01658655

Component

“Big data” approaches are increasingly becoming essential for transportation agencies to thrive. Datasets like probe speed data and Lidar data for asset management, as well as emerging connected and automated vehicle datasets, are far larger and more complex than agencies have traditionally dealt with. In the last decade, private companies have increasingly been harvesting petabytes of data, but their available resources, hiring practices, and contracting mechanisms are quite different from that of government agencies. This paper identifies best practices in integrating big data approaches into transportation agencies. The focus was to understand the infrastructure, staff skills, contracting mechanisms, costs, and return on investment for big data applications. A literature review and targeted interviews with leading agencies were used to identify common themes. The findings show that many agencies are in the investigational stage of leveraging big data and are exploring a variety of use cases. Successful agencies have first developed use cases in critical business functions, and support from executive leadership was repeatedly said to be crucial in initiating a program. High system cost and a lack of staff with advanced data analytics and IT skills are common challenges for implementation. While the interviewed agencies all outsourced their big data projects, each agency has a unique model customized to its business needs and resources available, relying on both private companies and universities to implement their system. The study showed that a variety of methods exist for implementing these programs, and documented key lessons learned.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABC10 Standing Committee on Strategic Management.

18-03041

English

5p

2018

Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

References; Tables

Best practices; Case studies; Contracting; Costs; Information processing; Literature reviews; Return on investment; Selection and appointment; State departments of transportation

Administration and Management; Data and Information Technology; Transportation (General)

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2018 Paper #18-03041

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 8 2018 10:43AM