Data Business Plans and Governance Programs

Abstract

The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) established a performance- and outcome-based transportation program for safety, infrastructure condition, congestion reduction, system reliability, freight movement, environment sustainability, and reduced project delivery delays. Transportation data are essential in addressing those challenges. Data are valued assets, but they carry a significant risk–-bad data can lead to ineffective planning and ultimately to poor agency business decisions. An effective transportation data business plan coupled with institutional data governance can mitigate the risk by providing an approach for delivering comprehensive, quality data. Better data provide better information, which in turn results in informed decisions. A data business plan with an established data governance environment can lead to proactive rather than reactive decisions. Many state departments of transportation have embraced such concepts and best practices and are beginning to apply them in overall data governance. However, the terms and application are not mainstreamed and are not assimilated into the transportation agency culture. This paper provides the context for data management, data governance, and data stewardship; a business need for establishing data governance in a transportation agency; key features to be considered for a data business plan; approaches to developing a data governance program; and finally a process for evaluating data program governance.