Metropolitan Planning Organizations’ Uses of and Needs for Big Data

Abstract

Big data products offer a new paradigm to understand and analyze human mobility patterns, a primary interest of long-range transportation planners. However, it remains unclear how widely these datasets are utilized by planners and to what extent they influence decision-making. We present the perspectives of more than 50 planners from MPOs across the United States. While we found a range of use cases, there was also a tendency to focus on a narrow set of applications. Transparency, regulation, and legitimacy emerged as the primary factors influencing adoption decisions.