WATrans Activities WSDOT GIS Users Group

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Sharing and Integrating GIS Transportation Data
Between Local and State Jurisdictions
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Sharing and Integrating GIS Transportation Data
Between Local and State JurisdictionsMarch 28,
2007
Tami Griffin GIS Project Manager, Washington
State DOT Michael Leierer Technical Lead,
Washington State DOT Dave Blackstone GIS
Manager, Ohio DOT Kim McDonough, GISP GIS
Coordinator, Tennessee DOT Dennis Scofield GIS
Manager, Oregon DOT
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Topics for Discussion

• Background - The WA-Trans Project
• Vision Leading to the Multi-State Effort
• Strategies for Success
• Collaboration
• Making the Business Case
• Aligning the Data Long-Term
• Architecture for Sharing and Integrating
• Processes for Sharing and Integrating
• Data Model and Schema

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Topics for Discussion

• Ohio DOT
• Tennessee DOT
• Oregon DOT
• The Software Tools for Sharing and Integrating
  GIS Data Transportation Pooled Fund Study
• Discussion

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Washington State Transportation Framework for GIS
(WA-Trans)

• A Statewide Transportation Database for GIS
• Location-based transportation data,
• Best available data from all levels of
  governments and tribes,
• Covers roads, rails, ferries, aviation, ports and
  non-motorized transportation infrastructure,
• Seamless, connected, consistent and continuous
  data between jurisdictions, boundaries and other
  framework layers,
• Useful for a wide variety of business needs.

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Project Organization

• Facilitated by the Washington State Department of
  Transportation (WSDOT)
• Collaboratively organized
• Partnerships established with counties, cities,
  planning organizations, tribal nations, transit
  organizations, freight interests, federal
  agencies and private organizations
• Decisions made by a steering committee of
  representatives from different levels and
  disciplines of government.

Any sufficiently advanced bureaucracy is
indistinguishable from molasses. Unknown
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Who is Working On This?

• 8 Federal Agencies
• 10 Cities
• 9 Tribes
• 4 Transit Organizations
• more

• WSDOT lead
• 11 State Agencies
• Freight Interests
• 4 Regional Planning Offices
• 24 Counties

Steering Committee WSDOT, Fish and Wildlife,
Freight Interests, County Road Administration
Board, Puget Sound Regional Council, E-911, WA
Dept. of Natural Resources, 5 Counties, Sound
Transit, US Bureau of Census, US Forest Service
and USGS.
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Project Steps

• Initiation Outreach, Chartering, Business Needs
  Assessment and Prioritization
• Analysis Data model, standards, tool
  definition, architecture, scoping, pilot
  definitions and initial funding
• Pilot Projects Test and provide concepts,
  software prototyping and risk mitigation
• Implementation Building it statewide
• Maintenance Continuing to get the best data and
  improve the quality of the data and access to the
  data.

Perseverance is more prevailing than violence
and many things which cannot be overcome when
they are together, yield themselves up when taken
little by little. Plutarch
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Puget Sound Pilot Phase I and II
USGS CAP Funding Phase I King County , Pierce
County, Puget Sound Regional Council, USGS
Proposed Funding Phase II
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(No Transcript)
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Vision Statement

• Create WA-Trans based upon the description
  previously shown, but in such a way that it
  leverages experience and partnerships both
  internally and externally to Washington State.
• Working with Oregon showed us that we each have
  something to contribute to create a better
  strategy, process, data design, architecture,
  agreements and all the components that go into
  successfully building a statewide transportation
  GIS dataset.
• We decided to broaden our working partnerships .
  . .

One of the greatest pains to human nature is the
pain of a new idea. Walter Bagehot
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Developing These Partnerships

• Utilizing the Transportation Pooled Fund Study as
  a mechanism to create synergy and combine
  funding, we have begun working closely with
• Nebraska Department of Roads,
• Ohio Department of Transportation,
• Oregon Department of Transportation,
• Tennessee Department of Transportation
• to share in the development of the needed data
  structures, infrastructures, agreements,
  processes and especially experiences so we can
  collaboratively develop and maintain our
  statewide transportation data as envisioned.

