BACKGROUND

With the amount of development happening nationwide at airports, the need to have current and accurate geospatial data to support the design, delivery, and maintenance of both existing and new facilities has never been more important. Existing facilities’ geospatial data are changing at a pace that is difficult to track, which can result in data inaccuracies.  At the same-time, deploying geospatial-related (i.e., GIS/CAD/BIM) software systems and applications has become easier with the advent of cloud and modular solutions.  The amount of data generated by these systems can, among other things, create security concerns, hinder development, impact costs, and generally increase risk across the organization.  Data governance policies can help drive airports toward an organized and systematic method to ensure that quality data are developed, maintained, and disseminated for specific airport business needs.    

Data governance policies and procedures should at least address issues of data distribution, data privacy and security, information life-cycle, data architecture, metadata management, master data management, and data quality and accuracy.  Furthermore, data policies and procedures have to be resilient to technology and personnel changes.  Federal, state, and local municipalities create regulations and guidance the airports may need to adhere to, for example, the Geospatial Data Act of 2018.       

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this research is to develop a guide to help airports create geospatial data governance policies and procedures.  The adoption of these policies and procedures will be driven by the unique characteristics of individual airports.  The guide will include tactics and strategies that can help airports adopt these policies and procedures.  A roadmap of the data life-cycle will be developed that allows for multiple points of engagements for airports at various levels of geospatial data maturity.  This guide should address the life-cycle of data including development, maintenance, appropriate access and use, security, and archival/disposal of legacy and new geospatial data. 

The guide should include at a minimum (a) a sample data governance policy and procedure for airport geospatial data developed by the contractor; (b) roadmaps for developing the policies and procedures applicable at different size airports and types of operations; (c) training tools that support those policies and procedures; (d) an executive-level multimedia presentation that lays out the argument for data governance, include case studies that support the importance of data governance; (e) step-by-step considerations for each phase of the data governance development process, with case studies that illustrate these processes; and (f) provide sample data management plans that leverage existing federal and industry standards that could be used by a variety of airports throughout the United States. 

The strategies under these policies and procedures must address, at the minimum, submittal standards, roles and responsibilities, data sharing protocols, data deliverables, data maintenance workflows, engagement of stakeholders—both internal and external to the airport, and how data can effectively be shared throughout the lifecycle.

STATUS: This will be published as ACRP Research Report 278 in January 2025