New PennDOT Open Data Portal Puts Road, Bridge and Other Transportation Data at Public’s Fingertips

New PennDOT Open Data Portal Puts Road, Bridge and Other Transportation
Data at Public's Fingertips

5/26/2016-HARRISBURG

Less than a month after Governor Tom Wolf announced steps to make
Pennsylvania's data more transparent and accessible to the public, the
Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) has launched an Open
Data
portal housing data ranging from roadway pavement conditions to rail
facility
locations.

The portal, http://data.pennshare.opendata.arcgis.com/, leverages a GIS
platform used in several states and helps local government, planning and
business partners as well as the public. The data, grouped by roadways,
bridges, rail, facilities, boundaries and projects, can be used for
mapping,
sharing, charting and more.

"At PennDOT we've taken the governor's mission of transparency and customer

service to heart and this is one more way we're demonstrating principles of
a
government that works," PennDOT Secretary Leslie S. Richards said.
"Transportation is vital to our way of life and the more people can use our

data, the better our overall services will be for Pennsylvanians."

The data also offers an opportunity for application developers, students
and
others in private industry to analyze or pursue infrastructure issues and
opportunities, Richards said.

The majority of the available data is updated daily, with some more static
data
such as boundaries, facilities and railway receiving periodic updates. The
site
is compatible with any device or platform.

"State agencies have a wealth of data that can be made open and available
for
others to use," said Secretary of Administration Sharon Minnich, whose
office
is leading the Governor's open data initiative. "The data sets being
published
by PennDOT and others will also become part of a centralized open data
portal
to make it easy for the public to find all the open data available from
state
government."

Data available for PennDOT's construction projects is also used through the

department's projects website, www.projects.penndot.gov, which was launched

last year to increase public information and transparency on active
projects
and those in the department's Four and Twelve Year Plans.

In addition, the public can request access to PennDOT's real-time,
streaming
video from its more than 700 traffic cameras as well as its Road Condition
Reporting System Data, which provides real-time traffic incident, roadwork
and
other data. Information on these feeds is available at www.penndot.gov
under
"Doing Business" by selecting "Online Services" and "Developer Resources."

The site follows the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources

announcement this month of the availability of their data through the same
GIS
platform, http://data.dcnr.opendata.arcgis.com.

Follow PennDOT on Twitter at www.twitter.com/penndotnews, on Instagram at
www.instagram.com/pennsylvaniadot, and "like" the department on Facebook at

www.facebook.com/pennsylvaniadepartmentoftransportation.

MEDIA CONTACT: Rich Kirkpatrick or Erin Waters-Trasatt, 717-783-8800
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