Maryland State Highway Administration Pilot of the Data Business Plan Guide for State and Local Departments of Transportation: Data Business Plan

Chapter 6. Implementation Plan

Implementation is not a one-time event, but rather the policies, standards, and procedures identified in the Data Business Plan (DBP) should become part of the day-to-day business practices of Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) State Highway Administration (SHA). The Mobility Working Group is responsible for addressing the improvement items (identified in Section 3). Discussions at meetings should include reports on implementation progress (e.g., tasks competed, tasks remaining) and any adjustments needed due to changing priorities, policies, standards, or legislative priorities. In addition, Maryland SHA should provide an annual report or briefing to senior management that provides an executive level summary of data systems, status of integrating the data systems, regional collaboration, successes achieved or new enhancements needed for existing systems, and recommendations for addressing issues.

This section provides a proposed roadmap to implement this DBP. The roadmap is organized around the Framework concept including data, architecture, and governance to support MDOT SHA's ability to integrate and report on mobility data. The three components should be addressed at the same time. Actions are classified according to high, medium, and low priorities.

Data Action Items

Step 1: Address General Action Items from Data Assessment

High

1. Develop a plan to raise awareness of the Mobility Dashboard and include a disclaimer in the metadata to enable a better understanding of the data quality of each source.
2. Develop a plan to assign a spatial component for all data outputs.
3. Develop a common linear referencing system for all datasets.
4. Through the Data Management Board, establish consistent data standards, governance, and metadata.

Medium

1. Determine opportunities for data collection and management to be more automated.
2. Conduct a data inventory and inventory check.
3. Establish governance for planning use of Coordinated Highways Action Response Team's (CHART) operational data.

Low

1. Determine datasets that can be cross validated with one another (e.g., explore how to use Maryland Department of Planning data to validate models).

Step 2:    Address Action Items Specific to Each Data Type from Data Assessment

High

1. Speed Action Items
   1. Explore the development of a task for vendors or consultants to generate speeds from probe speed data by vehicle types.
   2. Work with vendors to improve quality of arterial probe data for mobility reporting.
   3. Work with vendors to have lane differentiation of probe speed data.
   4. Determine if there is a need to have speeds from CHART detectors and, if so, when and how to set them up.
   5. Determine when and how to develop a tool that generates time-space diagrams.
2. Truck Freight Action Items
   1. Look at four months of data to see if it is adequate (University of Maryland is already looking into this).
3. Work Zone Action Items
   1. Develop Work Zone performance measures.
4. Signal Timing Action Items
   1. Set up meeting with relevant stakeholders to better coordinate Signal and Geographic Information System (GIS) offices.
   2. Discuss how to best combine signal timing data with GIS.

Medium

1. Speed Action Items
   1. Determine when and how to develop a tool that generates time-space diagrams.
2. Volume Action Items
   1. Gather appropriate stakeholders to discuss how to optimize volume processes.
3. Origin/Destination Action Items
   1. Continue looking into Streetlight data and Inrix or National Performance Management Research Dataset (NPMRDS) for origin/destination (O/D).
4. Accessibility Action Items
   1. University of Maryland should make a recommendation on how to use O/D data for accessibility.
   2. Develop dashboard to visualize accessibility.
5. Truck Freight Action Items
   1. Develop data collection standards.
   2. Explore ways to provide volume and speed for freight routes.
   3. Discuss how to improve commodity flow data.
   4. Discuss data needs to produce freight performance measures on a regular basis.
   5. Pursue if Inrix can provide truck probe data or percentage of trucks.
   6. Develop better system for vehicle classification.
   7. Develop tool to identify additional legal truck parking.
   8. Discuss how to improve truck parking data.
   9. Clarify definitions of what counts as freight and what doesn't (e.g., buses).
6. Work Zone Action Items
   1. Start to assess impacts (modeling impacts of effects and impacts—before and after).
   2. Develop data collection standards.
   3. Develop process to analyze impact of work zones (potentially as part of Strategic Highway Research (SHRP 2) program).
   4. Develop streamlined system to bring all work zone data together.
7. Signal Timing Action Items
   1. Map signal database with signal data.
   2. Use archived traffic signal data to develop various performance measures such as percent arrival on green.
   3. Include signals in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Asset Management inventory.
   4. Develop data collection standards.
   5. Talk to Econolite about how to tie Centracs into other systems.
8. Connected and Automated Vehicles Action Items
   1. Discuss the development of a framework to develop and manage Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAV) data for safety, mobility, and asset conditions.

Low

1. Origin/Destination Action Items:
   1. Discuss how to potentially get O/D of commodities.
   2. Work with vendors to obtain necessary data to obtain trip-based metrics.
   3. Work with vendors to obtain more granular O/D data.
   4. Work with Inrix to obtain O/D data of all trips in and out of Maryland for an entire year (within three years).
   5. Develop correlation between truck O/D and Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS) data.
   6. Determine how to analyze the impact of accidents at an O/D level.
   7. Have a smaller group convene to determine how to use new O/D data sources to decide on Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO)/advanced traffic management strategies.
2. Accessibility Action Items:
   1. Develop standards/structure to conduct accessibility metrics for projects.
   2. Develop/estimate how fast users can reach major employers such as the National Institutes of Health, etc.
   3. Discuss how to account for multi-modal trips.
   4. Address regional accessibility by engaging other agencies.
3. Truck Freight Action Items:
   1. Discuss how to better know "what's in the truck".
   2. Develop data governance for freight data.
   3. Develop a business process to keep freight data robust.
4. Work Zone Action Items:
   1. Archive work zone data and impacts of work zones from the dashboard—for performance measures.
   2. Need to establish governance for planning use of CHART's operational data.
   3. For work-zone performance data, determine a way to include what network system each signal belongs to.
   4. Develop a standard layer of alternate routes linked to construction projects.
   5. Develop work zone plan to stage work zones one after another to minimize impacts.
5. Signal Timing Action Items:
   1. Signal phasing and timing should be part of CAV initiative in the future.
   2. Develop a plan to use and implement fiber infrastructure for signals.
   3. Orient research efforts to get statewide signal phasing and timing.

Architecture Action Item

Step 1: Finalize High Level Architecture

High

1. Review Architecture diagram and revise/update.

Governance

Step 1: Implement the Data Governance Framework

High

1. Adopt policy to implement data governance at SHA. This provides a mechanism to enforce policies and procedures related to data governance and management.
2. Establish the Data Management Board according to the framework established in the DGD Data Business Plan and Data Governance Roadmap.
3. Formally adopt core data principles and incorporate them into governance policies, standards, and processes.
4. Expand the existing data catalog to include mobility data assets. The data catalog should document the system of record for specific mobility data sources, metadata about the data systems, contact information for the data stewards responsible for updating and maintaining the data, linkage variables, and data access policies.

Medium

1. Establish the Mobility Data Working Group to coordinate on mobility data collection, data acquisitions, and cross-cutting data management issues (e.g., data quality, standards, metadata, data privacy, and security).
2. Establish liaison relationships between the Data Management Board and Mobility Data Working Group.
3. Formalize data governance roles and responsibilities by incorporating them into staff job descriptions and job performance review criteria.
4. Develop and approve a Charter to set forth the purpose, goals, membership, roles and responsibilities, and "rules of engagement" regarding collaboration and coordination for the Mobility Data Working Group. Develop supporting documents such as a Data Governance Manual, Business Terms Glossary, and Data Sharing Agreements.