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WA-Trans Strategies for Success

• Include Stakeholders as early as possible (from
  the beginning),
• Find out who will use it and why it is important
  to them. Use that to define how it should be
  built,
• Use business drivers to define scope,
• Manage communication and outreach as an important
  project responsibility to keep the project
  visible,
• Manage risk through pilots which test only
  portions of the project that produce usable
  deliverables,

Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They
must be driven into practice with courageous
patience. Hyman Rickover
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WA-Trans Strategies for Success

• Minimize systems changes required of data
  providers to participate,
• Keep the original data provider in control of the
  changes needed where feasible,
• Design the database based on standards to be
  flexible and functional over time,
• Build WA-Trans to be maintained,
• Use software to reduce manual processes where
  possible,

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WA-Trans Strategies for Success

• Purchase software components when possible to
  minimize risk and reduce time and complexity,
• Test the resulting data when ever and where ever
  possible to ensure a usable and useful product,
• Quantify the value of WA-Trans both operationally
  and strategically and use that to get funding,
• Use significant up front negotiations to
  establish agreements and processes which minimize
  long-term maintenance and provide motivation to
  improve standards and data provided,

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Why Collaborate?

• We need both data users and data providers to be
  successful,
• Data providers need to have control over what
  they produce and are liable for,
• Data users need to believe the data to be
  credible and need a place to go when there is a
  problem,
• Working collaboratively provides for recognition
  and consideration of needs across the spectrum so
  they can be handled proactively.
• Working collaboratively provides opportunities
  for greater buy-in and ownership among our many
  critically necessary parties.

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Working Collaboratively

• Collaboration to work, one with another. . .to
  cooperate versus Competition to strive to
  outdo another for acknowledgement.
• For us to succeed on our projects we need to our
  partners to want to work with us.
• Collaboration the choice to work together in an
  environment of respect and trust so that our
  mutual interests are met as we accomplish a
  shared vision.
• First step choosing not to compete!

Know how to listen, and you will profit even from
those who talk badly. Plutarch
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For our purposes

• Collaboration is the process wherein units work
  together to achieve outcomes for shared
  stakeholders, . . . more cost effectively than if
  they worked on their own, without having to
  change the how codes of any participating
  Units. It is dynamic in nature in that it
  tries to achieve something completely new,
  improving on an existing feature and building on
  each others competencies in order to accomplish
  innovation.

Unity is strength when there is teamwork and
collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.
Mattie Stepanek (American Poet)
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How WA-Trans is Collaborative

• Broad based partnership created at the beginning
  of the project,
• Steering committee developed from representative
  group of partners, including many business areas
  and levels and functions of government,
• The committee agreed to rules of engagement and
  chartered their relationship before any other
  work was done,
• Business needs assessment was the first task
  completed,
• Business needs were prioritized collaboratively.

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WA-Trans Collaboration

• Business needs established the WIFIM,
• Database designs, pilot project plans and
  high-level process decisions were reached based
  on that business need prioritization and charter
  process,
• Multi-jurisdictional and multi-functional Pilot
  project advisory committees guide pilot
  activities and make detailed technical decisions,
• Everyone owns the outcome and they all have a
  strong voice in the products,
• Communication is a central function of the
  project.

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Strategies Employed

• Include Stakeholders as early as possible (from
  the beginning),
• Find out who will use it and why it is important
  to them. Use that to define how it should be
  built,
• Use business drivers to define scope,
• Manage communication and outreach as an important
  project responsibility to keep the project
  visible,

Assumptions are the termites of relationships.
Henry Winkler
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Making the Business Case - Difficulties
Encountered

• No path in literature for this kind of business
  case study,
• Resistance of techs when asked to measure and
  estimate investments and costs,
• Significant time investment and many
  organizations participation required to do this
  successfully,
• We needed guidance, because we had no expertise,
• How do we slice and dice benefits to show where
  WA-Trans provides the benefits aside from
  applications which must be developed to make best
  use?

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Sometimes the Right Things Happen

• GITA Conference in Seattle (training in GIS
  Business Case),
• Through networking several people with common
  interests became aware of our need,
• Invited to join the FGDC Business Case Action
  Team,
• WA-Trans was selected as a case-study
  participant,
• FGDC (upon suggestion from GITA) agreed to fund a
  second trip to complete the WA-Trans business
  case.

