Purpose and Scope Discussion Summary

This page summarizes the comments from breakout rooms at the NC-BPAID meeting on 2/29/2004. The discussion in the rooms centered on the proposed purpose and scope for the collaboration:

Purpose: The purpose of NC-BPAID is to advance comprehensive, public domain, interoperable data on bike, pedestrian, and accessibility infrastructure that informs decision-making on the part of individual travelers, as well as the government, private, nonprofit, and academic sectors.

Scope: The scope of the NC-BPAID is limited to promoting the findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability (https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/) of bicycle, pedestrian, and accessibility infrastructure data through the development or endorsement, adoption, and widespread implementation of open standards and practices that support the efficient collection, exchange, and portability of these types of data (https://www.interoperablemobility.org/). Ultimately, the NC-BPAID should foster an independent and sustainable bicycle, pedestrian, and accessibility infrastructure data governance organization that will eventually lead the work of maintaining the specifications, soliciting representative involvement from the broad spectrum of stakeholders.

Discussion Questions:

• What do you think about the proposed purpose and scope?
• What do you like? What needs improvement?
• Does it adequately represent what you want to get out of participating in this collaboration?

Participants felt that the scope and purpose were generally solid. Several participants asked that the word “standard” or “specification” be explicitly added. Some called for a field scan and mapping out where we hope for these specifications to be interoperable with other specifications, noting that a number of other groups were working within similar or related spaces. Others noted the need to have clear use cases, needs, and purposes in mind for the data, and to design specifications fitted to these use cases.

Another thread in the conversation centered on quality assurance of the data. Participants wanted to ensure high quality through providing motivation to adhere to the specification, as well as tools that can help to validate datasets by reviewing metadata, validating ledgers and verifying authenticity. Standards were seen as a starting point to ensure data quality by increasing consistency.

Questions arose about pre-existing data not in the specification, and whether this effort would produce data or if the goal was simply to produce the specification. Participants were also concerned about what decisions would be made around licensing. They wanted to have ownership of the standards be broader than one single entity, and they wanted to see the standards adapt over time. Participants noted the need for resources to collect data and the challenges of effective data management.

Other points raised include ensuring connectivity and routability in the data, avoiding subjective observations and structuring the specifications to encourage objectivity, and the need to relate data back to linear referencing systems for the roadway centerline.