Effective Identification and Engagement of Transportation Stakeholders Using Geospatial Analytics and Online Advertising
The public outreach stage of transportation project planning is important due to its long term effects on project advancement. Traditional outreach for public hearings, while effective, might fall short on involving all affected stakeholder groups. This may cause a one-sided representation in public hearings that may not reveal the actual value (or lack thereof) of the proposed transportation project. To ensure that the project team is able to collect meaningful and constructive feedback from both viewpoints, local, and commuting stakeholders representing various communities or demographic groups need to be engaged. For this, we introduce a new approach for stakeholder identification and public engagement using geospatial analytics and online advertising. In terms of spatial/location targeting, we have developed a tool by combining existing options from popular advertising platforms in a novel way. This helps with the precise identification of local and commuting stakeholders. In order to digitally reach stakeholders with a high possibility of active participation, we also employ demographic hotspot analysis. We performed a thorough literature review to create demographic profiles of possible stakeholders who are more relevant or might have a greater interest in specific transportation projects. We developed a methodology that pinpoints areas that have a significant population density of demographic categories of interest. These are used as specific targeting locations for online outreach campaigns. Finally, the outputs from the above processes are used as input for an automation tool that creates the targeted advertising campaigns. Stakeholders are then directed to a demographic-specific public information site for active engagement.
1. North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) Committee.
My advisor and I updated the NCDOT Research and Development Committee on the progress of our
research.
2. North Carolina State University (NCSU) Research & Innovation Summit.
The objective of the event hosted by the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center
(HSRC) was to introduce innovative transportation research from the public, private and academic sectors.
3. North Carolina State University (NCSU) Internal Symposium.
Students from all the Departments of NCSU presented their research in a virtual symposium that was held
by the institution.
4. National Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Symposium.
Students from major Computer Science University programs presented their research.
Advisor: Dr. Okan Pala, Research Associate, Department of Computer Science & Center of Geospatial Analytics, NCSU
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