Transportation Agency Data Governance Programs Getting Started Toward Sustainability

Transportation agencies deal with a multitude of issues covering increased streams of data, new program requirements, information technology changes, refocusing agency strategic goals, and constrained budgets. MAP-21 (Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act) establishes a performance, outcome-based approach for transportation programs. A data governance program can improve an agency’s capability to manage their transportation data programs effectively and to address these data challenges. Starting and sustaining a data governance program is a daunting task, in part because the concepts are hard to explain. There is typically a strategic event or series of events that trigger an agency to start a data governance program, e.g. developing a transportation asset management program, incorporating an enterprise geographic information system, or evolving information service needs. Starting data governance programs requires a common vision, documented data business work flows, defined roles and responsibilities, and transition progress tracking. This paper highlights effective fundamental steps that can aide in establishing and sustaining a strong data governance framework. This paper provides the context for data governance within an overall data management program and includes a business need for data governance, target areas and initial steps to consider, current initiatives in transportation, and finally, an overview of how the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities initiated a data governance program in response to a transportation asset management information system, the transition from a legacy mainframe transportation database to a geospatial linear referenced based system, and the new MAP-21 data requirements.