Location data is the central focus of information collected and utilized by modern transportation agencies at all levels of government, state, federal, county, city, and tribal. This data is used internally for nearly every aspect of department functions, for highway maintenance and planning, for dealing with safety and with traffic flow, to facilitate the movement of people and goods. It is also used to coordinate with other agencies within the jurisdiction such as law enforcement, parks and recreation, ecology, health departments, etc. and with outside interests such as economic development groups, freight carriers, and transportation agencies in other jurisdictions. There has been a great proliferation of files in various formats and databases containing geographical and locational data. In addition to highway data, there are repositories of locational data for rail, ferry, inland waterway, port, aviation and non-motorized vehicle transportation modes, etc. all of which should be able to tie into a transportation network. Technical issues of translating the data to be integrated into ones own data can be expensive and time consuming. Levels of accuracy and data quality vary widely making the sharing of data from various sources difficult. Procedures for obtaining data from another organization can be subject to obtaining data sharing agreements, or paying for the data. In order to mitigate these circumstances, the Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) in partnership with the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) established a consortium of public and private entities for the purpose of developing computer based tools that facilitate geo-spatial transportation data sharing and integration for a variety of purposes. The Geo-spatial Integration and Sharing Data Consortium (GISDC) is funded by a Transportation Pooled Fund arrangement and managed by WSDOT. The states currently participating in the pooled fund include; Nebraska, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington. This solicitation is provided to encourage other states to participate in the process. As more participants become involved, the project will benefit from a broader input of ideas, financing, and technical assistance. The Project Description document linked to this solicitation contains a description of the project - project phases, data to be considered, software tools to be developed, and sharing agreements among the participating jurisdictions.

The goal of the consortium is to develop, implement and distribute a variety of tools and process for sharing and integrating geo-spatial transportation data. The basic objectives are: - Design and implementation of a core database based on federal standards within the state as a central repository of multi-jurisdictional location data - Translation of the data from one database to another Integration of data from disparate data sources into a seamless whole - QA/QC processes and software to monitor data quality, security, data entry and retrieval processes - Documentation of a set of processes necessary to support data sharing from a variety of sources, e.g. data sharing agreements, agreement points. - Linear Referencing Integration The initial timeline for this development is three to four years. Annual consortium meetings and electronic communication are used to coordinate project activities. The timeline of the project and, to some extent, the scope depend upon the resources available.

The following products are necessary to successful implementation of the transportation network data sharing: - Flexible Translator (bi-directional) - to translate data into a variety of formats (convert GIS data into any type of system). This will allow local agencies to provide and use data without making system changes to accommodate the statewide transportation network. - Data Provider Internet Interface - to work with the translator and security system so that the data provider has a user interface to ease translation and provide guidance during the data upload process. - Data User Internet Interface - to allow access to the data after translation and provide feedback about the data - Data Integration - to integrate data from various agencies so that the road "matches" at the boundaries and add attribution from a variety of sources - Quality Control and Quality Assurance - establish and enforce data consistency and accuracy by checking topological, scale/spatial, attribute, and metadata (standard GIS requirements) - Security - necessary at the provider and user levels The specific product specifications and number of versions developed depends on annual funding available. Since geographical data integration has never been done on this scale, the initial stage of the project involves a series of phased pilot studies to establish what needs to be done and exactly how to do it. These include: - The transportation pooled funded One Road Pilot Phase I involves the further testing of the translation process, researched in the Puget Sound Pilot, with rural counties and adjoining state counties. Data Provider and Data User interfaces will be designed and built and implemented. Integration software requirements will be developed. - One Road Phase II will involve the development and implementation of integration processes, automated as much as possible. Also the implementation of software to include QA/QC and security processes, which will be integrated into the Data Provider and Data user interfaces and any automated integration tools. - One Road Phase IV will involve Linear referencing Integration. This portion of the effort is not yet estimated and will be added on later if it seems feasible.

The $65,000 commitment from WSDOT and ODOT will fund the initial phase of work. Other states are encouraged to commit at this time to the full project (see linked document for details).