Web Conference 2024.01.09 Curb
- Monthly on a Tuesday call at 9am PT, 12pm ET, 5/6pm CET
Meeting ID: 898 5980 7668 - Passcode 320307
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0lcuCgrjwsHNyZRagmc86b12iCmWGBHfjq
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Asset Management & Curb Objects CDS
- Welcome - Brian Hamlin, SDOT (5 mins)
- Announcements - Michael Schnuerle, OMF (5 mins)
- Curb Objects Feature: Issue #123, PR #126
- Jacob from Curb IQ would tee up the conversation and give a quick overview of the new "curb objects" feature being built in CDS.
- OMF USDOT SMART Collaborative asset management goals & challenges
- Each SMART Collaborative member city would provide a quick overview of their asset management goals and challenges.
- Discuss: the group would participate in a facilitated discussion open to the entire working group.
Discussion questions to consider:
- What is your city doing right now in terms of assets management at the curb?
- What is your end vision/desired future state?
- What are your current challenges?
- How can standardization help?
- What current disconnects are there between your current systems and processes?
- What teams or individuals are involved in how your city manages assets?
- Hosts: Brian Hamlin, SDOT
- Note Taker: Dillon Cruz, Google
- Facilitator: Em Burnett, OMF
- Outreach: Michael Schnuerle, Em Burnett, Angela Giacchetti, OMF
- Comment on the Curb Objects proposal from CurbIQ
- Comment on the Curb Objects discussion especially in regards to asset management and scope within CDS.
- 41 Attendees
- OMF Slides
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Recording - Password
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- See the Curb Working Group roadmap here on Github: https://github.com/orgs/openmobilityfoundation/projects/2/views/1
- Andrew Glass Hastings (OMF) gave opening remarks
- Joint RFP results from Sourcewell will be shared mid-January
- Alex Demisch (SFMTA): SF's RFP should be released any day now: sfcitypartner.sfgov.org/pages/Events-BS3/event-search.aspx
- Round 2 results from SMART Grants will come out late February or March
- TRB workshop on Mobility Data Interoperability Principles, originally led by OMF, sought to address gaps in mobility data space (in particular, curb management), with some discussion on GTFS too. Workshop participants ranked a curb management data standard as the greatest need.
- Joint RFP results from Sourcewell will be shared mid-January
Jacob recapped how OMF is expanding CDS to include curb objects. Michael asked the Curb Working Group to contribute their ideas to the issue (#123) and pull request (#126) on Github.
- Purpose
- Doing this will help cities and curb users (1) where objects are, (2) catalog and share information, (3) develop curb management tools, (4) understand usage and utilization, and (5) compare objects across different departments
- Scope
- Jacob presented an extensive list of curb area adjacent elements that facilitate or impede curb interactions
- Properties of curb objects
- Basic properties include name; description; linear referencing; lat/long; length, depth, height
- Custom properties help account for unique aspects of different types of objects (e.g., ramps have incline; freight lockers have capacity, cost; EV chargers have plug types)
- Michael Schnuerle (OMF): We should consider enumerating links to external schemas or sources
- Could also add owners of curb objects
- Events
- Curb objects could be connected the Events API to track things like EV charging events
- Progress
Em Burnett facilitated a 20-minute discussion on asset management goals & challenges related to the USDOT SMART Grant Collaborative.
- Background
- The USDOT SMART Grant is currently in Phase 1. OMF’s nine collaborative members all have different projects, but are unified in their use of CDS for asset management.
- Questions to consider:
- What is your city doing right now in terms of asset management at the curb?
- What is your end vision/desired future state?
- What are your current challenges?
- How can standardization help?
- What current disconnects are there between your current systems and processes?
- What teams or individuals are involved in how your city manages assets?
Brian Hamlin (SDOT) explained Seattle’s asset management vision.
- Seattle DOT is focused on digitizing parking signs, pay stations, curbspace-managed areas (digital asset). Another Seattle agency digitizes street trees.
- Would love to be able to communicate, “Here is the urban forestry, and here’s how we can plan for accessible curbside loading given that these trees are in the way.”
- Hoping SMART Grant funds will be used to standardize this data. None of this data is currently standardized—which is the reason CDS is important.
- All this information is stored on the asset management system called In4. Seattle has a GIS team that coordinates with Seattle’s asset management team to develop an automated nightly process that exports new data into a GIS file used by planners and published on a public data portal.
