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July 2006
Research Conference Coverage
Midwest’s role in the transportation information revolution: future strategy
Dave Johnson, Robert Johns, and Maggie Sacco presented past, present, and future efforts to improve the management and access of information in the transportation industry. Transportation has lagged behind other industries in its investment in the tools and networks to support the collection, access, and retrieval of information needed by practitioners and policymakers. Mn/DOT Library director Jerry Baldwin moderated the session.
The Midwest—especially Minnesota—has played a key role in advancing the industry’s information management strategies, from the long-standing existence and progressiveness of the Mn/DOT Library, to the partnership between the Mn/DOT Library and CTS, to the formation of the Midwest Transportation Knowledge Network (MTKN).
Johnson, Minnesota road research manager at Mn/DOT, provided background on the origins of the MTKN, which formally began in 2001 through an initial investment by the National Transportation Library. In the past five years, the MTKN has grown to include 13 libraries in 9 states. Its successful model of collaboration serves as a model for a national transportation knowledge network.
Johns, director of CTS, presented the recommendations from TRB Special Report 284, Transportation Knowledge Networks: A Management Strategy for the 21st Century (126.1 KB PDF), which outlines how transportation information should be managed and provided. The report provides strategic advice to the federal government and the states regarding a sustainable administrative structure and funding mechanism for meeting the information service needs of the transportation sector. The report identifies the core services that need to be provided, how those services should be provided, and funding options to support those services. NCHRP project 20-75, implementing the National Research Council policy study “Transportation Information Management: A Strategy for the Future,” is the next step to implementing the recommendations of Special Report 284.
Sacco, technical services librarian for the Transportation Library Connectivity Pooled Fund Study TPF(5)-105, outlined the activities of the two-year study. The objectives of the study are outreach, network development, communication of the value of transportation libraries, and technical assistance for the 11 partner libraries.