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- [Narrator] Data from third-party sources
is being studied as a tool
to assist with traffic management and congestion.
This information, obtained from phones
and the vehicles themselves,
has brought in the interests of state
and federal agencies looking
for ways it can be used in transportation operations.
Working with the Center for Transportation Research,
the Texas Department of Transportation developed tools
for the integration of this data to create support systems
to recommend ways to implement these strategies.
- Well, there's been a wide variety of data aggregators
and data providers
in the transportation mobility space
that have exploded on the market.
And we needed a framework to evaluate the strengths
and weaknesses of these datasets
and their value added,
their potential value added, to TxDOT.
- We started by looking at
all the different kinds of data sources out there.
We collected a list of close to 100 data sources
that might be relevant to TxDOT,
and then we started looking at the ways
that we could incorporate these sources
into different TxDOT workflows.
So some of these are things that we could use for planning
for different historical things,
or some of them are real-time data collection
that we can use for operations.
And so then we looked at sort of the gaps
in TxDOT processes
and the ways that we can incorporate that data.
And we came up with some strategies
for integrating those data sources.
So one of our main outputs
was to create a decision support system that TxDOT can use
to help match data sources with their current workflows.
So we looked at three different ways
of sort of matching these together.
First, we had what we call a Data Source Driven Query.
The second part of it is an Application Driven Query.
And then the third section is the Policy Driven Query.
And we came up with a tool that TxDOT can use
to sort of map those new data sources
to their workflows to sort of facilitate that connection
and the integration of those sources.
- As new offerings come up to us, are presented to us,
we can run those new offerings through the framework
and decision tree tool that'll help us determine where
and how best to bring that data to bear
on specific use cases within the department.
It's gonna help us evaluate new data sources
and quickly determine how they can be most applicable
to various department business processes.
That could range from travel demand modeling
to safety analysis to traffic operations analysis.
And all of that goes together
in providing a safe and reliable transportation system
to move people and goods across the state.
- [Narrator] For more information
and to find the publication for this project,
please visit the TxDOT Research Library
at the link shown below.