Synergy and serendipity often play a big part in
medical and scientific advances. Julie Bishop
(Australian Politician)
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Staging for a Successful Business Case Study

• WA-Trans Business Needs Assessment,
• A detailed report with descriptions, stakeholders
  and users identified for all business needs, in
  support of WIIFM.
• Detailed Cost Estimates,
• Developed and refined for pilots with estimates
  for statewide implementation. These will be
  updated after each pilot.
• Constant Networking,
• Collaboration requires an opportunistic attitude
  and reaching out is critical.
• Began collecting information prior to joining the
  Action Team.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it
is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Thomas A. Edison
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Data Results (Costs)
In spite of the cost of living, it is still
popular. Laurence J. Peter
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Data Results (Benefits)
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Data Results (Business Case Summary)
Every man serves a useful purpose A miser, for
example, makes a wonderful ancestor. Laurence J.
Peter
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Validation Process

• Validation with state agencies with major
  benefits identified has changes the break even
  date,
• Validation with county government challenges
  assumptions regarding the number of regional
  emergencies and the cost of them (they are seen
  as way too low),
• Pilot projects will cause adjustments to costs
  estimates and time lines,
• Much more data could (and will) be collected.

There is no stigma attached to recognizing a bad
decision in time to install a better one.
Laurence J. Peter
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Strategies Employed

• Use business drivers to define scope,
• Quantify the value of WA-Trans both operationally
  and strategically and use that to get funding.

Where a calculator on the ENIAC (first American
Computer) is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes
and weights 30 tons, computers in the future may
have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh
1.5 tons. Unknown, Popular Mechanics, March 1949.
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Agreement (Dueker) Points

• Definition An agreement is established between
  two parties, who possess overlapping data sets,
  and who share data boundaries, over the location
  of shared map features. These points are
  identified where both data sets are moved to
  facilitate connectivity and is maintained as an
  agreement.
• Why? Because this allows the data providers to
  have control over their own data.

Those who agree with us may not be right but we
admire their astuteness. Cullen Hightower.
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Current Results King and Pierce Roads Data
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With Agreement Points
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WA-Trans Architecture
If computers get too powerful, we can organize
them into a committee that will do them in.
Bradleys Bromide
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Data Provider User Interface

• The creation of a working prototype is one of the
  primary goals of the Transportation Pooled Fund
  Study.
• Will facilitate an interface with transformation
  processes, including checking for updates,
  eliciting missing metadata, etc.

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Security

• Needed at input to make sure data providers are
  appropriate and we have agreements with them.
• Will be used for data users to access accounts
  and authenticate access to data behind WSDOT
  firewall and for access to specialized data
  (planning data, etc.).

There is no security on this earth, there is only
opportunity. General Douglas MacArthur.
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Transformation Processes

• Takes local government data and converts it into
  format needed for WA-Trans.
• Also takes WA-Trans data and converts it into the
  local format.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clark
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Transformation Requirements

• Provide a bidirectional data translator that
  operates as a ETL process for data from a local
  format and schema into the WA-Trans format and
  from the WA-Trans format and schema back into
  local format and schema and federal spatial
  transportation exchange standards.
• Provide components that enable the users to
  manipulate the imported or exported data into the
  desired redefinition as necessary. Save that
  process for each user.

The more things change, the more they remain. . .
insane. Michael Fry and T. Lewis, 05/2004
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Transformation Requirements cont..

• Provide a data prescreening process to ensure
  minimum data standards compliance,
• Provide users with the ability to view logging
  and transactions to ensure data validation and
  the ability to manually augment the data
  correction.
• Provide a method to detect new or changed data
• The ultimate software solution shall provide
  tools and processes to automatically add the
  minimum metadata at the feature level to
  WA-Trans.

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Quality Assurance Quality Control
For a successful technology, reality must take
precedence over public relations, for Nature
cannot be fooled. Richard Feynman

• QA/QC will be partly manual and partly automated.
• Will facilitate checking for consistent,
  continuous data and appropriate and complete
  attribution.
• Will update metadata as changes are made.

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Integration

• Integration is both manual and automated. We
  will have to determine what can be automated
• Edge matching will be handled as much as possible
  through agreement points. Conflation as well.
• Vertical Integration involves decisions made
  regarding who is the data source and which of two
  conflicting sources we use.

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WA-Trans Database

• This is a SQL database that will hold the
  official copy of WA-Trans.
• It will be the result of the geo-processing done
  with working storage data.
• It will hold various versions of the
  transportation system at various dates.
• The Data User Interface will access data from
  this database

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Data User Interface

• Provide access to data by boundary or x,y min and
  max,
• Provide specialized clips for easy access,
• Provide some limited query ability (eventually
  year of WA-Trans, planning roads included, etc.),
• Provide format for translation of data.

