Four technology groups bring discussions to Boise

Delegates from throughout the U.S., Canada and abroad converged in Boise this week for four concurrent technology expositions: the 26th annual Geospatial Information Systems for Transportation symposium, AASHTO’s Administrative Subcommittee on Information Systems (ASIS), the Transportation Research Board and a Business Intelligence Peer Review.

ITD organized and hosted the four events under the leadership of Enterprise Technology Services Manager Shannon Barnes, Jackie Lynskey and Susan Doyle of ETS. Planning for the GIS-T and AASHTO (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials) symposiums began about nine months ago said ETS manager Shannon Barnes.

AASHTO conducts its annual event as a discussion and educational forum for transportation officials from state, provincial, federal and municipal agencies.

Approximately 420 individuals attended parts of the four events, which began Saturday (May 4) at the Boise Centre. Delegates came from 38 states, Canada and Dubai.

The 4 1/2-day assembly included technical presentations, roundtable discussions and a business meeting that was limited to AASHTO member delegates.

Idaho Transportation Board Chairman Jerry Whitehead and Deputy Director Scott Stokes presented opening remarks and a formal welcome to participants Monday morning. Tom DeCoster, a well-known and highly respected authority on the changing landscape of transportation organizations, was the featured speaker at Monday’s opening plenary session.

Dr. DeCoster has worked with more than 20 transportation departments, including ITD, on implementing organizational change initiatives and designing strategic and succession plans. He has spoken to more than 127,000 people the past five years on topics related to leadership, employee motivation and change management.

ITD’s Erika Bowen, of Planning and Program Management, and Andrea Moser, of the Utah Department of Transportation, were among the first presenters at a Sunday GIS-T workshop, describing development of UPlan (in Utah) and IPlan (Idaho). The planning tools use GIS as a framework for collecting and disseminating project information.

AASHTO is making the Utah and Idaho technology available to all member organizations as part of its Technology Implementation Group (TIG) program.

Monday’s combined GIS-T and ASIS agenda included:

  • A roll call of the states and overview of their activities the past year
  • Data Management for Federal Regulations
  • Crash/Safety Mapping
  • * Workforce Issues: Generation Y
  • Enterprise Applications
  • * New Microsoft Technology (Windows 8)
  • A GIS Gallery, and
  • Technology Hall and opening reception

Tuesday

  • * ASIS Business Meeting
  • Asset Management
  • Enterprise GIS
  • GIS Collaboration in Performance Planning
  • Spatially Driven Decision Making
  • Federal Reporting
  • Mapping the Road Network
  • LRS and LRM
  • * ASIS Roundtable
  • Mobile Data Collection
  • Freight on Network
  • * UGate Portal
  • Trains, Networks
  • Transportation Modeling
  • * Business Intelligence

Wednesday

  • Web and Mobile GIS
  • Mobile Innovation and Technology
  • Data Integration, and
  • Symposium closing
  • * Technologies Mobile Devices
  • * Cloud Services

* ASIS sessions

Published 5-10-13