Book Description

While focused efforts to understand and employ new technologies for the benefit of INDOT have been pursued successfully in the past, there remains an opportunity to develop a robust approach to need identification and related technology selection and adoption that is more “continuous” in nature and capable of helping the organization keep pace with the rapid rate of technological change. In response, this study builds on the more than 40 years of work that has been carried out on this topic in the transportation sector and complements these efforts with insights from a wide variety of successful organizations in other fields to put forward a comprehensive approach to identify, evaluate, and adopt new “proven” and/or “ready to use” technologies that have the potential to improve INDOT’s ability to perform its multifaceted mission. This proposed process, which encompasses need identification, solution identification, solution evaluation, and staged solution implementation, incorporates several novel features to ensure effective technology adoption, namely: a new means of assessing INDOT needs that relies upon a survey of end-user “jobs-to-be-done” to focus technology adoption efforts; a web-based mechanism to link INDOT needs and potential solutions that is based on leading systems in the commercial sector; provision for “champions” that will provide idea “ownership” in the technology adoption process and help overcome traditional barriers; centralization of evaluation activities to drive efficiencies across INDOT and eliminate redundant efforts; and, a unique assumption-driven approach to implementation that optimizes resources and includes a tiered marketing strategy to build awareness and encourage broad adoption of technologies. In addition, this report provides recommendations for a governance structure that can guide the technology adoption process and ensure its on-going effectiveness. A pilot of the initial stages of the proposed process is also presented which calls attention to a series of INDOT-specific needs and associated high-potential technology-based solutions that if pursued could directly enhance INDOT operations. Overall, the results of this work provide the foundation for a capability in technology awareness and adoption that will benefit INDOT operations for many years.