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Strategies Employed

• Use business drivers to define scope,
• Keep the original data provider in control of the
  changes needed where feasible,
• Minimize systems changes required of data
  providers to participate,
• Build WA-Trans to be maintained,
• Use software to reduce manual processes where
  possible,
• Test the resulting data when ever and where ever
  possible to ensure a usable and useful product.
• Purchase software components when possible to
  minimize risk and reduce time and complexity,
• Manage risk through pilots which test only
  portions of the project that produce usable
  deliverables.

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WA-Trans Data Model
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History of Data Model

• Initially based on Oregon All-Roads model.
• Due to business needs in transportation planning,
  emergency management and economic development it
  must be a multi-modal model.
• Worked with WSDOT Rail, Aviation and Washington
  State Ferries, WA-Trans Steering Committee and
  the WSDOT Office of Information Technology to
  develop current design.
• WA-Trans data model is structured to be a
  transactional data model with spatial components.
• Federal standards created by FGDC have been used
  as a basis for this model.

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More Design Considerations

• WA-Trans is NOT a GIS, but a data source for use
  in GIS.
• Address-geocoding and geocoding in general were
  determined to be the highest priority business
  need for WA-Trans.
• Accurate centerline data was also a very high
  priority.
• Update cycles for local governments are generally
  frequent and lead to accurate address and
  centerline information.

Get the facts, or the facts will get you. And
when you get them, get them right, or they will
get you wrong. Dr. Thomas Fuller
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Segments and Points

• The WA-Trans Model is based upon segments and
  points to represent the transportation features.
• Segments roads, runways, ferry routes, ferry
  staging areas,
• Points intersections and features (roads, roads
  and railroads, ferry terminals, airport
  terminals), begin and end of segments.
• Most current research in GIS for Transportation
  supports this type of model.

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Segments and Points Conceptual View
25-0007
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Characteristics of Segments and Points

• Multiple descriptions of segments are allowed,
• Multiple address ranges are allowed of segments,
• Address points can be stored if available,
• Segment and point identifiers are perpetual.
  They are retired when the road changes so we can
  historically reproduce that feature at any
  specific date,
• Descriptions and address ranges are also
  perpetual and can retire independent of segments
  and points,
• Dates of interest create, update, validate,
  retire,

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Linear Reference Systems

• LRS supported explicitly
• Route milepost (used by Fed, State and County),
• Addresses (used by County and City and some State
  and Fed).
• LRS supported implicitly
• Distance from intersection (used by City).
• Looking a introducing a statewide Linear Datum,
  similar to Oregons.

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Event Data

• Event data for roads includes
• Surface Information,
• HOV Information,
• Average Daily Traffic,
• Speed Limits,
• Number of Lanes,
• Federal Functional Classification,
• Structures,
• Non-motorized use,
• Indian reservation road information (still to be
  added).

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Data Flow in WA-Trans Databases
Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, and
difficult as if they were easy in the one case
that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other
that it may not be dismayed. Baltasar Gracian
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Strategies Employed

• Design the database based on standards to be
  flexible and functional over time,
• Build WA-Trans to be maintained,
• Use software to reduce manual processes where
  possible,
• Test the resulting data when ever and where ever
  possible to ensure a usable and useful product.

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Other States . . .
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Transportation Pooled Fund Study

• TPF 5(108) Software Tools for Sharing and
  Integrating GIS Data,
• http//www.pooledfund.org,
• Seeking 5 more partners (at least),
• You must work through your research office,
• We can also partner with other levels of
  government and private companies,
• Our goal is to having working prototypes in an
  Open GIS environment as a result as well as
  processes and other useful templates and
  information.

The ability and desire to transform the mundane
materials at hand that we both bring into the
collaboration well beyond the sum total of the
parts to birth a new baby neither of us could
claim single parentage of. Gary Lucas (musician)
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www.wsdot.wa.gov/mapsdata/transframework/default.h
tm
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Contacts

• Tami Griffin GriffiT_at_wsdot.wa.gov
  360.709.5513
• Dave Blackstone Dave.Blackstone_at_dot.state.oh.us
  [phone]
• Dennis Scofield Dennis.J.SCOFIELD_at_odot.state.or.us
  503.986.3156

• Michael Leierer LeiereM_at_wsdot.wa.gov
  360.709.5511
• Rose Braun rbraun_at_dor.state.ne.us
  402.479.3696
• Kim McDonough Kim.McDonough_at_state.tn.us
  615.741.4037