T F T N S t r a t e g i c P l a n C a s e S t u d y

Case Study – Ohio: Collaboration on Street Centerline in Ohio

March   11

Transportation for the Nation

Overview The Location Based Response System (LBRS) is a partnership between state and local governments to develop highly-accurate (+/- 1M), field-verified street centerlines and address point locations for the entire state. The state has developed a set of standards and provides financial incentive to counties that participate. The state contracts with the county through a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) to provide funds upon successful completion of a data collection and maintenance system meeting LBRS requirements. Project Background A MOA was drafted, and its language requires that the county establish a GIS Management Team to guide the development of the county’s LBRS project. This also means that the county owns the development process and is responsible for QC and verification. Each county is responsible for ongoing maintenance with annual updates to the State; however, their specifications are incorporated into the process in an as-needed basis. The state held outreach meetings with the vendor community regarding requirements, and maintains open communication during the development process to ensure a successful outcome. The state requires participation of county 911 coordinators, engineers, commissioners, auditors, etc., and the State GIS team is required to have a stake in the process. A key component that drove activity was to fully engage 911 coordinators at the county level with their need for precise locations. Data was accepted from 64 counties, 10 of which were actively participating—74 out of 88 counties. They understand local management and business processes well enough to get certified road mileage, which is how they re-distribute their mileage. Funding is needed to match their standards. There are many real-world and high-profile use cases in which LBRS helped save lives. An example is from Mercer County, Ohio; where a woman trapped in her car was able to call 911, and the dispatcher pinpointed her position using the LBRS: http://www.wane.com/dpp/news/woman-rescued-from-submerged-car. Examples like this one gained exposure and backing from state legislators, who inevitably wrote strong letters of support and helped to solidify the effort. Lessons Learned and Challenges

• A standardized maintenance application for county use must be provided, as well as financial support to counties for ongoing maintenance. This is important for total county support, especially in the south eastern part of the

state. Digital submission of the transportation network for the annual certification process must also be required to encourage all counties to participate; currently, 74 of the state’s 88 counties are participating.

• A lack of resources—funding, personnel, software, and training—at the local level to develop and/or maintain data is problematic. Identification of new funding sources and partners must continue to overcome this. Once a county resource becomes familiar with the state requirements for LBRS, they often move to another position with another firm, because at that point they are considered a highly skilled asset to any company, primarily the vendors.

• A lack of resources at the state level—funding and personnel—requires delaying projects and limiting the number of projects that can be completed in a given year. Limited ability to meet LBRS requirements within the vendor community has been a matter of learning by experience of which firms are capable of meeting the standards, and working directly with them to ensure success. Counties are still not sharing data with other counties, which forces some counties to go to the state to get data from neighboring counties.

• Contractor support for LBRS ranged from CAMA specialists like WTH Technology, Inc., to Woolpert and MRT who had people on the ground verifying data.

Conclusions The Ohio LBRS program is a result of the successful culmination of many organizations working together to provide accurate centerline data throughout the state for which emergency response organizations and state geospatial programs can use as needed. There are several real world success stories related to the program, which further demonstrates the need and viability for accurate and interoperable services such as this. LBRS Funding resources include eSecureOhio LBRS Capital Funds, ODOT Special Project Funds, ODOT 408 Safety Funds, CEAO Safety Funds, the NTIA Broadband Grant, Cellular 911 Service Fees, and USGS Grants. Sources: Stuart R. Davis—State CIO/Assistant Director, Ohio Department of Administrative Services, Office of Information Technology; David Blackstone—GIS Manager, Office of Technical Services; Jeff Smith—Spatial Data Framework Manager, Ohio Office of Information Technology; and Raechel DeRussy—Executive Assistant, Ohio Department of Administrative Services Office of Information Technology