Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan Planning Organization 40th Anniversary

The North Central Texas Council of Governments is celebrating its 40th anniversary as the region’s metropolitan planning organization. Throughout 2014, the Transportation Department will look back at some historic events and accomplishments that shaped the region while also looking forward to the future. This month, the focus is on the role of technology in transportation planning.

If you were a transportation planner 30 or 40 years ago, chances are, you couldn't do your job without colored pencils, Wite-Out® and a ruler. Mapsco, that collection of street maps packed in a spiral-bound book portable enough to be used by drivers, was probably also on your desk. Technological advances have allowed NCTCOG to provide better service to surrounding governments and perform more activities to help the region succeed. Read more in Local Motion >>>

Via Instagram / Facebook: Staff members of the NCTCOG Transportation and Energy Department admire this new computer in the 1980s. Pictured are (from left): Michael Morris, current director; Dan Kessler, current assistant director; H.R. Ranganath; Stephen Johns; and David Kurth. Planning tools (and the name of the department) have changed since then, but the commitment to regionalism remains strong. #DFWMPO40 #transpo #FlashbackFriday

Technology and the Planning Profession: 40 Years of Advancements

Technological advancements in the past 40 years have helped change the way transportation planners work. We interviewed several of the Transportation Department’s veterans to develop a sense of how technology has affected the way they do their jobs.

1970 In the 1970s, the following items would be found on a planner’s desk: a Rolodex, Wite-Out®, pencils, colored pencils, Mapsco, a notepad, coding forms, IBM punch cards, a utility knife, a ruler and a calculator (if the budget allowed for it).

1980s

• The department purchased its first computer.
• The punch-card machine for timekeeping was officially retired.
• By the mid-1980s, the department had four personal computers, which were housed in a single room and lacked individual hard drives.
• TransCAD, a design software especially developed for transportation planning and type of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), was first released as an MS-DOS-based transportation GIS package in 1985.
• NCTCOG began using GIS in 1989.

1990s

• In the early 1990s, planners received personal desktop computers to do their work.
• The agency website went live.
• Individual employees received email accounts in the late 1990s, and most of the department’s computers were then connected to the Internet.

2000s

• Planners began using ArcGIS 8.0, which significantly aided their work, increasing efficiency and reducing the amount of time needed to create maps. Previously, although calculations had been computerized, mapping was still done manually, which made visualization difficult.
• The Transportation Marketing team began using the Adobe Suite in 2007, furthering efforts to distribute information and promote transportation and air quality programs to the public using graphic design.

2010s

• The department joins Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, providing a more immediate way for the public to participate in the planning process and receive information.

How mapmaking has changed since 1974:
Technology has made things faster and more visually appealing, but quality has remained high. Quality control has not fundamentally changed during the transition from hand-drawn to computer-aided maps. For example, a “blob map” used to require a full day to design but now takes only five minutes and is more visually appealing.

How computer modeling has changed since 1974: In the 1980s, certain parts of the region’s travel model-run were done at night and on weekends to take advantage of lower prices for accessing the Texas A&M University mainframe computer system. Now, the travel model is operated in-house by NCTCOG. It takes about a week to fulfill data requests for which the model is required. The timeframe has not changed since the early days; however, the region is much larger and the information included more complex. How transportation planning activities have changed since 1974: In the mid-1980s, around 20 people staffed the entire department, focusing their attention on the travel model and long-term transportation plan, Mobility 2000. The department currently has about 130 employees and nine program areas. Inputting and preparing data for graphics consumed a significant amount of staff time. The same number of staff people are able to do many more times work today thanks to technological advancements that allow staff to focus on analyzing information instead of translating data into information.

Dallas-Fort Worth MPO at 40: Reflecting on Accomplishments, Historic Events and More

January 2014: What was Happening in 1974
February 2014: Forty Years of Media and Public Involvement
March 2014: Transportation Options
April 2014: The Regional Transportation Council
May 2014: Air Quality
June 2014: Youth Involvement in Transportation
July 2014: Regional Innovations
August 2014: Public Transportation
September 2014: Technology and Transportation Planning
October 2014: Growth in Population and Transportation
November 2014: Aviation
December 2014: Future of Transportation