Updates on select Open Government Initatives from DOT's Open Government Plan v3.0 are found below. Other updates are available in Chapter 4 of DOT's Open Government Plan v4.0.
- Employee Skills Database
- Strengthening Employee Engagement
- State Transportation Scorecards
- Transparency in Innovative Financing
Employee Skills Database
A fundamental principle of IdeaHub is to equip employees with the tools and resources necessary to be more participatory and collaborative in their work and in transforming the culture of DOT. Ensuring that employees have access to the information needed to be more effective at their jobs helps the Department align with the Secretary’s 3Es: efficiency, effectiveness, and encouraging economic growth, while positioning the Department to become a 21st century agency.
Using the on-line IdeaHub web site, employees submitted ideas on increased utilization of existing personnel, demonstrating their desire to be collaborative and engaged in Departmental efforts. An employee skills database could ease the ability to find the right people to execute day-to-day work assignments and to participate on more focused initiatives. A system could include employee profiles, including information on an employee’s job function, expertise, and other specialized characteristics which enables managers and employees to:
- Improve departmental collaboration on mission-specific topics;
- Leverage existing employee resources to meet the mission;
- Reduce contract support; and
- Facilitate focused mentoring and skill swaps.
In response to employee suggestions, DOT committed to exploring ways to improve accessibility to employees across DOT’s Operating Administrations (OAs) through a standardized system or database. To this end, IdeaHub partnered with the Office of the Chief Information Officer to discuss development of a new system.
A strategy was devised to utilize existing technology, but efforts were delayed due to competing priorities and resource constraints. In the interim, alternative approaches to facilitate cross-organizational collaboration continued through idea challenges and other outreach initiatives. The Skills Database initiative will be revisited as resources become available.
Strengthening Employee Engagement
DOT’s IdeaHub program is uniquely positioned to support employee engagement through the IdeaHub collaboration web site. Since IdeaHub’s inception, there have been a total of 13 employee-facing idea challenges conducted DOT-wide. Additionally, a dozen challenges have been conducted within the Department’s Operating Administrations. In less than four years, more than 12,000 ideas were submitted by DOT employees along with over 25,000 comments and over 93,000 idea ratings. To date, there are over 21,000 IdeaHub users.
DOT has demonstrated its commitment to strengthening employee engagement through the launch of 14 employee-facing idea challenges. Four challenges were opened across the department, aiming to stimulate innovation and improve mission delivery. Topics included transportation safety, improved communications, and accommodating a growing workforce without increasing the Department’s real estate portfolio. Hundreds of DOT employees joined the conversation, sharing best practices, proposing improvements, and highlighting opportunities to make DOT even better.
In addition, 10 OA challenges covered diverse topics including employee health and safety, cost savings, and emerging technologies. These efforts allowed employees to engage on current priority topics within their organizations. Employee input resulted in Departmental and organizational strategies to increase efficiencies and enhance operations. The DOT will continue to solicit employee input at both the Departmental and OA levels in the coming year.
Update on State Transportation Scorecards
DOT developed a prototype set of State Transportation Scorecards and released them as part of Secretary Foxx’s Grow America Bus Tour. With the implementation of the new transportation performance measures program established under MAP-21, the Department has focused its efforts on building a reporting and transparency infrastructure that will accomplish the goals outlined in this initiative. For more information about the implementation of the transportation performance measures program, visit the Federal Highway Administration's site.
DOT committed to pursuing transparency in its innovative finance programs in the 2014 Open Government Plan. Since then, DOT has worked in coordination with the broader Administration wide Build America Infrastructure Investment initiative to increase infrastructure investment across the United States. As part of its commitment to this initiative the Department launched the Build America Bureau in July 2016, which provides access to the credit and grant programs with more speed and transparency, while also providing technical assistance and encouraging innovative best practices in project planning, financing, delivery, and monitoring. The Bureau has three divisions under one roof within the Office of the Undersecretary for Transportation Policy: Project Development and Outreach, consolidated credit programs including Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program, Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Finance (RRIF) program and Private Activity Bonds (PABs), and the new FASTLANE grant program.
The new Build America Bureau is working to implement the actions outlined in the 2014 Open Government Plan. By consolidating the credit programs under one division, we will streamline and simplify the application process for applicants while providing higher levels of transparency in the credit process. This will include updating all credit programs to comply with FAST Act requirements such as creating an online tracking system for active RRIF applications. Since 2014 the Bureau has also released model contract guides for availability payments and toll concessions, which can be used by public agencies seeking to access TIFIA financing. The Outreach and Development division, is modeled off of the former Build America Transportation Investment Center (BATIC), which served as the single point of contact and coordination for states, municipalities and project sponsors looking to utilize federal transportation expertise, apply for federal transportation credit programs and explore ways to access private capital in public private partnerships. The Outreach and Development division will actively reach out to potential project sponsors and investors, provide best practices for innovative infrastructure finance, and expand access to existing DOT programs.