Overview
This webinar, the first in a series of five, presents an overview of NCHRP 08-119 Data Integration, Sharing, and Management for Transportation Planning and Traffic Operations, which began in 2019 and ran through 2023. The objective of this project was to develop tools, methods, and guidance for improving data sharing, integration, and management practices to enable transportation agencies, in collaboration with private-sector and public-sector stakeholders, to make better planning and operations decisions.
The webinar series shares best practices, lessons learned, challenges and opportunities, and emerging practices for data sharing, integration, and management; opportunities and information on partnering with private sector data providers; and the needs/approaches to prepare for big data.
Much of the work from the project can also be found at data.transportationops.org.
To effectively plan and operate transportation systems, agencies need to use a wide variety of data. However, existing data silos; a lack of common data formats; hesitation or fear of sharing data; and traditional, rigid data management practices limit transportation agencies and practitioners in their ability to exchange, integrate, and use data for analysis, reporting, and decision-making. Further, as transportation agencies begin to use new data sources and to make their data more accessible, some of the issues faced include gaining confidence in the data and understanding their quality and variability, reconciling data discrepancies among different sources, validating processes for turning data into information, comparing system performance across time considering how the data have changed, and understanding the implications of big data approaches/applications. More modern approaches to data management can improve the efficiency of data-driven processes as well as support innovation across transportation agencies.
Moderator and speaker:
Kelley Klaver Senior Director of Transportation AEM Corporation