Oklahoma Adopts AI and Cloud Technology to Manage Bridges

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) is adopting cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to change how it tracks and manages bridge data.

The department began moving inspection histories, condition reports and other records into Google’s BigQuery data warehouse to centralize key information about the state’s thousands of bridges. This included decades-old data.

ODOT is also using Google Cloud’s Dataplex Universal Catalog to create a unified data catalog and business glossary for staff.

“Over the years, different design and production branches collected and stored data in their own ways, making it difficult for other parts of the department to access and use it,” ODOT Director of Design Justin Hernandez told Government Technology. “By formalizing it in one place, anyone across the department can view it with confidence, knowing it’s accurate and has gone through a governance process.”

The tech adoption is meant to enhance state bridge safety, allowing at-risk structures to be identified before an emergency. It also streamlines ODOT’s work, optimizing resource allocation and improving operational efficiency.

The technology implementation is still in progress. ODOT’s next goal is to integrate AI tools like Geminin in Looker to assist staff in analyzing data. Google staff said potential queries include:

·      Which bridges in Woods County exhibit the highest wear indicators?

·      Show me maintenance histories for all bridges constructed before 1985 on primary freight routes

·      What are the projected repair needs for bridges over waterways in the next fiscal year?

“It standardizes the source of truth for the data sets,” Lance Underwood, ODOT enterprise systems services director, told Government Technology. “It makes the analysis quicker because we don’t have to question which piece of data is accurate.”

ODOT plans to eventually expand the technology to data beyond bridges, including crash statistics, roadway condition reports and construction management information.

“We have mountains of data,” Hernandez said. “We’re not terribly efficient at being able to use it. I’m excited that this will open that up to a broader audience, and we can have confidence that the data they’re viewing is usable.”

Sources: Government Technology, Google