- Michael Schnuerle (OMF): Wondering if objects need to be tied to curb zones.
- Jacob Malleau (CurbIQ): A lot of cities have objects but not zones, so removing that dependency would make this easier.
- Em Burnett (OMF): I’d be interested to know how large, temporary objects could be handled in CDS, too. Like the snowbanks that are taking over the sidewalks in Portland ME right now
- Zackary Campos (LADOT): Would dockless vehicles/micromobility vehicles be a potential temporary object when it's parked in the public right of way?
- Brian Hamlin (SDOT): We have a whole temporary no park system in our paid parking areas where people can temporarily reserve parking space. We communicate that out via a basic webmap but it's really similar to Em's snow example
- Michael Schnuerle (OMF): Yes, and those locations and details can be specified with MDS. Also can work with CDS now a bit by defining where they park and some properties, but with Objects we do have the opportunity to define this more. And with CDS 1.1 we have a discussion going on how to connect to MDS more directly.
Alex Demisch (SFMTA) explained San Francisco’s asset management vision
- Current challenges are building the inventory and building the processes that will keep asset records up-to-date All assets are in various states of digitization: some partial, some none. Want to track assets to enable repairs:.
- Using SMART Grant to track asset changes & regulation changes in the asset management system.
- Some challenges that a common data standard would facilitate:
- Private assets like bike racks aren’t tracked
- Agencies don’t talk to each other
- Brian Hamlin (SDOT): We are dealing with the fallout of building all of our own bespoke data standards and have had about a decade of tools built on top of these homemade standards. This makes it very difficult for us to make any changes now but everyone at SDOT agrees that we need to update
- Miranda Bradshaw (Passport): If anyone would like to share, I think it would be interesting to hear about how cities get their assets digitized in the first place. Did you work with a 3rd party to help you digitize and map your assets? Did you do it with your own staff? Did you start with just a small area of the city and if so where and why?
- Em Burnett (OMF): Great question. Many (nearly all) of the SMART projects are starting out with digitization in small, core downtown areas.
Zackary Campos (LADOT) described LA’s version for a dynamic management system.
- We’re focusing on our downtown area. As part of our RFP we’re looking to test out a suite of technologies to capture that data.
- Our end vision is to create a dynamic management system that relays new information to the public. Creating these standards will help us more effectively push out this information.
- We have a couple major events coming up for which we’ll want to pilot these ideas ahead of time: World Cup, 2028 Olympics.
Michael Schnuerle (OMF): How are folks tackling real-time events?
- Rick Neubauer (Umojo): We’re starting to track real-time traffic data, integrate WZDx. We’re putting a bunch of information (e.g., camera feeds, mobile apps) in a centralized backend.
- Felix Mark (INRIX): Temporary closures are one of the most difficult data to maintain; even a non-standardized data source is welcome.
- Michael Schnuerle (OMF): CDS and MDS can do a lot of this now. But it’s not as standardized as with WZDx.
- Andrew Glass Hastings (OMF): This topic is one that we should unpack more this year. How do we evolve our existing specs to help cities communicate road/lane-closure information in real-time to tech companies and other ingesters of that data to communicate to the public? Waze is collecting a bunch of data from cities but it’s not in a standardized format. Certainly one we have heard from both public and private members.
Russ Brooks (Minneapolis) described Minneapolis’s steps to integrate several systems that manage the right of way.
- We’re just starting to integrate several systems, including asset management and digital permitting. Previously these systems were very manual and opaque to the average citizens.
- Russ Brooks (Minneapolis): My other thought about integration will be the process for reconciling changes made across agencies such as a temp bus stop by the transit agency. I might be able to capture that through a lane use permit, but the actual change to curb objects as a result of the shift wouldn't be
- Minnesotans do care about things like snow plows and temporary closures, so those would be ideal to include.
- Concerns include (1) maintaining these datasets in the future, (2) integrating new processes
- Brian Hamlin (SDOT): That is a top goal for Seattle. Empower field staff to make updates and remove some of the data updating steps we currently have
- Ideas: Can we track different types of streets (e.g., bike lanes) or overhead objects (e.g., powerlines)?
- Alex Demisch (SFMTA): That's a great point about overhead items, Russ. We've certainly had conflicts between what's on the street and what's directly above.
- Christopher Shelley (Philadelphia): Long-term, we’re interested in something beyond the second round of SMART Grants – what’s under the street? This cannot be necessarily captured in CDS or MDS, but could this be easily reconcilable with them?
