At the 2026 Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., several state department of transportation executives discussed how their data strategies seek to help their organizations gain efficiencies while boosting cost savings.
[Above photo by AASHTO]
“Transportation agencies have more data than ever before – but having more data and using it effectively are two different things,” explained Jonathan Gulliver, undersecretary of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and the agency’s highway administrator.
“We lacked foresight into how much data we were going to have. As a result, all of us have struggled over the last decade to manage the huge number of datapoints we now have. From cell phones, tolling facilities, and cameras, we are awash in data,” he said.
That’s why MassDOT is applying a “centralized” approach to data management, Gulliver explained.
“We don’t have a data problem, ultimately – we have a workflow problem,” he said. “It’s about making data available to those who need it, when they need it. That is the challenge. Having [data] workflows in place and the flexibility to use that data is key – they are what help break down hierarchies and data silos across our department. Because when we give our people access to data, they do incredible things with it. They just need guardrails to ensure it is used the right way.”
Daniel Johnson, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Transportation, echoed Gulliver’s data assessment. “Data is growing exponentially – so our challenge is how to better wrangle it and use it more effectively,” he explained. “Other challenges include how to integrate data into our systems, how we can better direct the volume of information we get to our people on the ground, and how to create better data governance so our people on the ground can use it more effectively.”
However, Nancy Daubenberger – commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Transportation – cautioned that “data can be cumbersome and not user friendly,” which is doubly problematic for state DOTs since “we are just awash in data.”
She emphasized that having good data and having it accessible is important in terms of helping build trust with communities. “We need to get data into a format that is easier to use by the public; we also need to dedicate resources to scrub it and correct errors,” Daubenberger noted. “And, of course, there are cybersecurity risks we need to manage – because the more data we have and the more accessible we make it, the more exposure we have to risks.”
Audra Merrick, state engineer and deputy director of Arizona Department of Transportation, said that getting more and better data is key to her agency in terms of “building our culture of continuous improvement – it helps us to keep asking ‘why’ we are doing things the way we are and if we can do them differently and better.”
She also noted fulfilling that need is one reason why Arizona DOT forged a partnership with three state universities in December 2024. “We’re trying to leverage the [data and technology] expertise of students as we envisage a new generation of transportation engineer taking shape,” she said.
