Massachusetts transportation agencies must develop comprehensive systems to assess project delivery and operation.  Such a system will have both internal and external purposes: internally, it will help create a “feedback loop” to help transportation agencies improve project delivery and public policy; externally, it will demonstrate accountability and pursuit of efficiency necessary to restore public confidence in the transportation system.

The region needs a robust analytical infrastructure to support informed and coordinated transportation decision-making.  The MPO should invest in comprehensive data and analysis tools that reflect the relationships among transportation, land use, and travel behavior.  Better performance evaluation is also needed to assess whether projects achieved their mobility, safety, environmental, or other objectives, creating a “feedback loop” that will inform future investment decisions.

Providing services to older adults can pose a number of problems, not least that many older people lack the access to information to easily find out what services are available to them.  As well as allowing many individuals in need of support to fall through the cracks, the lack of centralized data also increases the likelihood of duplication of services.  More robust tracking of which of the region’s residents are receiving – or in need of – which services will both increase the quality of service the Commonwealth and municipalities provide and increase the comp

Providing municipal services is especially challenging in urban environments with high densities, aging infrastructure, and diverse populations.  There are numerous emerging techniques and technologies that support municipal efforts to improve service delivery through tracking, benchmarking, and evaluation.  These systems can operate across all departments citywide (e.g., the “Stat” programs described in (#3C Cost-effective service delivery), or they can target a particular neighborhood and focus on specific elements such as public works.  

In both urban and suburban communities, plans for compact growth often meet resistance due to concerns about visual impact and impact on community character.  More widespread application of tools for evaluating alternatives and visualizing growth will help to build community support through a more responsive and accountable process.  

Government agencies should take steps to protect the public interest when releasing or licensing data. Government information should be available to the public for review, and be available for unencumbered private or noncommercial derivative uses. However, agencies may restrict commercial use of data or charge fees to help recover the cost of data creation.

11.a    The Commonwealth should review all data sharing agreements and licenses

The traditional approach to manage data has been the “data center” model. In this approach, users access a central workstation or server that contains multiple data sets. Several problems limit the usefulness of this approach. The centralized data center model is easily overwhelmed as the spatial complexity and number of relevant data sets greatly increases; copies of records on the data center server cannot be easily updated as changes occur, subjecting it to misinterpretation; individual data sets are ill-matched with one another, making comparison and integration difficult.

The state needs an organization to establish standards to enable comparison between public and private datasets, work with State departments to make administrative data available, establish policies and guidelines for data management and sharing, and  provide leadership to overcome obstacles to achieving a federated data system. A fully funded Commonwealth Center for Data within the state administration would function as a critical component to a statewide data infrastructure, enabling data to inform public policy, planning, and evaluation.

MassGIS provides the state’s most comprehensive database of spatial information for planning and environmental management.  It is a critical resource for municipalities, planners, educators, and residents.  Recent legislation established MassGIS as Massachusetts’ official agency for the collection, storage, and dissemination of geographic data, also giving it the mandate to set standards for geographic data to ensure universal compatibility across state agencies and municipalities

Recent years have seen tremendous advancement in “planning support tools” that help regulators and stakeholders to understand the implications of different approaches to planning and development.  Such tools can help to build consensus, resolve disputes, and maintain consistency and accountability over time, and can be applied at a variety of different scales and time horizons, from an individual development proposal to a comprehensive plan.