2024-09-01 Annual Meeting

« Return to Kickoff @ Annual Meeting 2024 or AP090(1) homepage or AP090 homepage

In-person meeting at the 2024 TRB Annual Meeting in DC.

Introductions

• Around the room: name and organization
• Ray: TRB policies and fire safety
• Ray: subcommittee mission
• Chris: subcommittee goals
• Chris: expectations for vendors
• Soo: introduction to data governance
• Chris: introduction to data infrastructure
• Ray: count off into breakout groups

Breakout group readouts

Group 1

• 5/6 participants were consultants
• Challenges
  • Start assessing data holding when it’s split between teams
  • It’s tough to even start because we need to find the one person who ran the script before
  • Older systems - tougher to get stuff out of it, is part of the landscape
    • advocate for new systems when the old ones have so much inertia
  • Getting people to agree what is governance
  • Vendor proprietary data
• What can help
  • knowledge transfer
  • how do systems work? Especially systems that are procured.
  • having a broader understanding can build better RFP’s
  • help surface and coordinate efforts and avoid duplications
  • touchpoints with adjacent communities
• What subcommittee can do
  • Coordinate adjacent communities at TRB, other things - adjacent community

Group 2

• Challenges
  • No strategy on how to use data, where the data is (limited staff time)
  • Putting out guidances and best practices, even in the absence of a chief data officer
    • Good RNS statement for a synthesis
  • Documentation, version control
    • Doesn’t live with that single person, or leave with them
    • Who knows “the guy/gal”
  • Leveraging staff interest - sharing that outside of their own team

Group 3

• Challenges
  • Separate groups involved in data (IS, Operations, analysts)
    • Department’s that manage data != use the data != create the data
  • Split in both groups and infrastructure
    • enterprise wide vs nimble infrastructure
  • Lack of expertise with smaller organizations
• What subcommittee can do
  • Best practices - documents, templates
  • how to move a technical need -> Executive level -> guidance
  • Staff roles, structures, need, skills
  • Open standards facilitate governance
  • data governance peer reviews - operations and maintenance is common, but not IT/ data

Group 4

• Challenges
  • Data capacity issues - value of data - how to maintain it -
  • Using the data downstream from operations - the quality of the data
  • Infrastructure, but no policy in place to sustain that infrastructure
  • How do you get a culture where data is a priority at large and small agencies
  • Good governance, but how do we create a legacy
  • Find the benefit of open source / quality data - institutionalize it
  • knowledge transfer, but more sustainably
  • Data compliance matters

Group 5

• 2 consultant / 2 small-mid agencies
• Challenges
  • IT is support, but people are building on their own
  • Procurement - one off projects, but not a long term program
  • Staff learning criteria
    • level of understanding from analysis -> IT
  • Data compilation - what/where is the data
  • Capital budget is useful for one off, but not long term ongoing staff to support data management
  • putting out fires / data to data vs long term mission
  • what are the sequential steps from here to a better future
• Things to share
  • when you standardize… it’s much easier to have a conversation… but you need the data background
  • Tech procurement support - in the beginning they meet standards - its easier rather than doing it ex-post
  • visualize data vs just a data dump
  • give people control and to play the data
• What subcommittee can do
  • Standard language for procurements - so agencies can use directly
  • Same with Vendors
  • Understand the standards - discoverability of standards
  • Teaching agencies that are less familiar - osmosis between data infrastructure and transit domain knowledge

Group 6

• Challenges
  • System decentralization - use “whatever someone else built” that lead to data quality/ conflicts
  • Accurate, complete, immutable, understandable
  • Governing GTFS
  • Divide between operators and analysts ( bridging the divide)
• What subcommittee can do
  • Best practices, definitions, buzzwords -> understandability
  • Federal gov and spreading knowledge
  • data governance at different sized agencies - spreadsheets are okay
  • Device to decision
  • Show how the data was really important in the decision process

Potential subcommittee next steps

• Data infrastructure show / tell
• How to communicate
• Liason-ing with committees
• Growing the need with adjacent organizations
• keeping up / stay connected
• Slack to Newsletter data