Page 55 - GCN, Oct/Nov 2017

case study TRANSPORTATION NYC takes new direction
with street sign management
The Transportation Department traded its mainframe legacy system for an open-source web-based app to manage signage and work orders
BY STEPHANIE KANOWITZ
It used to be that when New York City Transportation Department field workers had to inspect, up- date and change traffic signs, they first stopped at the office, grabbed a print- out of their work order, located the sign on a map and headed out to find it. They jotted notes about their findings on the paper and returned to the office at day’s end to enter the information into a 30-year-old mainframe system.
That all changed on June 5 when NYC DOT launched the Sign Informa- tion Management System. The custom open-source web application has three main parts: an interactive map that notes sign locations, an asset manage- ment tool and a work order manage- ment tool. DOT also issued 100 Android tablets to managers and field workers, although the web application works on any smart device. Now employees have real-time visibility into traffic-control devices — or, more simply, signs.
“We created this system to be flex- ible so at any time we should be able to define the assets — the traffic-control devices — with respect to our latest city map, and then we are able to search for either the locations or for the signs or for assigned orders,” said Varghese Abraham, director of the Project Man- agement Office at NYC DOT. “Then we are able to assign the work orders to different groups of staff, and they’ll
be able to control and secure the work needed in the field.”
THE CHALLENGES OF
DATA CONVERSION
The first step was loading the main- frame records into the new SQL-based database, Abraham said. One of the big- gest challenges in building SIMS was migrating data on nearly 11.5 million records from the old system, which was written in Cobol. The location informa- tion for each sign was in a text field but needed to populate a geocoded model. To ensure that only accurate data moved
to the new system, the team used cus- tom algorithms for the data conversion. In fact, data accuracy had been an area of concern with the old system because field workers relied on their handwritten notes. SIMS’ graphical user interface allows employees to point and click or use drop-down menus to access
the data fields they want to populate. Other benefits of the new system in- clude better situational awareness. For instance, staffers can see other work orders in SIMS and note how those sign changes or additions could affect their
own assignments.
GCN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2017 • GCN.COM 55
ELBUD/SHUTTERSTOCK