Big Data in AC TransitChallenges, Opportunities and Initiatives

Ahsan Baig, CIO/CTOAlameda-Contra Costa Transit District

2 0 1 9 S F B ay A re a I T E / I T S C A J o i n t Tra n s p o r t a t i o n Wo r k s h o p , S a n F ra n c i s c o, C A • A p r i 2 5 , 2 0 1 9

Agenda

• Intro to Alameda-Contra Costa Transit

• Digital Disruption in TransitDigital Transformation

Connected Enterprise Framework

• Case Study• Big Data – Volume, Velocity, and Variety

• Data is the New Oil• Data Governance

• Data Democratization

• Data Integration

• Concluding thoughts

2

Bay Area Transit…27 Agencies

The “Big Seven” (Muni, BART, AC Transit, Caltrain, VTA, SamTrans and Golden Gate Transit) each have annual ridership over 9 million. The remaining 16 agencies carry only 4% of the region’s transit trips.

Bay Area “Big Seven” Transit Agencies Annual Ridership (2017)

Muni 226,261,960

BART 132,802,066

AC Transit 52,310,594

VTA 39,137,607

CalTrain 19,267,022

SamTrans 12,550,962

Golden Gate Transit 5,698,961

3actransit.org

AC Transit at a Glance

• Alameda and Contra Costa Counties

• Serve 13 cities and 8 unincorporated areas

• Facilities:3 – Oakland1 – Emeryville1 – Hayward1 – Richmond

• Service across 3 Bay Area bridgesDumbartonSF–Oakland San Mateo

4actransit.org

AC Transit at a Glance

Daily

169,000

Daily service hours

5,800(weekday)

16 other bus systems

25 BART stations

6 Amtrak stations

3 ferry terminalsAnnual

52,300,000

Paratransit

771,000(annual)

RIDERSHIP

Bus lines

160

SERVICE

Bus stops

5,500(approximately)

Annual service miles

20.4 million

CONNECT WITH

Transbay daily

14,500

5actransit.org

Digital Disruption

Shared Mobility

Electrification

Automation • Three Rs – Shared Mobility –

Automation – Electrification • 5G is REAL - High-speed and reliable

connectivity is available• Bi-Directional Data Flow• Mobile Edge Computing

Data is the new oil!

• Business Case - Media rich applications are becoming norm with real-time video, voice, maps and images

• Data is the most important component of any transit agency

• Public vs Private Data Domains

• Digital Framework to support IoT

• Data Driven Decisions

7

Digital Framework

8

ConnectedVehicles

RidersCities and Counties MPO

CAD/AVL

9

Big Data Challenges:

• Complexity due to Volume, Variety and Velocity• Data from internet connected sensors, videos, social media and mobile applications,

• How to quickly clean, qualify and facilitate ?

• Complexity due to numerous Data Sources for Big Data

• Integrating unstructured Big Data with Structured Organizational Data. • Unstructured data shouldn’t become a silo of its own

• Should be cleaned and qualified

• Facilitate Advanced Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Real Time Analytics and more

• Business needs a complete and accurate data, with complete lineage – Big, Large or Small.

Big Data Challenges

Data Governance - The orchestration of people, processes, and technology to manage critical data assets by using roles, responsibilities, policies, and procedures to ensure the data is accurate, consistent, secure, and aligns with overall organizational objectives.

10

• More than 30 small and big applications, grew over the period of time across ACT. (HASTUS, ELLIPSE, CAD/AVL, PeopleSoft, etc)

• Complex infrastructure with Applications hosted on-premise, data-centers and cloud.

• Several sources-of-truth.

• Additional new applications bringing very large volume of data (Big Data).

• Transit Organizations generating highly useful data, both for public and private domain. Important to share meaningful information with public and external agencies.

• Very high demand of Quality and Reliable Data internally by various ACT Departments for better Planning & Scheduling, effective Maintenance, Operations, etc.

Data Integration Complexity

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• Advanced Integration Architecture by leveraging some of the latest tools and technologies. Few of these under review are• - Azure SQL Services and API Management, MuleSoft, Kafka, etc.

• Better Master Data Management and Data Quality Management to ensure the core data is universally defined, qualified and validated

• Define and establish Data Lakes, with Global Security and common access methods.

• Finally, adapt to a comprehensive Corporate Data Governance across the organization.

High Level Approach

12

Source Applications and Transactional Data

Unified Integration and API Management

DQM as team effort between Data Stewards, Departments and IT

Integrated, Qualified and Aggregated Data Warehouse defined by Business

Logical Interface for Integration of all Data Sources, providing Secure and Simplified view of Enterprise Data

Rich set of Analytics and Visualization tools, governed by Global Security Model

Data Access Layer - Secure(Reporting Tools)

Data-warehouse

Logical Layer - Secure LogicalData Marts

Data Marts

Unstructured Data

Master D

ata Managem

ent

Dat

a G

over

nanc

e

CleverCAD/AVL

PS HASTUS Ellipse other other

Controlled, Direct

Connections

Data Quality Management(validate and qualify)

Data Ingestion / Integration Layer(API Management)

Conceptual Data Architecture

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• Activating People, Aligning Processes and Enabling with Technology

• Defining and Developing Data Catalogs & Data Stewards

• Federating Governance across Organization

• Communication and Data Management

• A comprehensive and Global Data Security Model

• Policy Formulation and Standards setting

Data Governance Approach

Concluding thoughts…

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• Digital Disruption needs to be embraced by Transit Operators• Media rich applications are normal• Slice and Dice of Data • Cyber Security requires attention

• Data Governance and Framework• Data Science – New Skills are required• Enabling AI and ML

• Data is eating the world

Ahsan BaigChief Information and Technology Officer

Alameda-Contra Costa Transit Districtabaig@actransit.org

(510) 891-5490

Thank You!