Across the U.S., transportation agencies are using virtual public involvement tools such
as online surveys and interactive maps to bring new participants into the planning and
project development processes. Many agencies take these tools into the field on tablets
or laptops, taking public outreach to where people gather to expand participation. Tablet-based
outreach helps to bridge the “digital divide,” allowing individuals with little or no internet
access to have their input taken into consideration. Examples include bringing tablets to senior
centers, libraries, or community events. For the Regional Bikeshare Master Plan, we employed
a variety of online tools to help us with our outreach. We actually had two main components
to the online outreach – one was a survey tool and the other was a crowdsourcing map.
And the way we used them is that people could either go to them on their own, at a website,
or we could also take it with us to events and put it on an iPad, and take it out into
the field and get people to fill out the survey, wherever we were. The crowdsourcing map was
neat because it allowed folks to pinpoint areas where they had specific issues related
to cycling or where they wanted to see a bike share station, or they thought there was an
opportunity for bikeshare, and that really helped in terms of identifying those areas
that people would like to see bikeshare expand into. Use of the online survey combined with
interactive mapping provided the MPO with unique perspectives from constituencies who
may not have the opportunity to attend traditional community meetings. The survey was available
in both English and Spanish. So the survey responses were great. I think one of the things
that we got from it is the need and the desire for bike share in our more rural counties.
The MPO began exploring bike share service models that could work in a more rural county
with limited resources. In the City of Seguin, there was interest in a bike share program
that would serve tourists and other visitors. And so they want a bike share program there,
but they don’t necessarily have the start-up costs. So what we’re looking into for them is
a bike share system that’s more of a bike library system that would be tied to their
local library, where people could go and check out a bike and use it that way.The Broward
MPO used tablet-based outreach for its Transportation Improvement Program and Metropolitan Transportation
Plan. I take our surveys out, and I've opened the interactive TIP. Sometimes, they ask “What
projects are gonna be coming soon in my area?” Since it's short range planning, I can take
our interactive TIP. I open the interactive TIP, and I ask them, "Where do you live?"
Type in the address, and show them, hey. These are the projects that are going on in your
area. This is what's coming down the pipeline. So I show them where it is on our website,
then that actually enables them to see, "Oh this is where I can check. This is a resource
that I have, that I can use even when I go home." The other thing is we go out to the
libraries because libraries, you get a lot of seniors that go through the libraries.
Some of our environmental justice population will go through those libraries, underserved
communities, and you also have families. You have people who come through with their kids.
The Minnesota DOT used tablets in the field for their statewide long-range plan. With
some of our new techniques, we took the principle of “go to the people.” And so we went
to existing meetings. We went to existing community events. We didn’t just say we’re
going to hold an event, and you’re going to come see us. So we sought the people out,
and we also tracked where we were going and where we were getting responses, so we could
know what zip codes we might not be hitting and try to see if there was an event or a
meeting in that area to gather input. An iPad, or it could be any tablet, in this case we
used an iPad. And make it a very simple survey that can be completed in about two minutes
because that’s really the time we thought we had to interact at events; we could capture
them for maybe a couple minutes to fill out the survey. To accommodate persons with limited
English proficiency, MnDOT had the survey translated into commonly used languages, and
partnered with a non-profit organization to administer the survey in the field at community
events. MnDOT also took the survey to events at tribal reservations, such as the Bois Forte
Band of Chippewa’s annual State of the Band event, where they received 150 responses.
With our tribal government engagement, we reached out to all of our tribes in Minnesota
and their officials and sat down with the governments that wanted to meet and really
had an in-depth discussion about their transportation needs as a community. We kind of also talk
about what our engagement process was and trying to find events or other groups in the
community to present to. So that really was successful in getting us some ideas. We went
out to a few events at several of the reservations across the state and had good responses. Things
to consider when preparing for online outreach in the field include keeping surveys short,
making sure you have an Internet connection (if needed) and a way to charge mobile devices,
and using protective cases for tablets. It’s also helpful to have hard copies of any surveys
as a backup, and to hold a brief training session for staff ahead of the event.