portals. Ranking: Challenges Example Issues 1 Understanding IT concepts and organizational buy-in Reaching executives, politicians Mindset that "it's IT's job" How is this paid for? Why are you doing this?
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From page 207... ...
207 C‐level executives. AASHTO and TRB may have to lead. External third parties such as NGIC where the technologies have already been implemented. What constitutes a convincing message and how should it be delivered? No need to market this, it will be rejected. Need to explain the value of the technologies in terms of congestion relief, safety, and cost. Use modernization compliance. Show benefits to constituents as a way to measure their satisfaction. What are the steps to take?
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From page 208... ...
208 Approach the development of governance strategy in an organized way, maybe led by a steering committee. Governance must consider items related to project teams, work plans, schedules, and budgets. Document rules. There needs to be very good documentation about decisions made, things implemented, and standards. Make sure that constraints for the project can be well understood. Define business, data, applications, and technology (BDAT) architectures. Identify who is responsible for them as they pertain to the project scope and tell you what is important. Define your success criteria before the project starts. Write into everyone's performance plan that they must follow the corporate governance policy. Provide data governance training and require it just as people are required to take workplace harassment training. 3.
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From page 209... ...
209 Safety has been a common theme used by attendees to justify change; every transportation agency wants to run a safe roadway. Anything IT can be related to safety. Problems are opportunities. When a problem is presented by the senior management, staff should find ways to work EIP development and maintenance into the solution. In this way, you will solve the problem but also do something to meet a need of your workforce. Preserve institutional knowledge. It's more beneficial to train existing employees and retain them than to bring in a new work force and hire consultants. Pair an external person with an internal person. Internal person has the knowledge; external person can expand the internal person's capabilities. IT needs to find an audience among human resource and executives to convey the nature of IT changes, the risk of making the workforce obsolete, and the difficulty of finding new people. What are the steps to take? What is the timeline?
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From page 210... ...
210 Legal Financial Business IT What constitutes a convincing message and how should it be delivered? Do not focus on the "widget"; present the current challenges with regard to the current procurement process and current procurement law. Convey that IT is the backbone to support all other DOT projects such as bridges, roadways, and tunnels. What are the steps to take?
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From page 211... ...
Th ad w Ex to 5.6.2 A C D N w D w P d Ta 5.6.3 Le 5.6.3.1 U d U w U st u 5.6.3.2 Te e So Te o Te p us ST p st 5.6.3.3 V th ere was a sh vertising and ere mentione ecutives nee know what ction Items reate templa evelop a quic eed to better ith funding. evelop graph hite text with rovide a reus uring the wor rget the guid ading State Utah DOT tah DOT proc omain of upp tah DOT is cu ith current re tah DOT, afte rategic data nits. Texas DOT xas DOT is c ntirely on the ftware Syste xas DOT had rder to store xas has crea rocure the clo ed by the Pe ARS II has be erformance, arted to ado Virginia DOT irginia DOT is rough public ort discussio monetizatio d. d to know th to ask for fro tes and a che k one‐page e define the t ical represen colored gra able presenta kshop but us ance toward DOT Activi urement ser er managem rrently procu strictions. r reviewing d coordinator a urrently host AWS cloud u m. to request a data in the c ted a dedicat ud‐based sy nnsylvania T en running f capabilities, a pt systems pr currently ex ‐private part n about the f n through pu at technolog m people wh cklist of thing xecutive sum erm "sustaina tation of the phics. tion on tech ing layman's business de ties Identifi vices does no ent; once acq ring SaaS pro ata practices nd is envisio ing its Statew sing a third‐ waiver from loud. ed IT procure stem. The sys urnpike Com or over 2 yea nd cost of cl ovided by M ploring EIP fin nerships and inancial susta blic‐private y is emerging o provide IT. s to conside mary of reco bility." Most concepts wit nology in the terms. cision makers ed During th t have autho uisition is ac ducts throug in the Utah ning embedd ide Traffic A party, cloud‐b the Texas De ment at the tem is availa mission to pu rs now and h oud alternati idwestern So ancial sustai advertising. inability of a partnerships to make this r in EIP devel mmendation executives w hin the guida guidance do ; IT people w e Worksho rity on IT pur cepted, proc h third‐party healthcare in ing IT/data s nalysis and R ased ATMS partment of state level th ble to other rsue IT acqu as tangibles ves. Ohio DO ftware Syste nability and In particular, DOT EIP, an of advanced more cost‐e opment/mai s. ill associate nce docume cument as it on't read th p chases. Auth urement follo contracts so dustry, is cu taff in each o eporting Syst solution from Information at has made state agencie isition. figures regar T and Arizon m. EIP services m the DOT is e d topics such EIP capabilit ffective and ntenance. "sustainable nt; mix black was presente is. ority is solely ws through.
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From page 212... ...
212 monetization of more advanced services such as mobile applications and online search tools built on top public datasets.
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